"Beauty was a savage garden."

[Seraph7]

I am looking for the correct translation of this phrase for a tattoo, as I am a lover of Latin and couldn't trust any other website.
It is a phrase from a book, and I would like to stay true to the sentiment; which is that beauty is a wild force of nature.

So far I have translated Bellus - Beautiful, Fera - Savage (wild) and Hortus - Garden.

Any help is gratefully accepted,

Seraph7 xx

 

[Callaina]

Pulchritudo hortus ferus (or ferox) fuit is one possibility, but can you elaborate a bit more on the context (particularly on what you mean by "was" -- are you saying that beauty no longer is a savage garden, or that at the time that something else happened, beauty was a savage garden, or...?)

By "savage", do you most want to imply a "wild/untamed" sort of savagery, a "cruel/inhuman" sort of savagery, a "furious" sort of savagery, or more than one of the above?

 

[Seraph7]

Perhaps reading the full quote, from which I am taking only a small part, will convey the meaning better;

"In spite of all the refinements of civilization that conspired to make art - the dizzying perfection of the string quartet or the sprawling grandeur of Fragonard's canvases - beauty was savage. It was as dangerous and lawless as the earth had been eons before man had one single coherent thought in his head or wrote codes of conduct on tablets of clay. Beauty was a Savage Garden."

I feel that savage should mean wild and untamed.

Also it needs to be the feminine version of the words for my tattoo.


Seraph7 xx

 

[Callaina]

Perhaps reading the full quote, from which I am taking only a small part, will convey the meaning better;

"In spite of all the refinements of civilization that conspired to make art - the dizzying perfection of the string quartet or the sprawling grandeur of Fragonard's canvases - beauty was savage. It was as dangerous and lawless as the earth had been eons before man had one single coherent thought in his head or wrote codes of conduct on tablets of clay. Beauty was a Savage Garden."

Hmmm, I'm still on the fence here. Pacifica, do you feel that perfect or imperfect is more appropriate given the context?

I feel that savage should mean wild and untamed.

Ok, then ferus is probably best.

Also it needs to be the feminine version of the words for my tattoo.

The word hortus, which means garden, just is masculine; that's its grammatical gender. Since ferus modifies hortus (a "savage garden"), it, too, needs to be in a masculine form.

I suppose we could try to find a feminine word for "garden", but I'm not sure one exists. Is it very important to you to have the words for "garden" and "savage" be feminine in form?

 

[Seraph7]

I wondered whether as I'm a woman that the words needed to be in the feminine form for my tattoo, but it sounds like it doesn't need to be.

I'm not certain whether the tense "was" or "is" matters to the meaning of the phrase. Beauty is a Savage Garden has the same meaning as was, due to it not being affected by time. I think the present tense "is" makes more sense.

 

[Callaina]

In that case I think "beauty is a savage garden" would probably be simpler and convey the intended, "timeless" meaning more accurately.

Pulchritudo hortus ferus est.

 

[Callaina]

I wondered whether as I'm a woman that the words needed to be in the feminine form for my tattoo, but it sounds like it doesn't need to be.

No -- the only words that would need to be in a feminine form would be adjectives describing you, but because you're not mentioned in the sentence, nothing needs to be feminine.

 

[Seraph7]

Thank you for your help

 

[Callaina]

You're welcome!

 

[Pacifica]

Hmmm, I'm still on the fence here. Pacifica, do you feel that perfect or imperfect is more appropriate given the context?

My first instinct was for the imperfect, but I think I'd need a yet bigger excerpt of the text to be sure.

 

[Seraph7]

I dont understand what imperfect or perfect you are discussing. Is this translation correct?

 

[Callaina]

I dont understand what imperfect or perfect you are discussing. Is this translation correct?

They're two different past tenses in Latin. I think the present tense works better than either, so really the distinction doesn't matter at this point.

 

[Seraph7]

Oh that's fine thank you for the clarification.
Cant wait to get my tattoo!

Seraph7 xx