Sator-rotas part 2: appreciating an ancient meme by ear

The previous installment (link) about the sator-rotas square

S A T O R
A R E P O
T E N E T
O P E R A
R O T A S

emphasized how the words of the famous diagram arrange themselves into a meaningful and nearly ordinary Latin sentence. That saying and the square it comes from might be composed together in tandem, step-by-step. Those steps, in turn, might serve as a recipe for composing other tight word squares. This dynamic relationship between form and content would plausibly appeal to literate Latin speakers, especially those interested in word play.

The memory of the sensible “word square recipe” saying has been obscure until now. Part of the reason is that a different and simple way to order the words competes for the analyst’s attention. The competing word orders are the rows or columns read in rank or file order. That is:

sator arepo tenet opera rotas

or:

rotas opera tenet arepo sator

Each of the rank-or-file sequences makes a linear palindrome which is a one-verse poem in its own right with an especially straightforward relationship to the poem’s subject, the tight sator-rotas square form. There are also some subtler correspondences as well. Much of the potential appeal of these verses doesn’t depend on a listener’s literacy, in Latin or otherwise.

Sator-rotas: understanding an ancient viral meme

This year’s Hallowe’en posting proposes an original plausible interpretation for a famous but superficially nonsensical Latin phrase. The oldest extant examples of the text are about 2000 years old, graffiti from Pompeii, five words of five letters apiece, four of them ordinary Latin words, arranged in a word square:

R O T A S
O P E R A
T E N E T
A R E P O
S A T O R

Sometimes the square is found written in the reverse order (or if you prefer, rotated ninety degrees either left or right – the result is the same regardless):

S A T O R
A R E P O
T E N E T
O P E R A
R O T A S

Through the centuries since Pompeii, versions of the square have been placed in a variety of settings, from chambers hidden within Christian churches, in aged books of magic spells, and as a spirit medium’s chant in Tales from the Crypt on television.

Now, what could something like that mean?