fidem fati virtute sequemur
English translation: We will courageously pursue the faithful promise of destiny. [See also below.]
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| 07:59 Sep 5, 2000 |
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| na +1 | We will courageously pursue the faithful promise of destiny. [See also below.] |
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| na | See below |
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Answers
24 mins peer agreement (net): +1
We will courageously pursue the faithful promise of destiny. [See also below.] Explanation: Two options: 1. MORE LIKELY: We will courageously pursue the faithful promise of destiny. (Destiny has called, so I will be courageous and answer the call.) 2. LESS LIKELY: We will pursue loyalty with the courage of our destiny. (My fate is to be courageous, so I will be faithful to this.) Latin mottoes are notoriously abbreviated and tough to interpret. Usually somebody dreamed up a saying in English or French or German or whatever, and then tried to turn it into Latin. FIDEM is used here to mean "guarantee", apparently, rather than its more typical sense of "faithfulness, loyalty, faith". FATI means "of fate". Its position, however, might actually hook it to VIRTUTE, "with courage" -- changing it to "with the courage of (our) destiny". Then the whole thing would actually mean, "We will pursue loyalty with the courage of our destiny." Hmmm.... Again, the real meaning is in the vernacular (rather than in the Latin rendition). VIRTUTE: "with courage, courageously." SEQUEMUR: "we will follow/pursue." |
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7 hrs
See below Explanation: I agree: latin mottoes are tough to interpret. nevertheless, I will have a go. This one presents two main problems: how to interpret "fides" and how to interpret "virtus". The difficulty is that both these nouns covered what seems to our modern minds a wide range of meanings. For instance, virtus could mean, among other things, "virtue" and "courage" because to the war-like ancient Romans to display courage was to display virtue. The meanings of fides include faith as in have faith or confidence in something, trust, honesty - the connection is fairly easy to see. Here is the literal meaning: fidem fati: the trust of fate virtute: with virtue sequemur: we follow I venture this interpretation: We (I) virtuously seek to prove ourselves worthy of the office entrusted to us (me) by fate. (I rather suspect that sequemur is the "pluralis majestatis") |
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