Inspirational Wanderer, kommst du nach Sparta....

J.M

Active Member

Greetings to all Latin D members,

Today I would like a fine "quote" to be translated into Latin (no preferences as to what stage of Latin) this is one I heard in a speech which referred to the Thermopylae Battle between the 300 Spartans and the overwhelming amount of Persians which occured in 480BC in Greece, this quote reads the following in German; "Wanderer, kommst du nach Sparta, so berichte, du hättest uns hier liegen sehen, wie das gesetz es befahl" which simply means: "Hiker/Wanderer if you come to Sparta, so report that you had seen us lying here, as the law commanded"

Thanks for your great help,
J.M
 
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Bitmap

Guest

You're older than I'd thought. Were you actually one of the soldiers Göring addressed?

Did Göring use that in one of his speaches?

I remember my history teacher using that phrase as an introduction to one of her lessons when I was in Year 6.
 
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Bitmap

Guest

Anyway, I'm rather surprised that there's no Latin translation to that phrase already ... or is there?

My take at a direct translation would be
viator, si Sparten veneris, eo nuntia te nos hic iacere vidisse sicut lex mandavit.

Pacifica am I right in taking sicut as an independent sentence? (and in choosing mandare?)
 
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Pacifica

grammaticissima

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Pacifica am I right in taking sicut as an independent sentence?
The clause seems likely to be independent from the indirect speech but I'm not entirely sure. Is that how you tend to understand the German — that the equivalent of sicut lex mandavit is a comment by the speaker rather than part of what the addressee is meant to report?
(and in choosing mandare?)
That seems OK.
te nos hic iacere vidisse
I feel like changing that to nos a te hic iacere visos. But maybe that's just a matter of taste since the context makes it abundantly clear who must have seen whom.
 
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Bitmap

Guest

It's in the same context as the höchsten soldatentums in the other thread.

https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/geschichte-aktuell.724.de.html?dram:article_id=97515

Oh, thanks for pointing that out.

Und in diesem Engpass, da steht nun ein Satz: Wanderer, kommst du nach Sparta, so berichte, du hättest uns hier liegen sehen, wie das Gesetz es befahl. (...) Und es wird auch einmal heißen: Kommst du nach Deutschland, so berichte, du habest uns in Stalingrad liegen sehen, wie das Gesetz, das heißt, das Gesetz der Sicherheit unseres Volkes es befohlen hat.
There are varying degrees of correctness regarding indirect speech in German. I suppose nowadays, you can even put it in the indicative and get away with it. However, the standard is to use the subjunctive I. The subjunctive II (Du hättest) is actually quite common as well, but if you think about it, it actually implies an irrealis. 'Du habest' is the correct usage. It's kind of weird that he did it wrong in the first sentence and right in the second one.
 
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Bitmap

Guest

Is that how you tend to understand the German — that the equivalent of sicut lex mandavit is a comment by the speaker rather than part of what the addressee is meant to report?
Yes.

I feel like changing that to nos a te hic iacere visos. But maybe that's just a matter of taste since the context makes it abundantly clear who must have seen whom.

Ow, I see what you mean ... I didn't think it was a problem in the given context.
 

Pacifica

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Location:
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By the way, this would be a nice occasion for a future imperative, which, logically enough, is common after future temporal and conditional clauses. But I don't think authors were always very strict about this, so nuntia should work too.
 
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Bitmap

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By the way, this would be a nice occasion for a future imperative, which, logically enough, is common after future temporal and conditional clauses. But I don't think authors were always very strict about this, so nuntia should work too.

For J.M: In other words, nuntiato would be better.
 
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Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

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(didn't even bother with the future imperative, I seem to think it's true what they say: the future imperative is not nearly as enough implied as the logic would have it, maybe we are overusing it from time to time)

Edit: and he used the active (vidisse) and with the OSV word order : ) ... lovely.
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

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Location:
Bohemia
I must say I'm surprised so many seasoned Latinists came and left this thread and none pointed it out and I actually think that both my Latin and my knowledge are slowly getting rusty in comparison as I'm not paying it as much attention as I once did (to my shame :( )
 

J.M

Active Member

Did Göring use that in one of his speaches?

I remember my history teacher using that phrase as an introduction to one of her lessons when I was in Year 6.
Greetings Bitmap,
I assume that your history teacher must have been serving excellence,
J.M
 

J.M

Active Member

Thank you all for your meaningful and expanded answers,
J.M
 
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Bitmap

Guest

(didn't even bother with the future imperative, I seem to think it's true what they say: the future imperative is not nearly as enough implied as the logic would have it, maybe we are overusing it from time to time)
I don't ... obviously :p

Edit: and he used the active (vidisse) and with the OSV word order : ) ... lovely.

Well, he needed to elide a syllable somewhere :p
He still prefered iacantes over iacere to make it clear, though.

Greetings Bitmap,
I assume that your history teacher must have been serving excellence,

J.M


I'm not sure what you mean by that. I don't think she served in the National People's Army if that's what you mean.
 

J.M

Active Member

I'm not sure what you mean by that. I don't think she served in the National People's Army if that's what you mean.
I implided that you teacher must have taught excellence as an educator,

J.M
 
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