In death we live

[Anonymous]

Like the topic says, I am attempting to transalte "In death we live". The meaning of the sentence being we only start living after we die (with no biblical tie whatsoever). The results I came up with so far have been:

- insum mortis vixi
- insum mortis vive

Input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

[Iynx]

Too many verbs. Insum means "I am in", vixi "I have lived" and vive "live!".

Literally "in death we live" would be in morte vivimus.

I don't know exactly what you are trying to say, but as soon as I wrote those last three Latin words I heard in my head the familiar words of the Book of Common Prayer: "In the midst of life we are in death.." I don't believe those words are scriptural. But we could certainly put them into Latin:

In medio vitae sumus in morte...

Hope this helps.

 

[QMF]

Would it happen to be in media vita? I'm not very familiar with the way Latin uses medius...but I think that might be better.
Edit: Although a very bizarre citation, http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=200701535&SearchEngine=GoogleBase&SearchTerm=200701535&Type=PE&Category=MusicDownload (you can probably tell that I went to google trying to find a good citation for this) has a song title of "media vita sumus in morte." Perhaps that is optimal?

 

[Iynx]

Maybe you're right, qmf. I was using the ablative of medium, -ii. It looks like in medio classically could be followed either by an ablative or by a genitive-- in medio vitae or vita.

But there is also an adjective, medius, -a, -um (as in in medias res), and I think that in media vita, or just your media vita, would also be grammatically correct, and I agree that it sounds good.

In defense of my solution, I would point to Psalm cxxxviii:7 : Si ambualvero in medio tribulationis... "If I walk in the midst of troubles..."

 

[QMF]

Well medium, -ii is clearly a substantive of medius. As I said, I'm not certain, but from what I've seen in Vergil (I can't think of a specific example now, sorry) when one says "middle" in Latin one usually uses medius to describe the thing in question. I wish I could find an example so I could elaborate on what I mean.

 

[Anonymous]

Ty both for the swift replies. I ended up going with In Morte Vivemus, I think it's the best one for what I intend.

Again, thanks for the answers!

 

[Iynx]

Vivimus, with an i...

Oh dear, I hope nothing permanent happens. I'll PM him.

 

[Andy]

Don't worry Iynx, worst case scenario, he got a future indicative.

 

[Anonymous]

Oops, ty for the quick PM. Fixed now. :dancing: