Expert: Maria - 12/22/2008

Question
i am looking for a translation of the inscription on masaccio's holy trinity into latin. i believe it is in itailan. Io fu già quel che voi sete: e quel chi son voi ancor sarete. however i would be very intersted in knowing what the pharse in english, "What you are, I once was; what I am, you will become" would be translated into latin. thanks for your help.

Answer
Hello,

As you say, the inscription on the sarcophagus with its skeleton on Masaccio’s fresco “The Holy Trinity” in the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence is in Italian and reads exactly:
“IO FU’ GIÀ QUEL CHE VOI SETE E QUEL CH’I’ SON VOI ANCO SARETE” meaning literally “I WAS WHAT YOU ARE AND WHAT I AM YOU SHALL BE” which obviously refers to human life caducity.  

As for the Latin translation of “What you are, I once was; what I am, you will become”, here it is:

-“Quod vos estis, ego quondam fui; quod nunc sum, et vos eritis”, if the English pronoun “you” is in the  2nd.person plural,like in the Italian inscription.

-“Quod tu es, ego quondam  fui; quod nunc sum, et tu eris”, if the English pronoun “you” is in the  2nd.person singular.

See below for grammatical analysis.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
Maria
_______________________________________________
Note that:

-What = QUOD (relative pronoun in the neuter)

-you = VOS (subject  pronoun, 2nd.person plural)  or TU (subject  pronoun, 2nd.person singular)

-are = ES (2nd.person singular, present of SUM, I am)  or  ESTIS (2nd.person plural, present of SUM, I am)

-I  = EGO (subject  pronoun)

-Once = QUONDAM (adverb)

-was = FUI (past tense of SUM, 1st.person singular )

-what = QUOD

-I = EGO

-am = SUM (present, 1st.person singular)

-you = TU / VOS (see above). Latin adds ET (too) to emphasize the concept.

-will become = ERIS ( future of SUM, 2nd.person singular ) or ERITIS (future of SUM, 2nd. person plural).

As you can see, Latin word order can be different from English simply because in Latin syntactical relationships are indicated by the endings, not by the order of the words.



-See the Masaccio’s fresco “The Holy Trinity”  which dates back to 1427-28 at:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Trinity_Masaccio.jpg