No pain, no gain

[Cato]

I respectfully disagree. The partitive genitive is very rarely used with adjectives of the third declension. "nihil maioris" sounds as odd as "nihil laudabilis" instead of "nihil laudabile". Don't take my word for it:

http://www.hhhh.org/perseant/libellus/aides/allgre/allgre.346.html

A latin scholar would without any doubt say "nihil maius" never "nihil maioris". I suggested "rei maioris" in a feeble attempt to save the rhyme the original poster seemed to like.

I agree this is a rare use, and in model prose the form would be nihil maius, but I do not agree that nil maioris is ungrammatical. It is probably non-classical; I found but one cite for nihil maioris--from Livy XXVII.17--and it includes rei, but some Medieval writing that I don't know enough about to vouch for (anybody heard of 16th century author Jacobus Pontanus?) does use it without rei.

To avoid the problem, I'd suggest nil dolorum, nil bonorum/lucrorum. I don't necessarily like the plurals; lucrorum as general profits is barely attested in the Distichs of Cato (and here there is a variant reading lucrosum), and bonorum is somewhat abstract for the usage here.

Still other rhyming possibilities which would not incure the wrath of grammarians are as follows: nil dolitum, nil meritum and nil sublatum, nil oblatum

 

[kmp]

Pontano (1429-1503) was a major (and extremely influential) Latin poet of the Renaissance. (It would be incorrect to consider him Medieval). There's a generous selection of his stuff in Perosa and Sparrow's Renaissance Latin Verse : An Anthology.

These Italian renaissance poets really knew their Latin so the citation is a good one.

I must say the original poster of the "no pain, no gain" request must be thoroughly confused by now.

 

[curiosus]

Instead of a rhyme, I propose some word games, (although the tattoo is probably made, at this point):

quaeritur quaestus questibus (one seeks gain with laments)

lacrimis lucraris (you gain with tears)

luctuosum lucrum (gain is sorrowful)

lugendum ad lucrandum (one must lament to gain)

 

[veronicaopp]

Yes, kmp, I'm confused

...

 

[Cato]

Yes, kmp, I'm confused

Let's try to fix that. In suggesting nil doloris, nil majoris, Curiosus pointed out the nil majoris part is not correct grammar (it is a technical point), and suggested nil rei majoris or nil maius. I replied that it is unusual--perhaps even non-standard--but disagreed that it was forbidden by grammar, plus it had the advantage of giving the phrase a rhyme.

In the interest of technical exactness, I further suggested nil dolorum, nil lucrorum, which is literally "no pains, no profits" and which does not have a grammatical problem (this is probably my favorite, though I'm still not discounting my original suggestion). I further thought you could substitute bonorum - "goods" for lucrorum, but here I think you're beginning to stray from the original meaning.

There are two other possibilities: nil dolitum, nil meritum, which is more literally "nothing suffered, nothing gained" and nil sublatum, nil oblatum, literally "nothing endured, nothing bestowed". These last two examples stray a little from the original because they do not pair nouns, they pair verbal participles (i.e. "suffer" and "bestow" are things you do, not things you have like "pain" and "gain").

The point of all this is that translation is an opinion, and there are many ways to do these things. When I hear a phrase like "no pain, no gain", I think about what makes it something a person would want to tattoo to their body. In my opinion it's memorable because it's short, balanced, and rhyming, so these are style qualities I'd like to reproduce in the translation. I'm also the type of Latinist who will bend the rules of grammar for the sake of effect, and this is a personal style that affects my choices in Latin.

What you see in this thread are opinions; there is no one, correct answer, just suggestions that compromise a varied set of values. That's why a forum like this is so useful, even if it looks like a mess to the non-specialist.

 

[curiosus]

Yes, kmp, I'm confused

...

Hi. I'm the sower of confusion.

There's nothing wrong with a "nil doloris nil majoris" tattoo. The thing is, Latin is a very old language and the way of speaking it has changed through the ages. I just wanted to point out that a purist (one seeking to speak the Latin of the best writers of the ancient Rome) would not say nihil maioris, but nihil maius. That does not mean that other ways of speaking are "wrong" (although I admit that's the idea my previous posts seem to convey). In my experience, medieval and modern Latin are often frowned upon by some scholars, but I dare say the chances of an uptight scholar, such as myself, questioning the purity of the Latin in your tattoo out there in the real world are close to zero. Plus it would be utterly rude.

Conclusion: "nil doloris nil majoris" is OK for a tattoo, as it is for, probably, 90% of the people who read and write Latin nowadays.

 

[Cato]

I agree with Curiosus, and want to make it clear I truly appreciate his input on this thread. Translations, often, are a matter of taste, and as the saying goes, De gustibus non est disputandum, though they do make for a far more interesting thread.

 

[veronicaopp]

Right.. I see. Thank you all for good answers!

I wish I could translate like that my self. I only know anatomy in latin. But I like the language. No, I love it!