Expert: Maria - 3/25/2009

Question
Hello there.

My name is Robert and I am making a school project. I thought it would be kind of nice if i had a Latin word or phrase as a title. I have the following sentences that I would be grateful for if you could translate them for me:

-"Better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven"
-"Better to fall like a man than crawl like a dog"
-"Solitude"

Depending on how they look in Latin, I will decide the title.

Thanks in advance and kind regards
Robert

Answer
Hello  Robert,

here are the translations you asked me:


1- “In inferis melius est regnare  quam in coelis servire”.
(Better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven)

2- “Viriliter  cadere  melius est quam  serviliter  agere”.
(Better to fall like a man than crawl like a dog")

3- “Solitudo”.
(Solitude)

See below for grammatical analysis.
Best regards,
Maria
____________________________________________________

-Better = MELIUS

-to reign = REGNARE

-in hell = IN INFERIS

-than = QUAM

-serve = SERVIRE

-in Heaven = IN COELIS

_____________________________________

-Better = MELIUS

-to fall = CADERE

-like a man = VIRILITER

-than = QUAM

-crawl = AGERE

-like a dog = SERVILITER

_______________________________________


-Solitude = SOLITUDO (nominative case, 3rd.declension)

As you can see, Latin word order is different from English as Latin  is an inflected language where syntactical relationships are indicated by the endings of each term, not by the order of the words.