The Christmas holidays are now long gone and yet Easter is still too far away to get excited about. Fortunately, though, Carnival is just around the corner and will surely offer just right the dose of distraction.
Let’s go back to its origins, when ancient Romans made sacrifices and held feasts in honor of the god Saturn, to ensure that year’s harvests would be plentiful and to give thanks for the lengthening of the day. Yes, that’s right! Saturnalia, which was the name given to the festivities, was celebrated from 17 to 23 December, at the end of the darkest time of the year. Later on, however, the Church scheduled Christmas celebrations to fall just around that time to put an end to these pagan celebrations.
But they only succeeded in postponing them and giving them even greater publicity at the expense of Christianity. In the Middle Ages, the god Saturn was no longer worshipped and nobody took the time to bid the darkest season of the year adieu. But there was Lent, or rather, a meat-free period of penance, fasting and prayer. The celebrations were thus renamed “carnival”, which comes from the Italian carnevale, derived from the Latin carnem levare, literally meaning “to remove meat.”
So, the same old celebration was given a new name, and masks were added so that celebrators could hide their face and remain anonymous during those few days in which (almost) anything went.
From here at Quicksilver Translate we’d like to wish you a happy “Carnem Levare!”
