Expert: Maria - 8/7/2010

Question
I'm writing a short story for a class I'm taking and am trying to find a Latin phrase concerning fear. The character is essentially  a Boogy Man that forces people to face their deepest fears and I would like to have something hanging over the entry way, similar to "abandon all hope..." from Dante's Inferno, but about fear.

I used a translation site to find victum vestri vereor vel vestri vereor mos victum vos that's supposed to mean conquer your fear or your fear will conquer you. Is that accurate? It certainly doesn't roll of the tongue the way I would like and I don't know that anyone would ever recognize it. (The professor seem to have an affinity for Latin). Is there a better way to say it. The other thing I was thinking about was "live without fear or hesitation" but it could be anything to that affect. Any help you could give me or ideas you might have would be greatly appreciated.  

Answer
Hello,

If you want to have something hanging over the entry way, similar to "Abandon all hope ye who enter here" from Dante's Inferno, canto III, line 9 (“Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate“, in Italian), but about fear, you can say:

-“Omnem relinquite  metum, o vos intrantes!” just meaning "Abandon all fear ye who enter here".


As for your sentences “Conquer your fear or your fear will conquer you” and  “Live without fear or hesitation”, here’s  the correct translation:

-“Tuum vince metum aut te vincet metus”, if the phrase “Conquer your fear or your fear will conquer you” is addressed to only one person.

-“Vestrum vincite  metum aut vos  vincet metus”, if “Conquer your fear or your fear will conquer you” is addressed to many  persons.



-“Sine metu  vel haesitatione vive ”, if  “Live without fear or hesitation” is addressed to only one person.

-“Sine metu  vel haesitatione vivite ”, if  “Live without fear or hesitation” is addressed to many persons.

See below for grammatical analysis of all the above Latin phrases.


Finally with regard to “victum vestri vereor vel vestri vereor mos victum vos” , I have to tell you that this translation is absolutely wrong  either in grammar or in lexicon and then makes no sense at all.

Have a nice day,
Maria

_____________________________________________________________________

GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS OF  “Omnem relinquite  metum, o vos intrantes” (Abandon all hope ye who enter):

-OMNEM (accusative of OMNIS agreed with METUM) = all

-RELINQUITE (2nd.person plural, imperative of RELINQUO, I abandon) = abandon

-METUM (direct object, accusative of METUS, 4th.declension)= fear

-O VOS INTRANTES (2nd.person plural, participle present  of the verb INTRO, I enter)= ye who enter
_____________________________________________________________________

GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS OF  “Tuum vince metum aut  te vincet metus”
( Conquer your fear or your fear will conquer you):

-TUUM =( accusative masculine of the 2nd.person singular  possessive adjective TUUS agreed with METUM) or VESTRUM (accusative masculine of the second person plural possessive VESTER  agreed with METUM) = your

-VINCE (2nd.person singular, imperative of VINCO, I conquer) or VINCITE ( 2nd.person plural, imperative of VINCO) = conquer

-METUM (direct object in the accusative of METUS, 4th.declension)= fear

-AUT = or (disjunctive conjunction which introduces an antithesis to what precedes).

-TE (direct object, accusative of the 2nd.person singular pronoun) or VOS (accusative of the 2nd.person plural pronoun) = you

-VINCET(future of VINCO) = will conquer

-METUS (subject, nominative case, 4th.declension) = your fear. Note that  here the possessive “your” has no translation as it is implied.
_____________________________________________________________

GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS OF  “Sine metu  vel haesitatione vive “ (Live without fear or hesitation):

- VIVE (2nd.person singular, imperative of VIVO, I live) or VIVITE (=2nd.person plural,  imperative of VIVO) =  live

-SINE (preposition which takes the ablative case) =without

-METU  (ablative of METUS, 4th.declension) = fear

VEL= or (disjunctive conjunction, which introduces an alternative as a matter of choice or preference)

-HAESITATIONE (ablative of HAESITATIO, 3rd.declension) = hesitation



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.

Moreover Latin has different endings and pronouns/adjectives, if the imperative is a command addressed to only one or many persons, differently from English, where e.g. "Conquer" or "Live" can be addressed to only one or many persons.