[obi_adorno_kenobi]

(Original post by xXedixXx)
Thank you for providing an explanation of the lyrics. The song is purely patriotic, making people feel proud of their country. I see nothing wrong with that and you've shown that it isn't imperialistic.

And what of your beloved Northern Ireland? There's no place for Hibernia in Rule Britannia...

[DynamicSyngery]

(Original post by obi_adorno_kenobi)
In what sense is a song about poets and singers and an ancient language "positively Germanic"?

It also talks about the "blood of the patriots" and being "faithful to the nation"; perhaps it loses something in translation?

[obi_adorno_kenobi]

(Original post by DynamicSyngery)
It also talks about the "blood of the patriots" and being "faithful to the nation"; perhaps it loses something in translation?

Depends on your translation doesn't it. The passages you're referring to are these:

Ei gwrol ryfelwyr, gwladgarwyr tra mad,
Dros ryddid collasant eu gwaed.

and

Gwlad, gwlad, pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad.

Which can certainly be literally translated as:

Her brave warriors, very splendid patriots,
For freedom shed their blood.

and

Nation [or country], Nation, I am faithful to my Nation.

But I think that is pushing the boundaries of what was intended by the Evan and James James in the mid-nineteenth century. A better version would be something like (and this is quite loose):

Her true warriors, so gallant and brave,
For freedom their blood they gave

and the other bit:

Home, home, faithful am I to my home.

Gwlad is literally land or nation or country. The famous idea of Wales being the land of song is usually translated as Gwlad y Gan. But Gwlad can also be used to mean Wales. Thus the last line might be Wales, Wales, faithful am I to Wales.

[DynamicSyngery]

"Home" is a bit of a stretch from "land/nation/country", but then "country" does sound a lot less sinister than "nation".

I would still have to prefer Rule Britannia, though. The lyrics are really surprisingly liberal and positive and for a patriotic song.

[obi_adorno_kenobi]

(Original post by DynamicSyngery)
"Home" is a bit of a stretch from "land/nation/country", but then "country" does sound a lot less sinister than "nation".

Is it? Well do feel free to translate the Welsh yourself (rather than rely on wikipedia tells you it means). As it happens, even in English it's not a stretch for someone to say "my home" and mean the country / nation they come from.

[DynamicSyngery]

(Original post by obi_adorno_kenobi)
Is it? Well do feel free to translate the Welsh yourself (rather than rely on wikipedia tells you it means). As it happens, even in English it's not a stretch for someone to say "my home" and mean the country / nation they come from.

The words are significantly different. In English you cannot interchange "home" and "[my] nation" and retain the same meaning. Maybe it's different in Welsh, which I do not speak, but from the fact you said that "Gwlad is literally land or nation or country" I inferred that the words aren't homonyms in Welsh either.

[obi_adorno_kenobi]

(Original post by DynamicSyngery)
The words are significantly different. In English you cannot interchange "home" and "[my] nation" and retain the same meaning. Maybe it's different in Welsh, which I do not speak, but from the fact you said that "Gwlad is literally land or nation or country" I inferred that the words aren't homonyms in Welsh either.

In English you'd mean homeland if you're using "home" in the context of a country or nation, which doesn't translate into Welsh directly. The only real translation for homeland in Welsh would be gwlad. It's worth pointing out that Welsh has a small working vocabulary than English does, those many words which are separate in English have multiple meanings in Welsh depending on their context. As a humourous example, the word for Democrat and Republican in Welsh is the same.

[xXedixXx]

(Original post by obi_adorno_kenobi)
And what of your beloved Northern Ireland? There's no place for Hibernia in Rule Britannia...

The word Britannia can be interpreted as Britain, which does include Northern Ireland; that's how I interpret it.

[obi_adorno_kenobi]

(Original post by xXedixXx)
The word Britannia can be interpreted as Britain, which does include Northern Ireland; that's how I interpret it.

But you'd be wrong - and I don't use the word lightly - Britainnia or Britain refers to the island we're sat on right now. Britain doesn't and has never included Northern Ireland. That's why our country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Hibernia and Britannia are two separate islands and whatever Rule Britannia means, it doesn't mean Rule Britannia (and Northern Hibernia).

[DynamicSyngery]

(Original post by obi_adorno_kenobi)
But you'd be wrong - and I don't use the word lightly - Britainnia or Britain refers to the island we're sat on right now. Britain doesn't and has never included Northern Ireland. That's why our country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Hibernia and Britannia are two separate islands and whatever Rule Britannia means, it doesn't mean Rule Britannia (and Northern Hibernia).

Ireland (all of it is) is not part of Great Britain but it is part of the British Isles.

[toronto353]

(Original post by xXedixXx)
The word Britannia can be interpreted as Britain, which does include Northern Ireland; that's how I interpret it.

Britannia is the Latin name for the mainland and not Northern Ireland. The Romans called the land made up of England, Wales and Scotland Britannia (and even then, I'm not sure all of Scotland was included though it later became incorporated into that name). I'd imagine that Northern Ireland would simply be incorporated as part of the empire in the view of Britannia, but Britannia does not (in the strictest sense of the word) include Northern Ireland.

[obi_adorno_kenobi]

(Original post by DynamicSyngery)
Ireland (all of it is) is not part of Great Britain but it is part of the British Isles.

Which is fine but doesn't invalidate what I was saying. Rule Britannia is a song which deliberately refers to Britain (i.e. Great Britain) not to the Isle of Man, Ireland, the Channel Islands, or any other lump of rock that happens to get put into this north-west European archipelago that we happen to live in.

[xXedixXx]

(Original post by obi_adorno_kenobi)
But you'd be wrong - and I don't use the word lightly - Britainnia or Britain refers to the island we're sat on right now. Britain doesn't and has never included Northern Ireland. That's why our country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Hibernia and Britannia are two separate islands and whatever Rule Britannia means, it doesn't mean Rule Britannia (and Northern Hibernia).

(Original post by toronto353)
Britannia is the Latin name for the mainland and not Northern Ireland. The Romans called the land made up of England, Wales and Scotland Britannia (and even then, I'm not sure all of Scotland was included though it later became incorporated into that name). I'd imagine that Northern Ireland would simply be incorporated as part of the empire in the view of Britannia, but Britannia does not (in the strictest sense of the word) include Northern Ireland.

I am aware that Britannia is the Latin word for the Island of Great Britain.

What I'm saying is that Britannia in the song can also be interpreted to mean Britain, and Britain can also be interpreted to mean: "Great Britain, or The United Kingdom".

[DynamicSyngery]

(Original post by obi_adorno_kenobi)
Which is fine but doesn't invalidate what I was saying. Rule Britannia is a song which deliberately refers to Britain (i.e. Great Britain) not to the Isle of Man, Ireland, the Channel Islands, or any other lump of rock that happens to get put into this north-west European archipelago that we happen to live in.

Does it? People weren't so legalistically precise about the terms at that time, members of the government referring to the whole country as "England" in official speeches and communications as late as the early 1900s. It also is a song, where pedantry takes a back seat to poetry in any case. So I think it's at best unclear what the intentions of the authors were in that regard, unless they explicitly wrote that it was meant to exclude Ireland somewhere.

[Barden]

(Original post by tufc)

I expect there will be much opposition to 'Jerusalem' for England from the usual useful idiots - I wonder how many times the word 'secular' will come up in this thread.

I'd actually imagine that opposition to Jerusalem will be due to the fact that it was written in criticism, not celebration of Britain...

[obi_adorno_kenobi]

(Original post by toronto353)
Britannia is the Latin name for the mainland and not Northern Ireland. The Romans called the land made up of England, Wales and Scotland Britannia (and even then, I'm not sure all of Scotland was included though it later became incorporated into that name). I'd imagine that Northern Ireland would simply be incorporated as part of the empire in the view of Britannia, but Britannia does not (in the strictest sense of the word) include Northern Ireland.

I suppose it depends whether you take the Roman term as referring to the provinc or the 18th-century (i.e. post union) notion of a Magna Britannia?

[toronto353]

(Original post by xXedixXx)
I am aware that Britannia is the Latin word for the Island of Great Britain.

What I'm saying is that Britannia in the song can also be interpreted to mean Britain, and Britain can also be interpreted to mean: "Great Britain, or The United Kingdom".

Well no it can't be because then they'd just use a metrical version of Britain that didn't just allude to the main island, but included Northern Ireland. Britannia means the mainland and I would say that the view is that it refers to just the mainland in that song because there is no reason to assume that there is a unique meaning to that song. It seems odd that there's a different meaning for Britannia in just that song.

[toronto353]

(Original post by obi_adorno_kenobi)
I suppose it depends whether you take the Roman term as referring to the provinc or the 18th-century (i.e. post union) notion of a Magna Britannia?

I would argue that there isn't a strong shift from the original Roman meaning really even in modern times. I think that if anything the term has just developed an ambiguity as to what it actually refers to.

[obi_adorno_kenobi]

(Original post by DynamicSyngery)
Does it? People weren't so legalistically precise about the terms at that time, members of the government referring to the whole country as "England" in official speeches and communications as late as the early 1900s. It also is a song, where pedantry takes a back seat to poetry in any case. So I think it's at best unclear what the intentions of the authors were in that regard, unless they explicitly wrote that it was meant to exclude Ireland somewhere.

People have always been legalistically precise. Members of the government referred to England when they meant the legal territory of England; that is, of course, the former land of the Kingdom of England and the Principality of Wales.

[DynamicSyngery]

(Original post by obi_adorno_kenobi)
People have always been legalistically precise. Members of the government referred to England when they meant the legal territory of England; that is, of course, the former land of the Kingdom of England and the Principality of Wales.

Let's take as a single example a famous quote from Lord Palmerston. In a statement to the House of Commons while he was Prime Minister in 1847, he said:

"As the Roman, in days of old, held himself free from indignity, when he could say, Civis Romanus sum, so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him from injustice and wrong."

Here, the Prime Minister, while making allusions to classical history, at a time when 'England' did not legally exist as a state, and in a speech to the highest body in the Realm, issuing what could be interpreted as a threat to foreign powers, used the words "England" and "Britain" interchangeably in the course of the same sentence, while actually referring to the then-United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and many other territories at that time in its possession.

The modern legalistic practice of using "United Kingdom" or "UK" in all circumstances no matter how jarring did not exist before the second world war as far as I can tell, and at the very least wasn't in common usage.