Expert: Maria - 6/20/2010

Question
How would "strength from pain" be translated into Latin? I've been trying to figure it out, and I've come up with a few possibilities-
"virtutis ex dolor" and "fortitudinis ex dolor"
Are those at all correct? Or would it be either virtus or fortitudo?
Thanks!

Answer
Hello,

"Strength from pain" can be translated correctly into Latin as follows:

-"Ex dolore fortitudo”  (See below for grammatical analysis).


As you can see, I’ve used the Latin noun FORTITUDO which means exactly “firmness”, “fortitude” shown in enduring or undertaking difficulties.
I think in fact that in "Strength from pain" the English word “strength” refers to either the strength of mind that allows one to endure pain and adversity with courage or firmness / fortitude which derives from pain.

Finally, I have to tell you that both “Virtutis ex dolor" and "Fortitudinis ex dolor" are wrong, first because “virtutis” and “fortitudinis” are in the genitive case instead of in the nominative “fortitudo”/”virtus”, second because “dolor” must be in the ablative “dolore” since the preposition “ex”(from) requires the ablative case. Moreover VIRTUS means “strength” as “bravery”/ “courage”/"virtue", not as “strength of mind”.

Hope this is clear enough.
Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-Strength = FORTITUDO (subject in the nominative case, 3rd.declension)

-from = EX (preposition which takes the ablative)

-pain = DOLORE (ablative of DOLOR, 3rd.declension)

As you can see, Latin word order can be 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.