| Tuesday, February 11, 2003 |
 | As occasionally happens, somebody IMed me today asking for a translation, in this case a translation of a bit of unerased Latin from Umberto Eco's Baudolino. The passage was given as "ncipit prologus de duabus civilitatibus historiae AD mcxliii conscriptsaepe multumque volvendo mecum de rerum temporalium motu ancipitq", which confused the Hell out of me.
Once I worked out that there was a space between "conscript" and "saepe" life got easier, but the fact that the Latin was meant to be 1000 years or so later than the Latin I learned was confusing me, a confusion partly resolved when I looked up the original and saw it as:
ncipit prologus de duabus civilitatibus historiae AD mcxliii conscript
saepe multumque volvendo mecum de rerum temporalium motu ancipitq
It's incomplete - the verb at the start is presumably incipit or ancipit. I've never heard of ancipit, but I assume it is a medieval form of incipit - it begins. conscript is missing a couple of letters - at a guess -us, to agree with prologus. There may be a conjunction before saepe - possibly et - and ancipitq is presumably ancipitque. So that's a start.
anceps, genitive ancipis, means two-headed, and about a hundred other things, but I think that's a false trail.
So, incipit - begins. prologus.....The preface of this history about two (civilitas - an art of government? A state? Later, and rarely, a friedliness) systems of government, written (chosen? ordained? beaten?) in 1143 AD, begins....(and) often and much (is that volvendo dative or ablative? does it go with motu, or is it absolute? And what the fuck is motu - ablative form of motus, but there is no fourth-declension motus in Lewis and Short, only second-declension motus as the perfect participle of moveo. volvo means to turn or roll, but also to consider, to turn things over in one's mind....is the gerundive indicating something needing to be considered (or rolled) or is a gerund describing an act of considering?)...
The preface of this history about two arts of politics written in 1143 begins, and begins by frequent and great consideration with me about the movement of temporal things
That's assuming the sentence ends there, and that there was an et before saepe, and a number of other guesses, and it could stil be utterly wrong. It could just as well be
The preface of this history about two politenesses, chosen in 1143, often and greatly begins with me by the movement, that must be considered, of things relating to the temples (of the skull)
before we even start thinking much about agreements, or whether the word preceding saepe might be in
The preface of this story about two forms of politics, written in 1143, begins often and very much in the contemplation of the motion of temporal things with me, and begins....
I'm sure this used to be easier. Point is, it isn't like translating French. Some of these words mean nothing, some of them mean dozens of things, and some are used maybe three times in the canon of Classical Latin. Plus, at least prologus has, I suspect, a specific meaning in Church Latin.
Or, to put it another way, wingardium fucking leviosa. That sound is my brain leaking out of my ears.
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