Lemures

Template:Short description Template:Distinguish Template:Ancient Roman religion The Template:Lang Template:IPAc-en were shades or spirits of the restless or malignant dead in Roman religion,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> sometimes used interchangeably with the term Template:Lang (from Latin Template:Lang, 'mask').<ref name="thaniel1973"> Template:Cite journal </ref> The term Template:Lang was first used by the Augustan poet Horace (in Epistles 2.2.209),<ref name="thaniel1973" /> and was the more common literary term during the Augustan era, with Template:Lang being used only once by Horace.<ref name="thaniel1973" /> However, Template:Lang is also uncommon: Ovid being the other main figure to employ it, in his Fasti, the six-book calendar poem on Roman holidays and religious customs.<ref>Horace, Epistles 2.2.209; Ovid, Fasti 2.500-539.</ref> Later the two terms were used nearly or completely interchangeably, e.g. by St. Augustine in De Civitate Dei.<ref> Template:Cite encyclopedia </ref>

The word Template:Lang can be traced to the Proto-Indo-European stem *Template:PIE, which also appears in the name of the Greek monster Lamia.<ref name="eiec">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

Description

Template:Lang may represent the wandering and vengeful spirits of those not afforded proper burial, funeral rites or affectionate cult by the living: they are thus not attested by tomb or votive inscriptions. Ovid interprets them as vagrant, unsatiated and potentially vengeful di manes or di parentes, ancestral gods or spirits of the underworld. To him, the rites of their cult suggest an incomprehensibly archaic, quasi-magical and probably very ancient rural tradition.

Template:Lang were formless and liminal, associated with darkness and its dread. In Republican and Imperial Rome, May 9, 11, and 13 were dedicated to their placation in the household practices of Template:Lang or Lemuria. The head of household (paterfamilias) would rise at midnight and cast black beans behind him with averted gaze; the Template:Lang were presumed to feast on them. Black was the appropriate colour for offerings to chthonic deities. William Warde Fowler interprets the gift of beans as an offer of life, and points out that they were a ritual pollution for priests of Jupiter.<ref>W. Warde Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the period of the Republic, MacMillan (New York, 1899) Mensis Maius, 106–10: Template:ISBN?</ref> The Template:Lang themselves were both fearsome and fearful: any malevolent shades dissatisfied with the offering of the paterfamilias could be startled into flight by the loud banging of bronze pots.<ref>Thaniel, G. (1973). Lemures and Larvae, The American Journal of Philology, 94.2, 182–187.</ref><ref>Beard, M., North, J., Price, S. (1998). Religions of Rome, Vol 1, 31, 50, Cambridge.</ref>

In scientific Latin

The Template:Lang inspired Linnaeus's Modern Latin backformation lemur (denoting a type of primates). According to Linnaeus' own explanation, the name was selected because of the nocturnal activity and slow movements of the slender loris.<ref>A.R. Dunkel, J.S. Zijlstra, and C.P. Groves, C.P. (2011/2012). "Giant Rabbits, Marmosets, and British Comedies: Etymology of Lemur Names, part 1" Lemur News 16 (2100/12) 64–70. ISSN 1608-1439.[1]</ref> Being familiar with the works of Virgil and Ovid and seeing an analogy that fit with his naming scheme, Linnaeus adapted the term lemur for these nocturnal primates.<ref>W. Blunt and W.T. Stearn, Linnaeus: The Compleat Naturalist (Princeton University Press, 2002), p. 252. 978-0-691-09636-0</ref> However, it has been commonly and falsely assumed that Linnaeus was referring to the ghost-like appearance, reflective eyes, and ghostly cries of lemurs.<ref>Dunkel et al., "Giant Rabbits, Marmosets, and British Comedies," p. 65.</ref> In Goethe's Faust, a chorus of Lemurs who serve Mephistopheles dig Faustus' grave.<ref>Goethe, Faust 11515-11611.</ref>

In the English Daemonologie

Template:Main In the book by King James I of England, Daemonologie, In Forme of a Dialogie, Divided into three Bookes, it is written: Template:Blockquote