Expert: Maria - 11/18/2007

Question
hi, i was wondering if you could translate the phrase "I was what you are, and what I am you shall be" into latin for me? It's written on Masaccio's "Holy Trinity" but I can't find a clear enough picture to see the exact wording...

Answer
Hello,

first of all the exact words written  on Masaccio's fresco "Holy Trinity” in the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Italy, and related to human life caducity are in Italian of course, and read as follows:

“Io fui già quel che voi siete e quel che son voi ancor sarete” just meaning "I was what you are, and what I am you shall be".

Here's the Latin translation of this Italian aphorism:

“Quod vos estis ego fui, quod nunc sum et vos eritis”.

Latin word order is different from English and Italian, as you can see.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-I = EGO in Latin / IO in Italian

-was = FUI in Latin  /  FUI  GIA’ in Italian

-what = QUOD in Latin / QUEL CHE in Italian

-you = VOS in Latin (2nd.person plural)  / VOI in Italian (2nd.person plural)  

-are = ESTIS in Latin  (present, 2nd.person plural of SUM)  / VOI SIETE in Italian (2nd.person plural of  ESSERE)

-and = ET in Latin / E  in Italian

-what = QUOD in Latin / QUEL CHE in Italian

-I am = NUNC SUM in Latin / SON  in Italian

-you shall be = VOS ERITIS in Latin (future, 2nd.person plural) / VOI ANCOR SARETE (future, 2nd.person plural ) in Italian.

The Italian sentence used by Masaccio to  point out  human life caducity  is an adaptation of a Roman epitaph which reads as follows:

“Quod tu es, ego fui, quod nunc sum et tu eris”

In this sentence the only difference is the use of the 2nd.person singular (es, eris) instead of the 2nd.person plural (estis, eritis) I’ve used in my translation of the Italian text just because Masaccio used the 2nd.person plural (siete, sarete).

But in the English  translation “I was what you are, and what I am you shall be“ you cannot notice anything different because the English  pronoun “you” can refer either to only one person (2nd.person singular) or to two / many persons (2nd.person plural), while in Latin and in Italian  there are different endings .

To conclude in the Roman epitaph “Quod tu es, ego fui, quod nunc sum et tu eris” just meaning “I was what you are, and what I am you shall be”, you can see that there is TU ES (2nd.person singular ) instead of VOS ESTIS (2nd.person plural)  and TU ERIS (2nd.person singular ) instead of VOS ERITIS ((2nd.person plural).

Hope all is clear enough, despite the difficulty of this matter.