53 Brentwood Blog

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

English, Italian, Provencal French, and bad Latin.

Salvatore (Ron Perlman)

The misshapen, hunchbacked figure of Salvatore haunts the hidden places of this great abbey, his twisted body lurking in the shadows as he shambles from stables, to refectory, to graveyard. His bobbing, twitching body is topped by a face straight from the monstrous, carved depictions of the Apocalyse on the wall of the abbey. From the scrofulous, partly hairless head to the large, flattened nose, Salvatore is indeed the image of a demon.

But it is his speech that amazes Adso and arouses the interest of William. Babbling maniacally, Salvatore speaks in a unique mixture of English, Italian, Provencal French, and bad Latin.
On meeting Adso for the first time, he grunts and sticks out his tongue, a living gargoyle, and spews forth a gibbering tumble of words
"Penitenziagite! Watch out for the draco who cometh in futurum to gnaw on your anima! La mort e supremos! You contemplata me apocalypsum, eh? La bas! Nous avon il diabolo! Ugly cum Salvatore, eh? My little brother! Penitenziagite!"
As William explains to an incredulous Adso;
"He speaks in all languages – and none …"
Although he wears the black habit of the Benedictine order, His cry of ‘Penitenziagite!’ proves to William that Salvatore is a refugee from the Dolchenite order (Minorites, in Umberto Eco’s book), an order that believed in the poverty of man and which killed the rich to enforce their beliefs. Salvatore is a heretic, and it is this knowledge that inevitably leads Salvatore to his doom …
http://www.perlmanpages.com/bsmovies/nameroserev.htm

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