Eluveitie
Helvetios
1. Prologue
When I reminisce about all those years
I see many things.
Life and Death strung together
like the Mountains and Valleys
in which we lived.
There was Wealth and Opulence
but also Tribulation and Loss.
There was Laughter and Song
and there was also Tears.
But even more than Tears
Blood was shed.
And so many were left
to their unadorned Graves, unburied.
But to us Death was just another Journey.
And close by the Darkness
through which we strode
there was also Light.
The Lght of Life and Immortality.
And after All,
When I reminisce about those years,
I mostly remember our Songs.
We sang,
as if to drown out the Sound
of clashing Swords,
as if the Battle Cries fell silent.
Because War has lost it's meaning.
2. Helvetios
Bodiacos
Sunartiu
Segos brigos
Anauos
From antumnos the life-giving winds
Fanned the flames into a blaze
The awen of the mighty
By the force of sucellus sledge
By every impact of ogmios club
With bricta's invincible epiphany
A tribe arose
A tribe broke forth
Cause we're born free
Cause we're born wild
Cause we are indomitable and bold
Cause we are fire (brave)
Cause we are wave (strong)
Cause we are rock (tribe)
We are one - we are helvetios
The ears tethered to the divine tongue
Following the ancient wise
As laughter fills antumnos
Drinking from the cup of life
The well that's never running dry
We wandered into the light of day
Again taranis enthean wheel revolved
From antumnos life was upheaved
By the force of succellus sledge
By every impact of ogmios' club
With bricta's invincible epiphany
3. Luxtos
At the rise of a new dawn
Rose the children of the sun
To inhabit a kingdom
augustly crowded in rock mass vast
All lakes are sanctuarys
Like covert nemetons
All forests are hallowed
Blest groves of an invictus tribe
Nertom woloutom que
etsi snis karamos-e
Nertom woloutom que etsi snis
emmos snis riyi emmos snis
widomor-e karamos-e
emmos snis riyi emmos snis andometi
nertom woloutom que etsi snis
emmos snis riyi emmos snis
a kingly tribe sublime
arose in its golden time
in a prosperous era
the age primordial reign
a horde of untameables
invincible armada
a dashing bold host
of venturous fearnaughts
4. Home
In this vigilant Times I daydream - an innocuous Crime
My motionless Stane - in my Mind, I wnader the Land
A bleak, dismal Trance
Constrained, unsafe, left in Shame
And now I can see my Town is painted red
Here I'll be where once my tears were shed
On that Day , in our Place I recall the Smell of the Rain
And I'd protect you from themif you want me to take,
take you there again.
Good Night my Love, let me watch you sleep from here or above
Words like these won't leave this Place
Be haunted by the Trace, the Trace of our...
HOME
The Home they want call their own
But for the Air that i breathe, the Dreams are divine
The Memories I'll bring to
a Place far from Home
The Home they want to call Province of Rome
I'm trapped without Guards, within a State I can't grasp
But we're still free
I am waiting for the Clouds to part, all in vain
nature forsaken
Once admired by us all, does it know we're scared
Scared to move, scared to awake, scared just to be who we were
What matters is just You and Me and the Path that leads us...
Encircled by Friends, the Pressure deepens
Dazed by Illusions, my Reasons weakens
But I won't let you fall into deep Forlornness
I won't let you ponder the why in distress
A mechanical Smile as I lift my Face towards the Sun
And return to denial
I weep as I kiss the Ground, the trees that I'll soon miss
The Songs we sang will ring out, the memories will resound
5. Santonian Shores
We packed the Wagons
A'thing arranged, there is no Turning Back
The Time has come
All to soon
A Stab allthrough my Heart
The Afterglow
Glimmered on the Roof of our Homestead
We bode the Nightfall at hand
Believe set out into the Dark
In this Night the Fires roared
As Fields were set ablaze
It rained Ashes from the Sky
In a flaring hiss t Night
Fromward the Land we knew
Off to far and distant Shores
Towards a safe Saven
Off these Santonian Shores
At the set of the sun
As Mist bellowed over the Land
We got under Way
Wandering towards our Hopes
I awhile in looked back
Gazed into the Sea of Flames
Laying waste what we called Home
I won't see this Place again
A Cortege as far as the Eye can see
A vast migrant Parade
The Glow of a distant Dream
The awakening came nigh
Under a starlit Sky
Dreams within our Hearts
Step by Step we marched
Away into the Night
6. Scorched Earth
7. Meet The Enemy
There at these ominous shores of river Saone
There at these shores the die has been cast
Valour and honour were stripped off their meaning
We will not know innocence again
At somber nightfall the defenseless were bestially run down
Saone stained with helvetic blood
You will not shake hands with arrant beliers
You'd rather die than turn into minions
Freedom was our highest good
We ventured our lives
Meet the liar
This dead black night
Our destiny revealed
Meet the enemy
It will... never be the same
At these portentous shores of river Saone
There at these shores the die has been cast
We saw the true face of the roman ravener
The gorgoneion on the cuirass appeared
It was like playing ludus latrunculorum
The pieces were made of flesh and of blood
Valour and honour bereft of their meaning
The blood on your hands will forever stay
Freedom was our highest good
We ventured our lives
Meet the liar
This dead black night
Our destiny revealed
Meet the enemy
It will... never be the same
It's not us to go under the Yoke.
Of that fact the Roman people are witness.
We will not bow
Meet the enemy
Meet the liar
Meet the enemy
["Meet The Enemy" tells you about the 'encounter' the Helvetians had with the Roman legions in the year 58 BC ‒ one of the crucial points in their history, for it was basically when the Gaulish wars erupted. So the song is pretty much filled with wrath and rage, upholding the furious spirit...]
8. Neverland
Behold this Proud
Crestfallen Parade
Dead Bodies towered up like this dividing Rampart
The Hopes of yesterday forgotten and interred
Burnt to the Ground
Lacerate my Neverland belauded
My Otherworld elapsed
My silver Lining
Another false Dawn collapsed
A Glimpse of our safe Home
Perished in Bibracte
Another Hope dearly prayed
When we all were betrayed
The End of our Exodus
Behold this egregious Mockery
We refused to bow down
Our godsdamn Blood was the Price we had to pay
Santones Land Land we never got to
When the Fiends come marching in...
9. A Rose For Epona
Do you feel the thorns?
Do you see the tears?
Do you see the blood shed in this fell war?
Have you forsaken us?
Have you forgotten our faithful men calling your name?
While I stand before you
While we perish
While I lay down a crimson rose
While holding hands
Are forced apart
While hopes bog like condemned men
Were you there?
The sky is falling on me
As your hand's turning old and weak
I'm giving myself up to thee
A futile sacrifice gone sere
In your nemeton
These grey stone walls
Are cold and silent
As the fallen
Mother gone deaf
Mistress of shattered hopes
And forever broken dreams
Were you there?
The sky is falling on me
As your hand's turning old and weak
I'm giving myself up to thee
A futile sacrifice gone sere
Epo, epo why hast thou forsaken me?
Together we go unsung
Into thy hand I commend my spirit
Together we go down with our people
Were you there? Were you there?
The sky is falling on me
As your hand's turning old and weak
I'm giving myself up to thee
A futile sacrifice gone sere
Falling on me...
10. Havoc
I wonder what it's like to attack at Night
And mow down the down the defenseless
Invasions and Raids just called
fucking, punitive Expeditions
Like a Wildfire
Devastation spreads
Across all Gallia
From Helvetia to Eburonia
The Ravener's Insatiate
Havoc
Think of yesterday
Ruin
A mass illusion! How could it come this far?
Our dormant Minds were not prepared for this
Narbonensis was not enough
The Empire needed more
From Aremorica to Carnutia
Plagued an War-ridden Land
War's inflicted on free Gallia
An organised Downfall
A black Cloud of Imperial
Rapacity unleashed
Imperial needs are met
At bloody Cost of free Tribes
Invasion, Raid an War Atrocity
Ine the Name of S.P.Q.R.
11. The Uprising
Our estates are under fire
Our villers fall prey to pillage
How can we stay on the sideline
How long will we take this lying down?
Refuse to quell the anger
Time has come to take up arms again
The last call to rise up
Bestir
This is the flash of our last hope
Will you ally with us?
Wake up - open your eyes
Reach out
And seize this golden venture
We've lost ourselves in strife
While the raptor unopposedly
claws at Gallia's free lands
We have to call a halt this
Unite the tribes and rise
Take a look around yourself
And see this time is ours
The last call to rise up
Our lands are under fire
Our villers fall prey to pillage
How can we stay on the sideline
How long will we take this lying down?
It is time to join forces
Let the eagles beak burst on our shields
Unite! This is Gallia uprising!
12. Hope
13. The Siege
Scorched earth we left
A barren land of ash
Our fatherland laid waste
Be the void our fucking monument
At a leaden dawn
At this ominous morn
Pila loomed on the horizon
Talons of the wolverine
Exanimate legions formed
At the very gates of Avaricum
Believed invulnerable
This calling wall
But straight out of nowhere
Before our eyes this godsdawn bane arose
Thus Avaricum burns
Under a dead sky
Avaricum drowns
In blood and demise
Siege towers emerged
Protruding from the ground
Standing out against the threatening sky
As if to mock all valiantness
Face to face with an eye-levelled enemy
Serried roman ranks
Embattled upon our hold
Cut off and trapped inside
As the carnage was at hand
As the creak of the winches extolled our doom
The slaughter befell Avaricum
Dead suffused the oppidum
Left to pillage, sack and rape
Avaricum the brave became Avaricum the grave
14. Alesia
The gress as green as it always was that sinister day
blackbird sang their songs as they always did that black-letter day
the day we passed the great gate for the very last time
I did not look back, I knew we`d stay
I knew they I would not let us go leave the death strip
I saw the gleam in their eyes of fear and enslavement
suffering from the crushing weight
I knelt ground take me home
Alesia, alisanos
wake me when I`m gone
IANOTOUTA,eternity
proclaim our barren sacrifice
on that ground we cherished life
we embraced death
as the children`s cries trailed off
sob yielded deathly hush
the grass as green as it always was that sinister day
as we walked the alleys like thousand times before
I knew we`d stay
oudside Alesia
we offered a living sacrifice
outside the doors of Alesia
where our tears run dry
15. Tullianum
And so it all ends,
With rise a noose,
Fly raven, fly.
16. Uxellodunon
This is the final resistancel
This was the final revolti
In desperace hope
With tear-dimmed eyes
With wrath-torn minds
We took up arms one more time
Uxellodunon
Oh the last stand
The freedom manifesto
We will nerver forget
The things we've seen
The deaths we died
The tears we cried
We will never regret
We defied
We will raise our arm stubs in pride
We will never perish
Our cut off hands
Proclaimed grandeur
Land can be taken but
Dignity's impregnable
Uxellodunon
Fortress of free men
Shining beacon of indomitability
Bearing witness of freedom
Bearing witness of our names,
Cause we will never...
Out from the ashes
Out from the graves
The offspring of antumnos
Will arise to life again
Uxellodunon
Oh the last stand the freedom manifesto
17. Epilogue
When I reminisce about all those years of tribulation, I mostly remember
Our songs. We died, and our blood seeped away on the battlefields; but our
Songs survived, together with those of us that returned. And as they too
Will die one day, our songs will live on, and will be sung by our children,
And by our children's children. This is how we will be remembered. This is
Who we were.
Helvetios.
Chrigel Glanzmann ‒ Vocals, Acoustic guitars, Mandolin, Uilleann pipes, Bodhrán, Tin and low whistles, Gaita
Meri Tadic ‒ Fiddle, Vocals
Merlin Sutter ‒ Drums
Ivo Henzi ‒ Guitars
Sime Koch ‒ Guitars, Vocals
Anna Murphy ‒ Hurdy gurdy, Vocals
Päde Kistler ‒ Bagpipes, Whistles
Kay Brem ‒ Bass
Lyrics in plain text format
