Expert: Maria - 10/2/2009

Question
Good evening!  I assure you this is  not a homework question though it is lengthy.  I have been working on this for the past two years.  It has become my "white whale" if you will.  I have certain words translated but being that I don't speak Latin, I'm not sure how to make it all make sense in English.  And there are just some words I can't seem to find.  Can you please help me?

Here it is:
QUEST CUSTODIET CUSTODES : FORS CLAVIGERA : VICTORUM AUT MORTIS : MORTIS VIRTUS : ASTRA IMPERATOR GLORIAM : EXTERMINATUR EXTREMIS : IMPERATOR GLORIAM : FACILIS DESCENSUS INFERNUS : IMPERATOR GLORIAM : MORTIS DAEMONICUS : NEMESIS HUMANUS : IMPERATOR ILLUMINATIO : MEA VIRTUS :

I have Victory or death, the stars, my strength, and so on, but I still can't seem to put it all together.
Thank you so much for your time!!
Julie

Answer
Hello,

Actually you cannot put it all together simply because most of these phrases are grammatically wrong and make no sense at all  in Latin.

So, I think that such phrases are a mere series of  Latin words written by someone who does not know Latin at all and then has made many mistakes, as you can see below, where I’m  writing  the correct  text  and the translation of the words/sentences you mention, when it is possible, of course.


Best regards,

Maria
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1-“QUIS (not, QUEST) CUSTODIET CUSTODES? “ meaning “Who will guard the guardians? “  is a quotation from Juvenal’s Satires, VI, 347-8 where Juvenal (c. 60-130 A.D.),  most powerful of all Roman satiric poets, refers  to “the impossibility of enforcing moral behaviour on women when the enforcers are corruptible”. Today however this sentence is related to the impossibility of guarding all who are in power and then guard all the others who are under their rule, whereas  there is nobody who  guards the guardians.
Note that QUIS means “Who”; CUSTODIET means “will guard” and CUSTODES means “the guardians”.

2-FORS CLAVIGERA, originally the name John Ruskin gave to a series of letters he addressed to British workmen during the 1870s., means “Fortune club-bearer” / “ club-wielding” maybe related to Fortune /fate bearing a club as  a force that is chiefly responsible for  human destiny.

3- VICTORUM AUT MORTIS. This expression is absolutely wrong as VICTORUM (genitive plural of VICTOR) means “of the victors”, AUT means “or” and MORTIS (genitive singular of MORS) means “of  death” . Therefore “Of the victors or of the death” makes no sense at all, as you can see.

4-MORTIS VIRTUS  is correct and can mean  “The valour of the death” or “The virtue of the death”, according to the context which however there is not.

5-ASTRA IMPERATOR GLORIAM. This expression is absolutely wrong  and makes no sense at all as  ASTRA (nominative or accusative neuter plural of ASTRUM ) means “The stars”; IMPERATOR (subject, nominative singular) means “ the emperor”, while GLORIAM (accusative singular of GLORIA)  means “glory” as a direct object, which makes no sense at all in this context.

6-EXTERMINATUR EXTREMIS also makes no sense at all as EXTERMINATUR (passive voice, present indicative) means “he/she/it is driven out”/ is banished”, while EXTREMIS (dative/ablative plural of EXTREMUS)  could mean “to extremes”.

7-IMPERATOR GLORIAM .See above.

8-FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNO (not, INFERNUS) meaning “the descent to Avernus (i.e.the underworld) is easy” is a quotation from Vergil's Aeneid, Book VI, 126-127, where we can read the story of Aeneas' visit to the  Underworld.


9-MORTIS DAEMONICUS  is absolutely wrong and makes no sense at all as MORTIS (genitive of MORS) means “of death” and DAEMONICUS (nominative masculine singular of this adjective) means “demoniac”, but there is no word to which this adjective refers.


10-NEMESIS HUMANUS is absolutely wrong and makes no sense at all as NEMESIS (subject, nominative case, feminine) means “Nemesis”, the goddess of divine justice and vengeance, while HUMANUS (nominative masculine) meaning “human” would need a masculine noun which however there is not .

11-IMPERATOR ILLUMINATIO also is absolutely wrong as the masculine noun IMPERATOR (nominative case) means “the emperor” while the feminine noun ILLUMINATIO (nominative case ) means “light” and then the translation would be “the emperor the light”, but there is no verb.

12-MEA VIRTUS is correct and means “My virtue” or “My valour”.