Dark passenger

[PatrickStar]

Hallo everybody,

I'm not a native speaker but I'll try my best: I want to know what the latin translation of the phrase "dark passenger" is.

For those who do not know Dexter: The dark passenger refers to the psychopathic, the darkness in a persons soul. It describes the demons a person feels inside.

 

[Issacus Divus]

Literal translation- viator tenebrosus.

 

[scrabulista]

Does tenebrosus carry the meaning of "dark" as in "psychopathic" (perhaps mildly so)?

If you like the story of Jesus casting out demons, there's:
viator habens daemonia (adapted from Matthew 8:28), or
viator in spiritu inmundo (adapted from Mark 5:2)


viator immundus could possibly work.

 

[Issacus Divus]

viator immundus could possibly work.

Perhaps...but wouldn't it be better to try to find a word for "darkness" that does carry the meaning of "evil"?

 

[scrabulista]

Mark 5:2 led me to immundus
then these entries in Diogenes:
immundus (inm-), a,um, adj.inmundus,
unclean, impure, dirty, filthy, foul (syn.: spurcus, obscenus, impurus).
spurcus, a, um, adj. cf. spargo,
dirty, unclean, impure (class.; syn.: immundus, impurus, obscenus).
Trop., of character or condition, foul, base, low, mean, common:
obscēnus (obscaen-, and less properly obscoen-), a, um, adj. perh. ob and caenum, filth, of adverse, unfavorable, evil omen; ill-boding, inauspicious, ominous, portentous
Transf., repulsive, offensive, abominable, hateful, disgusting, filthy.
impūrus (inp-), a, um, adj. 2. inpurus,
unclean, filthy, foul (cf.: obscenus, spurcus, immundus).
Lit. (very rare): impurae matris prolapsus ab alvo, Ov. Ib. 223.—
Trop., unclean (in a moral sense), impure, defiled, filthy, infamous, abandoned, vile.

 

[Laurentius]

I don't think viator is the word we are looking for here.

 

[Issacus Divus]

I don't think viator is the word we are looking for here.

What are you thinking instead?

 

[Laurentius]

What are you thinking instead?

Only vector comes to mind, but it's very ambiguous with the vehicle's driver.

 

[Issacus Divus]

Only vector comes to mind, but it's very ambiguous with the vehicle's driver.

Hmm. What do you feel about viator that's off?

 

[Laurentius]

Hmm. What do you feel about viator that's off?

Like, everything imho, why do you think it's fine? Actually I read vector can be "bearer, carrier" too apart from a passenger, which I thought that was to mean the driver in English but I am not sure now, I thinjk it's just someone bearing sonething.

 

[Issacus Divus]

UGH.
I don't know why I said that. It should be vector.

 

[PatrickStar]

Please don't take this post as me thinking the discussion is over an everything is said. I just want to express how grateful and stunned I am. This community is truely special. I did not expect to get a detailed discussion in such a short period of time. You guys are cool! Thank you! I will keep reading what you guy have to offer!

 

[Issacus Divus]

Please don't take this post as me thinking the discussion is over an everything is said. I just want to express how grateful and stunned I am. This community is truely special. I did not expect to get a detailed discussion in such a short period of time. You guys are cool! Thank you! I will keep reading what you guy have to offer!

No problem.

 

[Adrian]

PatrickStar provided us with explanation regarding context i.e. dark passanger refers to

psychopathic, the darkness in a persons soul. It describes the demons a person feels inside.

I am not sure if viator (traveller) or especially vector fit the context provided by OP.
I was thinking about noun comes (companion, esp. in journey - See CCELD) like comes scelestus (wicked journey-companion)
or more related to what OP described: scelus quod intus latet - the wickedness that dwells inside

 

[PatrickStar]

Based on the information you guys provided and me looking words up in a dictionary so far I like vector immundus best (is it grammatically correct like that?). I like vector more than comes, since the dark passenger isn't ment as a companion one chooses to take with on a jurney. I'ts more like a dark alter ego one can't seem to shake off. For this reason I'd like a translation that reflects a person. However, I have to admit that scelus quod intus latet seems to be the best translation of what the dark passenger is all about.

 

[PatrickStar]

Push

 

[Catulli85]

I'd say

convector ater
If you don't like comes and the friendliness it connotates that's justifiable. However, vector seems a little too impersonal to me; it might describe someone on a ship on the far side of the world. Luckily, Latin loves compound words and convector demonstrates that it is a traveler with the subject that we're describing.

Ater means black or dark, but has connotations of unluckiness or sordidness

However, I'd also suggest that while it is less literal, a better translation might be

convector cruentus

Literally it means bloody (or blood red) passenger, but has connotations of ritual pollution and being tainted with blood guilt.

It's perhaps notable that Tisiphone, punisher of murderers who is described by Virgil as wearing a blood soaked red dress, wouldn't generally exact a measured retribution like a life for a life. Instead, she'd start wars that kill everyone the murderer loves like in the Aeneid, or drive men to commit even more horrible crimes like killing their brothers or cannibalism like in the Thebaid. There's a sense of her cutting off the murderer from human goodness that might mirror the notion of a lack of empathy or conscience in psychopathy and certainly has some relevance to Dexter's escalating crimes.

In fact, the sacred origin stories of civil justice place deities like Athena (to the Athenians) or Nemesis (to the Imperial Romans) as sort of protectors against the Furies, and trials as the means by which those deities satisfy the more dangerous cthonic avengers without collateral damage to the state.

 

[Deleted member 13757]

I like that monologue as well.

I think viator is a good choice.

This is very beautiful...

Hic, rogo, pauxillum veniens subsiste, viator.
et mea scrutare pectore dicta tuo,
ut tua deque meis agnoscas fata figuris:
vertitur o species, ut mea, sicque tua.
quod nunc es fueram, famosus in orbe, viator,
et quod nunc ego sum, tuque futurus eris.

...

Alcuin (735-804)

 

[Bitmap]

et mea scrutare pectore dicta tuo,

Another example of a syllable staying short despite three consonants following - Pacifica

Well, ok, he's not the most native source, either, though ... He lengthened the e is scrutare instead

 

[Deleted member 13757]

Another example of a syllable staying short despite three consonants following - Pacifica

Ah... good times.