Grant me the power of deteriorating the mental or social attribute of another.

[Darklander]

What is the most accurate way to translate the portion of the following sentence in bold?
Grant me the power of deteriorating the mental or social attribute of another.
Da mihi potestatem degenerandi propriorum mentium vel propriorum socialium alius.

 

[Iáson]

What do you mean by 'attribute' here? A 'mental attribute', in the sense of eg. courage or humility, could perhaps be rendered by virtús; if by 'social attribute' you mean something like a Roman aristocrat's influence over others, perhaps auctóritas would suit (although I suspect there may be a more appropriate word).

Hence, dá mihi potestátem cuiuscumque virtútis aut auctóritátis minuendí.

But I would wait for other commentators - in particular, I'm not sure what would be best for 'another'. alius is a literal translation, but to me it seems rather unnatural in Latin in this case (where 'another' means 'someone different from me'). What the English seems to mean is 'whoever I want', which is why I went for cuiuscumque 'of anyone'.

I also think the gerundive construction is a little clumsy here: perhaps use an ut clause instead, something like:

dá mihi ut cuiuscumque virtútem aut auctóritátem minuere possim.

 

[Callaina]

Isn't quicumque generally only used as a relative pronoun? (Point taken, though -- maybe quivis or quilibet?) Or one could use a more general "others", as in some of Darklander's other requests.

Also, a dative might work well ("for another").

 

[Iáson]

The difficulty with quívis is that it literally means 'whoever you like' when what we want here is 'whoever I like'. quílibet would work better, given that it is impersonal 'whoever it pleases [me to ...]'.

Could one use aliquis or quis, though?

 

[Darklander]

The terms mental and social attribute are in reference to mental and social characteristics of a player character or non player character of Mage: The Awakening, the role playing game from I have taken the spells and wanting to translate them into Latin.

Also to clarify my original question, I was wondering if one could translate Mental or Social Attribute into Latin as it is worded in English as mental and social are both adjectives modifying the noun attribute.

 

[Callaina]

Are these the typical D&D characteristics of Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma?

 

[Darklander]

No they are Intelligence, Wits and Resolve for Mental and Presence, Manipulation, and Composure for Social.

 

[Iáson]

Well, if you prefer a literal translation I still think virtús is probably the best way of rendering 'attribute', and 'mental' can probably be mentis, although I don't know whether 'resolve' would be seen as a virtue of the mind so much as the soul.

But 'social' is another question. Composure - temperantia - would probably be seen as another virtue, and I'm not sure a Roman would have divided it from, say, 'resolve' in a division of 'mental' vs. 'social'. As to 'manipulation', I can't think of anything that captures the full resonance of 'controlling someone to your own advantage, often unfairly or dishonestly' (Cambridge Dictionary). Again, auctóritas or grátia refer to a power to influence others through the bonds and obligations that exist in society; I doubt they would be viewed as 'attributes' quite in that sense though. There are words for tricking or deceiving a person, such as circumvenió, décipió, fraudó or falló, and so facultas circumveniendí could probably used in the sense of 'ability of manipulation', but I can't think of a suitable collective adjective for such an ability.

Maybe the word consuétúdo, meaning 'interactions with other people' - hence

mentis virtús aut consuétúdinis facultas

Literally this is 'a virtue of the mind or ability in interactions with other people'. This is as close as possible to the wording of the English as I could get (I don't think there is any word which would work as 'attribute' of both the mind and social interaction: neither *virtús consuétúdinis nor *mentis facultas sound like meaningful Latin to me). In this case the full phrase would be:

dá mihi potestátem alicuius aut mentis virtútis aut consuétúdinis facultátis minuendae,

or dá mihi potestátem ut alicuius aut mentis virtútem aut consuétúdinis facultátem minuere possim

I do worry that consuétúdo has more of a sense of 'regular interactions', ie. those with family and friends rather than society in general.

 

[Darklander]

Would this translation be grammatically correct? I used the propriorum because it translate into the word characteristic, which fits the definition of attribute.
Da mihi potestatem degenerandi propriorum mentium vel socialium alius.
Grant me the power of deteriorating the mental or social attribute of another.

 

[Callaina]

No, propriorum doesn't mean anything except the genitive plural of the adjective proprius ("one's own/unique").

 

[Darklander]

Ok. would this work?
Da mihi potestatem degenerandi attributionum mentium vel socialium alius.
Grant me the power of deteriorating the mental or social attribute of another.

 

[Callaina]

Attributio doesn't really mean that sort of attribute at all.

 

[Darklander]

Ah, is there a word for attribute/characteristic that you might suggest that would fit?
What about qualitas? Or would I have to use a different word for each Mental Characteristic and Social Characteristic?

 

[Callaina]

I honestly can't think of anything better than what Iáson suggested.

 

[Darklander]

Very Well, so this would be the best phrasing then? Also would you be able to offer the English translation as I am finding it difficult to gather that from his last post.
dá mihi potestátem alicuius aut mentis virtútis aut consuétúdinis facultátis minuendae

 

[Callaina]

Pacifica, what do you think (re "characteristic"/"attribute")?

 

[Iáson]

Very literally 'Give me the power of diminishing (minuendae) someone's (alicuius) mental (mentis) strength (virtútis) or ability (facultátis) in their social dealings (consuétúdinis)'. Sorry, I'll try to be clearer in future!

 

[Pacifica]

I must say that none of the Latin versions proposed thus far quite seems to work... This is a difficult one, due to lack of Latin words for "attribute" and "social".

 

[Pacifica]

Very literally 'Give me the power of diminishing (minuendae) someone's (alicuius) mental (mentis) strength (virtútis) or ability (facultátis) in their social dealings (consuétúdinis)'. Sorry, I'll try to be clearer in future!

My "too many genitives" radar is going out of control.

 

[Iáson]

My "too many genitives" radar is going out of control.

That's why I used aut...aut, really, to avoid the possibility of construing alicuius with minuendae. In theory mentis could be omitted and consuétúdinis maybe put in the ablative plural (although I'm not sure that works grammatically).

Alternatively the ut clause would avoid that.

(To be clear, the first suggestion would give dá mihi potestátem alicuius aut virtútis aut consuétúdinibus facultátis minuendae, 'grant me the power of diminishing the mental quality or ability in their social dealings of someone'.

The ut clause version:
dá mihi potestátem ut alicuius aut mentis virtútem aut consuétúdinis facultátem minuere possim, 'grant me the power so that I can diminish the mental quality or ability in social dealings of someone')