Expert: Maria - 9/8/2009

Question
Maria

Will you please translate "death follows" for me in Latin. Thanks so much for the free service.

Ashley

Answer
Hello,

“Mors sequitur” is the literal translation of “Death follows”, just to say that death impends over us.

Concerning this, I ‘d like to tell you that there is a Tibullus line where this Roman poet (ca. 54-19 BC) talks about death and says: “Inminet et tacito clam venit illa pede” meaning “(Death)  menaces us, and comes secretly on silent feet”.


Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-Death = MORS (nominative case, 3rd.declension)

-follows= SEQUITUR (3rd.person singular, present indicative of the deponent verb  SEQUOR, “I follow)

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-IMMINET (from IMMINEO) = menaces us

-ET = and

-TACITO (ablative of the adjective TACITUS agreed with PEDE) = on silent

-CLAM (adverb) = secretly

-VENIT (3rd.person singular of VENIO, I come) = comes

-ILLA (feminine pronoun agreed with MORS, death, which is understood)= it /death

-PEDE  (ablative singular of PES, 3rd.declension)= foot.
Note that Latin uses the singular, while English uses the plural “feet”.

See Tibullus, Poems, book I, elegy 10, line 35