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Latin to English translations [Non-PRO]
Art/Literary | | Latin term or phrase: quaeque ipsa miserrima vidi, et quorum pars magna fui | | This phrase appears in It by Stephen King, please translate it for me. It is simply an epigram (if I remember my literary terms correctly). Another epigram that appears underneath this latin is "You dont f*** around with the infinite." if that's any help to you. Thank you. |
| | | ... and those terrible thiings I saw, and in which I played a great part. | Explanation:
This comes from the Roman poet Vergil, in the Aeneid, which tells the story of Aeneas and his journeys from the ruins of Troy, leading to Italy and the supposed founding of Rome. This was how the Romans believed their city originated.
Book 2 of the Aeneid begins with a scene in which Aeneas speaks to the assembled Carthaginians. At this point he has been travelling seven years and finally wound up in Carthage.
He has just spent a passionate night with the beautiful and unhappy Queen Dido ("she took him to her arms
With greedy pleasure, and devour'd his charms"). The next day, the Carthaginians want to know the story of this sudden arrival who has melted their queen, and she invites him to speak to the assembled people (that´s the end of Book 1).
Book 2 starts ("continued from our last") saying they all look at him expectantly, and he says "Great queen, what you command me to relate
Renews the sad remembrance of our fate:
An empire from its old foundations rent,
And ev'ry woe the Trojans underwent;
A peopled city made a desart place;
All that I saw, and part of which I was: ..."
At least that´s how he starts in Dryden´s translation. Your quotation is the "all that I say ..." My own translation is more literal. Notice that is is the second half of a sentence.
The joke is, though, that Stephen King seems to have been working from the same translation as provided by Ms. Bell on her tripod homepage, and quoted by Evert above, because that´s the way that makes the best sense of his "f***" continuation. It´s not really a correct translation though! :-)
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Note added at 2002-06-22 05:50:30 (GMT) Post-grading
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You´re welcome :-)
I enjoy the Latin questions here, because they make me revive the Latin I learnt a long time ago and have largely forgotten, although it is still deeply embedded in the way I think about language.
Here´s a link that you might like if you want to learn some:
http://www.du.edu/~jcalvert/classics/latin/learnlat.htm#inde... |
| Selected response from:
Chris Rowson
Local time: 18:57
| Grading comment thank you very much ... i need to learn latin
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer |
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| Discussion entries: 0 |
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Automatic update in 00:
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6 mins confidence:  peer agreement (net): +3 I have seen many disasters in which I have played a great part
Explanation:
In such cases, just enter your quotation at e.g. www.google.com and, when you're lucky, you'll get an immedioate result
Ref.:
... Quaeque ipsa miserrima vidi Et quorum pars magna fui." (“I have seen
many disasters in which I have played a great part.”) Virgil. ...
members.tripod.com/~KathrynBell/Quotations.html
|  Evert DELOOF-SYS
Belgium
Local time: 18:57
Native speaker of:  Dutch, Flemish
PRO pts in pair: 8
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