the monumental stone to which we owe this inscription offers at one point
satur fu, fere Mars limen saii sia berber.
Now, when we remember the Lares Consitivi and the Semones, does it not look very much as though satur stood for sator, as though fere were a blunder for sere, as though saii were the vocative of Saius, 'sower' (cf. Seia a goddess of sowing, and Greek σάω σήθω), as though sia were the imperative of the verb sio (moisten)[22], and as though, finally, berber were to be connected with the Greek βόρβορυς and meant 'loam'? (I would give much the same sense, 'fat soil' to limen: (from the root lib-: cf. Gk. λείβω λειμών).)
We get, then,
sator fu: sere Mars limen Saii, sia berber,
'Be thou the sower: sower Mars, sow the soil, moisten the loam'. And this suggests what ought to be the meaning of enos iuuate. enos ought to mean harvests, or at any rate something in that kind. And why should it not? Hesychius knew a word ἔνος which he glosses by ἐνιαυτός, ἐπέτειος καρπός. See Suidas s.v. and Herwerden Lexicon Suppletorium.
The Hymn is a hymn for Seedtime. We know, however, that the festival at which it was sung fell in the month of May. The explanation of this has been hinted at by Henzen.[23] Henzen points out that the Arval Brothers entered on their duties at the Saturnalia, and that their worship is probably connected in its origin with Saturn, the god of sowing. (See Varro L.L. 5, 57, and apud Aug. C.D. 7. 13 p. 290, 28, Festus s.v. Saturnus.) We must suppose, therefore, that at some date when the meaning of its words had been already lost this hymn was transferred from a seedtime festival to a harvest festival.
GLOSSARY OF OLD LATIN
[1.] [i.] cante: cante (sometimes said to be an Athematic imper. 2 pers. plur.).
[ii.] quome: cum.
Leucesie: (Lucerie?) a title of Jupiter as god of lightning.
tet: te.
tremonti: tremunt.
quor: cur.
Curis: 'god of spear-men' (?): Etruscan curis, a spear: (cf. Iunonis Curitis).
decstumum: dextimum, 'on the right' (the suffix -imus is not strictly a superlative suffix, but denotes position: cf. summus (sup-mus), finitimus, citimus).
[iii.] ulod: illo (?) (ollod) (cf. Umbrian ulu).
oriese: oriere: future for imperative as in 2 aduocapit.
isse: ipse (ipese): the form isse is merely the vulgar spelling of a later period.
ueuet: uiuit.
po melios: optimus (?) ('po pro potissimum positum est in Saliari carmine', Festus).
eu: heu (admirantis).
recum: regum (as uirco for uirgo in the Duenos Inscription: and so always in early Latin until 312 B.C.).