Live For Now...

[AlexanderTheMediocre]

"Live for now for tomorrow and someday may never come."

A friend of mine would like this translated to Latin for a tattoo. The meaning behind it refers to the tendency people have to put off things they want to do, or goals they have, such as taking a trip to somewhere special or writing a book. People often tell themselves that they'll get around to it "someday". This tattoo is supposed to be a reminder that "someday" may never come for a variety of reasons. We might lose the ability to achieve our goal in the future or some other obstacle may arise. And worst of all, perhaps we don't live to achieve those goals. So my friend would like a reminder to not put off things he wants to do, and to live for now. It's not an uncommon sentiment and there are probably many different tattoos with similar wording. He just wanted to make sure he had a high quality translation. The wording of the phrase is flexible, as long as the general idea is conveyed. So if the best translation might tweak the wording a little that is fine. He had used a machine translator (which we both knew would be very inaccurate), and he disliked the Latin word for "today" (hodie) which is why he chose the current wording instead of "live for TODAY". I don't know if this phrase would have any gender specific words, but if so he is male.

Thank you all for any help you can give me.

 

[Matthaeus]

why not use the time-honoured, maybe trite, but still used, good old saying carpe diem ?

 

[Dantius]

or the full carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero. (if addressing a woman) – change credula to credulus (or maybe credule) for addressing a man.

 

[Matthaeus]

I couldn't agree more.

 

[AlexanderTheMediocre]

Please forgive my ignorance, but what does the full saying "carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero" translate to? I know carpe diem, but I haven't heard of the rest before. As for why not simply use carpe diem, I can't say for sure. I also thought it kind of fit the theme, but he asked for something a little more specific (such as what he wrote). Thank you both for responding so quickly, by the way.

 

[Dantius]

Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in tomorrow.

 

[Matthaeus]

Yes, and, as Dantius has previously mentioned, it's addressing a woman.

 

[Godmy]

I'm absolutely for Horace too, but in case it's addressing a male, I'm against the vocative (crēdule), I tested it on my own language... the reason being the quam minime crēdula posterō implies some kind of copula (either in a form of imperative or non-extant present participle) and it could go only with the cases that go with the copula, in my language that's nominative and instrumental, in Latin nominative only. So just crēdulus.

 

[Godmy]

Another argument against the vocative would be simple: vocative formally is not part of the same syntax the rest of the clause is in, it's in some way extra-syntactic, connected rather semantically than syntactically (look e.g. at Dirk Panhuis - Latin Grammar), therefore it couldn't be an apposition either. (But this is not the only argument.)

This was an interesting grammatical quandary, something, I must confess, had never occurred to me prior to this thread, but I think we cleared it out.

 

[syntaxianus]

vive ad praesentibus fruendum--"cras" enim et "aliquando" fortasse numquam adveniet.

 

[Godmy]

One last thing to the vocative, considering what I've just written:

It would be possible but, since syntactically vocative creates another unit from the rest of the clause, there would be another interpretation:

- carpe diem quam minime crēdule posterō = seize the day, you who are least trusting in tomorrow​

- carpe diem quam minime crēdulus posterō = seize the day [while] being least trusting in tomorrow​

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That is, the apposition is possible only with a non-vocative case...​

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I just thought Dantius could still be potentially interested in this, since I thought it was an interesting issue ; p​

 

[Dantius]

Godmy, I found in A+G a couple of rare examples of the vocative being used like credule here. I knew I had seen something like this, but didn't remember where so I didn't bring it up. But now I found it:
[*] b. The vocative of an adjective is sometimes used in poetry instead of the nominative, where the verb is in the second person:—
“quō moritūre ruis ” (Aen. 10.811) , whither art thou rushing to thy doom?
“cēnsōrem trabeāte salūtās ” (Pers. 3.29) , robed you salute the censor.

The advantage of vocative crēdule over nom. crēdulus is that it preserves the meter. crēdulus would add a long syllable and disrupt the meter which I never like doing when changing poetic quotes.

 

[Godmy]

...The vocative of an adjective is sometimes used in poetry instead of the nominative...

But that doesn't change that the syntactic picture is redrawn. With nominative you make an apposition to the verb, with vocative, you make an extrasyntactic phrase that is not connected to the verb syntactically, but semantically. In the examples you have shown the overall meaning might perhaps be quite similar both with nominative and vocative but it's not a proper way to make an apposition (since vocative cannot) and allows for different interpretations, certainly when made artificially in new contexts (= by a non-native).

In the example with "carpe diem quam minime crēdulus posterō" you unambiguously require an apposition for the sentence to make the intended sense . Otherwise, with the vocative, you are rather implying that somebody is non-trusting in tomorrow habitually = it is part of the person's nature not to trust in tomorrow but that the person still doesn't know what to do with it, therefore the poet advises the person to pluck the day. But that's not what Horace said. He said that you should pluck the day and simultaneously be least trusting in tomorrow while plucking it <- this can be achieved ONLY via apposition (from the two choices). It's wishful thinking to have some random vocative you think of interpreted as a semantic apposition....

 

[Godmy]

More about the vocative in Latin Grammar - Dirk Panhuis

https://books.google.cz/books?id=mM9A9S9KDFoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=dirk panhuis latin grammar&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjukd208eDeAhXCjqQKHZ17B4MQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=dirk panhuis latin grammar&f=false

He writes:

And since an apposition is a function of the sentence and the vocative doesn't indicate a function of the sentence but merely an appeal, you will get the meaning "oh, you who are least trusting in tomorrow, seize the day!"