Wake your dreams or fear not, nor be afraid; Be thyself

A

Anonymous

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Hello. Im going to make a tattoo with couple of lines of latin. At least thats the idea. Here are some of my ideas. If someone is able to check them. Thank you
1st - Excito Vos Somnium vel Vereor non , neque nec timeo
mine - "Wake You Dreams or Fear not, nor be Afraid"

2nd - "exsisto vestri
mine - "be thyself

Thank you again.
 

QMF

Civis Illustris

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Location:
Virginia, US
Both of those are gibberish in the Latin.
The first one will be difficult for two reasons. One is that "fear not" and "[don't] be afraid" are the same in Latin: noli timere. To include it twice would be overdone (and, frankly, this is even the case in the English, in my opinion). The second is that "wake your dreams" seems like a very complex phrase that would lose a lot from a direct translation. The word "dreams" alone has difficulties with Latin translations, because the Latin word for "dream" doesn't have as much of the implication of "aspiration" as the English word does.

The second is also somewhat difficult. You could just say "esto tu" but that could be easily interpreted as "you, be!" Part of the problem here is that Latin doesn't take an object for its verb "to be"; it takes a subject. (Whereas English, as you can see by the phrase "be thyself", takes an object). So creating that implication (of being true to who you are) takes a different construction in Latin for it to make sense (and a significantly longer one, I might add).

Thoughts, Latinists?
 

scrabulista

Consul

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Could you use a reflexive (patterned after cognosce te: know thyself) -- esto te?
 

QMF

Civis Illustris

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Location:
Virginia, US
I don't think it works that way, since esse is a copula, i.e. its "subject" and its "object" are both nominative.
 

Imber Ranae

Ranunculus Iracundus

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I think Esto tu ipse is satisfactory. Latin sometimes uses ipse in the nominative as a substitute for the missing nominative form of the reflexive pronoun. You would use ipsa of a female.

Otherwise, you might try: Esto ipse qui es (for a female: Esto ipsa quae es) "Be the very one who you are"
 

QMF

Civis Illustris

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Location:
Virginia, US
The addition of ipse helps, yes, I agree. Not sure why I didn't think of that.
 
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