etiam in aeri oculis meis et custodes qui poenitentiam

xavier

New Member

This has been a tough one. I can figure the direct meaning of individual words but I want to know the meaning of the statement as a whole. Thanks
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
That isn't a complete sentence and doesn't mean anything by itself. Where does it come from? If it's a fragment from a longer sentence, please post the entire sentence (and even some of the surrounding text if there is any).
 

xavier

New Member

I first saw the phrase on a T-Shirt. I thought a quick google search would satisfy my curiosity. It did not. I have tried other avenues to no avail. It is almost beginning to haunt me; not being able to find the meaning haha. I cannot say if its a fragment taken from a grater statement. I have not been able to find much. I believe it relates to vigilance and keeping ones eyes on the sky. However, I know that the meaning of the phrase is more than the sum of the words within it. "Poenitentian" for instance, can have multiple meanings depending on the context of a sentence andthe words surrounding it. Perhaps it relates to the phrase: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"? The phrase is found in the work of the Roman poetJuvenal from his Satires (Satire VI, lines 347–348). It is literally translated as "Who will guardthe guards themselves". However it is often also used to mean: who watches the watchers.

May be this will help. The words on the T-shirt were arranged in the following manner, almost as if in a poem:

etiam in aeri oculis meis
et custodes
qui poenitentiam
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
It's probably either a failed machine translation or a random cobbling together of words much like Lorem Ipsum.

In this case, you can't extract any more meaning than that of the individual words because it isn't a complete, coherent sentence, so there isn't much meaning in it.
 

xavier

New Member

Perhaps the producer of the T-shirt was just looking for something cool-sounding to put on a shirt. Yet, I don't believe this to be case; I believe it has a meaning. The graphics on the shirt depicted something which can most readily be described as the statue of an angel gazing towards the heavens. In its forehead, between the eyes and just above, was a third eye. I believe the phrase relates to a higher sense of awareness and disciplined vigilance.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
It may have been intended to have a meaning, but as it stands, it doesn't and it will be hard to guess what exactly was intended.

I guess there are two possibilities, the first one being more likely in my opinion:

- Someone had a sentence in English (or whatever modern language) and had it translated into Latin by a machine which, as usual, messed it up.

- Someone put a coded message in a phrase that is deliberately meaningless on the surface.
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

  • Censor

Location:
Bohemia
For the original meaning, you could try to put it into Google Translate and see what it tells you: I mean, if it can scramble it once, I'm sure it can also unscramble it. And yeah, I too think this is a failed machine translation, more so I think that if someone had it on their T-Shirt: folk Latin is usually a terrible, terrible thing.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
For the original meaning, you could try to put it into Google Translate and see what it tells you: I mean, if it can scramble it once, I'm sure it can also unscramble it.
I think that's rather unlikely. Google Translate rarely back-translates to the original sentence.
 

xavier

New Member

Thanks for the feedback. Well, does anyone have a hypothesis of what the meaning, or intended meaning, might be? Speculation? Theories?
 

Glabrigausapes

Philistine

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Milwaukee

Glabrigausapes

Philistine

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Milwaukee
Thanks for the feedback. Well, does anyone have a hypothesis of what the intended meaning might be? Speculation? Theories?
That's pretty simple, I'd say. How about: Even now I cast my gaze on high, and the protectors that [seek] repentance.
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

  • Censor

Location:
Bohemia
Oh, reportedly it was supposed to be "Ὃ γέγραφα γέγραφα" I hadn't read the Greek version, but Wilfried Stroh told me the story when we saw some INRI inscription and he might have used the aorist ... (or it's my fiction xD)
 

Glabrigausapes

Philistine

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Milwaukee
Godmy dixit:
that's some aorist there! nice to see him again, that old friend...
Yeah, one of Russian's short-comings, по-моему, is the absence of it. Always that damned 'l-participle', as Lunt calls it.
I hadn't read the Greek version
I actually haven't either, but what I have above is from memory of the Codex Marianus. I'd double-check, only I don't have it here with me, & I refuse to check online when I spent so much on the paper copy. :snooty:
 
this thread is probably dead, but imma comment on it anyways.

i know which shirt you're talking about. i bought it at the thrift store today because it's edgy. however, i'm not someone who walks around not knowing what's on their shirt, so i put it into google translate, and this is what i got:

"eyes in the sky
and the watchers
who do"

it makes absolutely no sense. how poetic.

please note that i know virtually nothing about latin.
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Gæmleflodland
this thread is probably dead, but imma comment on it anyways.

i know which shirt you're talking about. i bought it at the thrift store today because it's edgy. however, i'm not someone who walks around not knowing what's on their shirt, so i put it into google translate, and this is what i got:

"eyes in the sky
and the watchers
who do"

it makes absolutely no sense. how poetic.

please note that i know virtually nothing about latin.

1. Reviving threads is fine.

2. Lol.
 
 

Dantius

Homo Sapiens

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
in orbe lacteo
this thread is probably dead, but imma comment on it anyways.

i know which shirt you're talking about. i bought it at the thrift store today because it's edgy. however, i'm not someone who walks around not knowing what's on their shirt, so i put it into google translate, and this is what i got:

"eyes in the sky
and the watchers
who do"

it makes absolutely no sense. how poetic.

please note that i know virtually nothing about latin.
Well Google Translate never gives correct translations for Latin. Not that it's possible to give a correct translation for this one in the first place, since the original Latin phrase is meaningless
 
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