A question about the word "Mori"

[Pacifica]

Could memento Mori just be understood as "remember that you are dying".

That would normally be memento te mori.

'unde ait seneca: nihil aequē tibi proficiet ad temperantiam omnium rērum temperālium ?et contemptum sīcut frequēns brevis ??? et huius temporis ?? certī meditātiō. igitur dīlecte mī dum vīvis: memorī mente mementō morī'

Unde ait Seneca: nichil eque tibi proficiet ad temperantiam omnium rerum temporalium et contemptum sicut frequens brevis evi et huius temporis incerti meditatio. Igitur dilecte mi dum vivis: memori mente memento mori.

The thing behind it all is, that my friend which i formed the band with, is literally dying and have maybe 3-5 years left.

I'm sorry.

As some others have said, I guess if you want to call your band "to die", why not, even though it isn't a complete thought in itself.

Some other options might be:

Moriturus = "going to die", as a description of one male person.
Moritura = "going to die", as a description of one female person.
Morituri = "going to die", as a description of more than one person, either all male or mixed gender.
Moriturae = "going to die", as a description of more than one person, all female.

Moribundus = "dying", as a description of one male person.
Moribunda = "dying", as a description of one female person.
Moribundi = "dying", as a description of more than one person, either all male or mixed gender.
Moribundae = "dying", as a description of more than one person, all female.

If it's to be the name of a band, I guess the plural versions strictly make more sense, but I'm giving the singular versions in case it was still meant to refer only to your friend.

 

[Pacifica]

Unde ait Seneca: nichil eque tibi proficiet ad temperantiam omnium rerum temporalium et contemptum sicut frequens brevis evi et huius temporis incerti meditatio. Igitur dilecte mi dum vivis: memori mente memento mori.

Here's what Seneca actually wrote:

Nihil tamen aeque tibi profuerit ad temperantiam omnium rerum quam frequens cogitatio brevis aevi et huius incerti: quidquid facies, respice ad mortem.

 

[cinefactus]

As some others have said, I guess if you want to call your band "to die", why not, even though it isn't a complete thought in itself

I like Morituri. It could be a reference to morituri te salutant
What about Morientes?

 

[Godmy]

So, it turns out that the most idiomatic (as in attested once in prose at least) phrase for "remember that you will die" would be then "respice ad mortem"!

Good to know!

 

[Pacifica]

I wouldn't say that. There's nothing wrong with the more directly equivalent mortalem/moriturum te esse memento (as for attestation, I know that at least mortalem te esse memento is attested on a tombstone).

 

[Glabrigausapes]

A poor Latinist here opined that it might have been the end of a pentameter, which is ludicrous.

Is it really so ludicrous? If it stood at the end of the first colon (granted this person said 'end of pentameter'), the only thing standing in the way would be the length of the 'o' in memento, right? That's easy enough for a medieval bloke to screw up.

(tute) memento mori

I could imagine a monk being so infatuated with his own spontaneous creation that, if not by the Lord's will, then by his very will alone he shortened the vowel.

 

[Bitmap]

Is it really so ludicrous? If it stood at the end of the first colon (granted this person said 'end of pentameter'), the only thing standing in the way would be the length of the 'o' in memento, right? That's easy enough for a medieval bloke to screw up.

(tute) memento mori

I could imagine a monk being so infatuated with his own spontaneous creation that, if not by the Lord's will, then by his very will alone he shortened the vowel.

The final -o in the first person singular ind., nominative singulars, future imperatives, the ablative singular of gerunds and even some adverbs can be measured short, even beyond the iambic shortening rule. This wasn't done very often in classical poetry (though I also know an example where Ovid does it), but became increasingly common in late antiquity/ early Christianity.

Ov. trist. 4, 3, 72
Sed magis in curam nostri consurge tuendi,
Exemplumque mihi coniugis esto bonae.

Iuv. sat. 8, 79
Esto bonus miles, tutor bonus, arbiter idem

Columb. Fidol. 165
Omnia praetereunt, fugit inreparabile tempus;
Viue, uale laetus tristisque memento senectae.

Ven. Fort. carm. 8,13,3
Iustinam famulam pietate memento, beate.

Ven. Fort. carm. 2,127
Ergo memento preces et reddere uota, uiator:
Obtinet hic meritis quod petit alma fides.

 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

I'd have thought that the fact that the phrase doesn't really work grammatically would make it unlikely that it was the end of a pentameter, classical or Christian. Perhaps Bitmap thinks otherwise.

 

[Pacifica]

It's not like every medieval poet always wrote in perfect grammar.

 

[Pacifica]

Plus, there's poetic license.

I'm not saying the phrase necessarily comes from a poem. I have no idea where it originated from, and I can see no strong reason to believe it's the end of a pentameter. But it isn't impossible, and the grammar of the phrase at any rate isn't an argument against the theory.

 

[Pacifica]

Unde ait Seneca: nichil eque tibi proficiet ad temperantiam omnium rerum temporalium et contemptum sicut frequens brevis evi et huius temporis incerti meditatio. Igitur dilecte mi dum vivis: memori mente memento mori.

It has just occurred to me that this scans as a pentameter!

 

[Pacifica]

The words memori mente memento mori feature in a few poems, apparently (I haven't yet looked at the results closely to see which one is earliest):

"memori mente memento mori" - Google Search

www.google.ie

 

[Iáson]

Hmm. We have
- Tobias Schumberg, Serperastra philosophiae practicae literarios tyrones veterum sapientum gnomis ad ethicam, politicam et oeconomicam ducentia, published 1683:
Appears as quicquid agās, memorī mente memento morī in an alphabetic list entitled VERSUS VETERES PROVERBIA - LES LEONINI.
- Bartoldus Nihusius, Epigrammata Disticha Poetarvm Latinorvm, Vetervm Et Recentvm, Nobiliora published 1642.
Appears as mēns sine mente virō est, quī fīxam ā nūmine lēgem / nōn volvit memorī mente, memento morī in a list of couplets headed EIUSDEM novella (apparently referring to Bartoldus).
- Jean-Pierre Renard (ed.), Trois sommes de pénitence de la première moitié du XIIIe siècle: Prolégomènes et notes complémentaires:
Appears as presbiter in mēnsā Christī, quid agās bene pēnsā / aut tibi vīta datur, aut mors ēterna parātur / vīvere sīve morī tibi dat, quod porrigis ōrī(?) / quidquid agās, memorī mente, memento morī. Only snippet view so I can't see where this is from though (but presumably in one of these 13th century summae).

 

[Pacifica]

There's also this (the first line doesn't scan correctly but the whole is still roughly metrical): https://books.google.be/books?id=87E0AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA29&dq="memori+mente+memento+mori"&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiqisrcq6PuAhXODewKHfPsAbQQ6AEwAHoECAIQAg#v=onepage&q="memori mente memento mori"&f=false

 

[Bitmap]

quod porrigis ōrī(?)

Could this be quod porrigit hora?

 

[Pacifica]

Quod porrigis ori makes sense. It carries on the table metaphor.

 

[Bitmap]

Quod porrigis ori makes sense. It carries on the table metaphor.

Oh, I see ... good point!

 

[Wind]

Thanks for all the feedback and a thank you to Pacifica for giving several options

Have a nice day