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Brukenthal’s Nuptial Song: Translation and Digital Gallery

A Marriage on Verse

In 1754, a poem was composed to mark a marriage—not as a gesture of sentiment, but as a ritual act. This was an age when marriage still echoed with cosmic significance; when union was imagined not merely as legal contract or private bond, but as a joining of destinies, houses, and heavens.

The verses you will encounter in this book were written in Latin, wrapped in allegory, classical allusion, and sacred imagery. But they were not meant to be distant or abstract. They were meant to bless. To elevate. To transfigure the moment.

Here we encounter with a translation—but more than that, with an interpretation, and even more than that, it is an invitation. Not into nostalgia, but into recognition: that language can still do what it once did. That poetry—when read slowly, carefully—can remind us of the symbolic nature of love, promise, and transformation.

What does it mean to marry not only a person, but a future? To join not only hands, but mythologies? This poem asked that in 1754. We ask it again now.