Expert: Maria - 2/7/2010

Question
Hi, I'd like some help with a phrase from a favourite author of mine John Marsden.
"I live in the light, and carry my darkness within me"
I've tried to piece together expressing the phrase in latin however I'm not confident that it ends up being coherent, such as using 'caligo' to identify inner darkness rather than an absence of daylight. My old Oxford latin dictionary is just confusing me now.
Hope you can help.

Answer
Hello,

Here’s the correct translation you are looking for:

-“In luce vivo  meamque obscuritatem intus fero in animo"
[I live in the light, and carry my darkness within me].

See below for grammatical analysis and lexical explanation.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-I live = VIVO

-in = IN (preposition which takes the ablative case)

-the light = LUCE (ablative of LUX, 3rd.declension)

-and =-QUE (enclitic conjunction that is attached to the end of MEAM )

-carry = FERO

-my = MEAM (accusative feminine of the possessive MEUS agreed with OBSCURITATEM)

-darkness =OBSCURITATEM (direct  object, accusative of OBSCURITAS, 3rd.declension).
The noun OBSCURITAS  can  mean  “obscurity” /"darkness" as well as “uncertainty” as a lack of certainty,  and “inner darkness” rather than an absence of daylight which in Latin corresponds to CALIGO (nominative) related to “a thick atmosphere”, “a mist” /”a fog” or to “mental blindness”, “dullness of perception”.

-within =INTUS (adverb)

-me =IN ANIMO (literally, “in my mind”). IN requires the ablative ANIMO (from ANIMUS, 2nd.declension).

As you can see, Latin word order can be different from English.
Latin  is in fact an inflected language where syntactical relationships are indicated by the  inflectional  endings, not by the order of the words.