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Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Riverentum Lyrics
Artist: Nick Cave and the Dirty Three
Song: Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Rivertentum
We were called to the forest... when we went down.
A wind blew warm and eloquent
We were searching for the secrets of the universe...
And we rounded up demons and forced them to tell us what it all meant
We tied 'em to trees and broke them down one by one
And on a scrap of paper, they wrote these words...
And as we read them, the sun broke through the trees...
"Dread the passage of Jesus, for he will not return."
Then we headed back to our world and left the forest behind...
Our hearts singin' with all the knowledge of love.
Then somewhere, somehow, we lost the message along the way...
And when we got home, we bought ourselves a house.
And we bought a car that we did not use...
And we bought a cage and two singing birds...
And at night we'd sit and listen to the canary's song.
For we'd both run right out of words...
Now the stars, they are all angled wrong...
And the sun and the moon refuse to burn
But I remember a message in a demon's hand
Dread the passage of Jesus for he does not return...
...he does not return...
...he does not return...
Song: Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Rivertentum
A wind blew warm and eloquent
We were searching for the secrets of the universe...
And we rounded up demons and forced them to tell us what it all meant
We tied 'em to trees and broke them down one by one
And on a scrap of paper, they wrote these words...
And as we read them, the sun broke through the trees...
"Dread the passage of Jesus, for he will not return."
Then we headed back to our world and left the forest behind...
Our hearts singin' with all the knowledge of love.
Then somewhere, somehow, we lost the message along the way...
And when we got home, we bought ourselves a house.
And we bought a car that we did not use...
And we bought a cage and two singing birds...
And at night we'd sit and listen to the canary's song.
For we'd both run right out of words...
Now the stars, they are all angled wrong...
And the sun and the moon refuse to burn
But I remember a message in a demon's hand
Dread the passage of Jesus for he does not return...
...he does not return...
...he does not return...
Song Info
Submitted by
dhdghyhsh On Dec 03, 2007
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The song is a lament about not recognizing Jesus as He passes through one's life.
St. Agustine said... Timeo Iesum transeuntem et manentem ed ideo tacere non possum. Serm. 88, 14, 13
Meaning... I am afraid of Jesus passing and remaining, and therefore I cannot be silent.
So the Latin reference is slightly different, but reveals the true meaning behind the intentional ominous message.
The sun breaking through the trees is a hint there is truth in the message.
Then they return to their material world with their ego filled with knowledge that they seemingly forgot.
They invested in earthly and wasteful things. An unused car. Costly singing birds.
They missed the passage of Jesus in their lifetimes.
When Cave says "dread the passage of Jesus for he does not return" I think he is referring to a loss of faith. When you stop believing, you can never really get it back, no matter how much you'd like to.
this song is divine. I wish some clever type would come on here and tell me what the hell it was all about though :-(
this song is divine. I wish some clever type would come on here and tell me what the hell it was all about though :-(
and how to post on this website so my replies don't appear twice ;-)
ok so I thought about this a lot. Are we to think that because the message came from the mouth of a demon it is a lie? That in fact Jesus WILL return. The character in this song went back to his mundane life and forgot this message, until the end, when the stars are all angled wrong, and by then it is too late..
Hmm, I'd take a less literal, Christian view, the lyrical "we" of the song, presumably a couple, struggle with their inner demons to find some sort of meaning in their lives. Eventually, they come to one conclusion "Dread the passage of Jesus, for he does not return." This I'd interpret as (Jesus = love): Take care you don't let love (in all forms) pass you by, for when it is gone, it is gone. Having realized that this is the key thing in life, they return to their lives, their hearts singing with all the knowledge of love. But then, in their everyday-life,...
Hmm, I'd take a less literal, Christian view, the lyrical "we" of the song, presumably a couple, struggle with their inner demons to find some sort of meaning in their lives. Eventually, they come to one conclusion "Dread the passage of Jesus, for he does not return." This I'd interpret as (Jesus = love): Take care you don't let love (in all forms) pass you by, for when it is gone, it is gone. Having realized that this is the key thing in life, they return to their lives, their hearts singing with all the knowledge of love. But then, in their everyday-life, this realization gets lost or buried. The couple occupies itself with mundane things like buying a house, a car, rather than tending to love. They arrive at a point where they have nothing left to say to each other. Everything has gone wrong and is a mess, and the lyrical "I" realizes that he has neglected the message and has, in fact, let love pass him by, and now it will not return.
My 2 cents
When I hear this song, I get the sense of two kids who succumb to addiction. They believe themselves to be finding the secrets of the universe at first, but gradually find that this is a very bleak and despairing world. "Dread the passage of Jesus" is a cry of supreme hopelessness, that there is to be no end to our suffering or forgiveness of our sins.
At this, the sun breaks through the trees, indicating that maybe they've hit bottom and are now prepared to enter recovery. They lose the message, which is to say, they decide that there is hope after all. In their recovery, they're able to lead a functional, stable life.
Nevertheless, they're left with severe depression. Believing that he will never fully conquer this, the narrator suddenly and vividly recalls his despair at the depth of his crisis and realizes that he still expects neither salvation nor redemption.
I think that he could be making a statement about mistranslations and how the messages of the past and the bible can be lost. By "Dread the passage of Jesus, for he will not return." he could mean that we should not take the messages of the bible and Jesus too seriously otherwise we end up waiting for something that never comes and instead of finding our own paths, whilst we wait for this second coming that never comes we fill our void with shallow materialistic wealth "and we bought a car that we did not use..."
'Time Jesum transeuntum et non reverentum' (this is the correct way of writing it) in latin means "you have to fear when Jesus passes by and he's not honoured, respected'
'Time Jesum transeuntum et non reverentum' (this is the correct way of writing it) in latin means "you have to fear when Jesus passes by and he's not honoured, respected'
I don't think it's about not taking the Bible seriously, given that there are actual demons in the narrative and the signs of the Second Coming DO begin to appear at the end. I think it's more about our capacity for self-deception and complacency, about reading what we want to hear into the things we're told -- the demons give them an ominous, enigmatic explanation and the couple first misinterprets it as an assurance that there will be no Second Coming (so there's nothing to worry about and they can do as they please), then fails to think any further...
I don't think it's about not taking the Bible seriously, given that there are actual demons in the narrative and the signs of the Second Coming DO begin to appear at the end. I think it's more about our capacity for self-deception and complacency, about reading what we want to hear into the things we're told -- the demons give them an ominous, enigmatic explanation and the couple first misinterprets it as an assurance that there will be no Second Coming (so there's nothing to worry about and they can do as they please), then fails to think any further about it. They mire themselves in the banal, the material, and the selfish, and grow apart. So when the signs of the Second Coming begin to appear the narrator is suddenly confronted with the nagging fear that he may have misinterpreted the demons' words -- that the demons meant Jesus IS coming, but when he passes by this time he won't be coming back to pick up any stragglers. There will be no "Third Coming" and the two lovers will find themselves unprepared and unworthy... After all, why did they seek wisdom from demons in the first place?
There's also the possibility that the demons were simply lying and the couple believed them because they wanted to believe them. So when the signs of the Second Coming appear, the narrator realizes he might have wasted his life and tries to reassure himself that Jesus isn't coming and the Judgment isn't at hand. Hence the repetition at the end -- he's repeating it as a mantra or a prayer, trying to convince himself that the signs don't mean what he fears they mean.