Expert: Maria - 10/20/2008

Question
Miss Maria,
A few weeks ago, I had an arguement with my boyfriend. Later that day, he emailed me saying "luctor et emergo". I was confused and i googled it and yielded that following: I struggle yet I emerge or I struggle but i arise. I also went on a translating site and it gave my different results, i.e. "luctor" was non existent in Latin. What is the proper translation? I appreciate it greatly. Also, how do you translate "Our hearts beat as one" and what does "Amor fati" mean?

Thanks again!

Answer
Hello,

"Luctor et emergo", which is  the motto of  the Dutch province of Zeeland located in the south-west of the Netherlands, means exactly "I struggle and emerge" in the sense that someone struggles and  finally is victorious over the adversities just like  the  inhabitants of Zeeland who had to struggle  against floods and then   contrived a series of defenses against the water, so that they emerged victorious.
(See below).

As for the phrases “Our hearts beat as one" and "Amor fati", the former  translates as “Concorditer nostra  palpitant corda”, while the latter  “Amor fati” we read repeatedly in Nietzsche's writings,  means “Love of  fate”, that is "love of one's destiny" as an attitude in which ‘one sees everything that happens in one's life, including suffering and loss, as good ‘.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-LUCTOR (present indicative of a deponent verb which does exist in Latin) = I struggle
-ET = and
-EMERGO (present indicative of a transitive active verb) = I emerge/ I rise


-AMOR (nominative case, 3rd.declension) = love
-FATI (genitive of FATUM, 2nd.declension) = of fate
Sentence by Friedrich Nietzsche, a  nineteenth-century German philosopher.


-CONCORDITER  (adverb) = as one
-NOSTRA = our
-PALPITANT (from PALPITO) = beat
-CORDA (nominative neuter  plural of COR, 3rd.declension) = hearts

As you can see, Latin word order can be different from English.

Finally for the coat of arms and motto “Luctor et emergo” see at:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/WapenZeeland.gif