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How's your Latin?

Mike G

Mike G

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I am in the final stages of designing a new dining table (and chairs) at the moment, and should start work early in the new year. It will have a big long stretcher, and I'd like to carve something into it on both sides. The first motto I have found is Cibus bonus, amici boni, tempora bona (good food, good friends, good times), and I'd like to be sure I have the syntax and spelling right before I chop into the wood.

I'm after suggestions for the other side, with the proviso that it should be no longer than 30/35 characters, but ideally shorter.

So, come on you folk with a classical education, delve into your memory and help me out.
 
My old Traffic Dept had Festina Lente. ————- Hasten Slowly.

That could easily apply to woodworking.
 
"Musica si alit amorem, dulcis fundite cantus."

This is the hexametric version, literal latin I think would be Si musica est alimentum amoris, sonate.

From 12th night, If music be the food of love, play on.

It's a good idea Mike and I did a similar thing carved into the steps from the four levels from one end of the house to the other.
 

Or Ede, bibe, gaude or for a group: Edite, bibite, gaudete. Simple, but a truncated quote as eat drink and be merry contines ...for tomorrow we die. For eating and drinking simple verbs are edere and bibere. Laetare means "to make someone happy", and passive laetari means "to be happy".

My latin is very rusty though. I was 17 quite a while ago.....
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Cibus est secundus amor meus. Food is my second love. Don't tell the girls. Might not be perfect translation.
 
PS, google is really bad for latin translation. Almost always a bit wrong (as am I).
 
AJB Temple said:
Or Ede, bibe, gaude or for a group: Edite, bibite, gaudete. Simple, but a truncated quote as eat drink and be merry contines ...for tomorrow we die. For eating and drinking simple verbs are edere and bibere. Laetare means "to make someone happy", and passive laetari means "to be happy".

My latin is very rusty though. I was 17 quite a while ago.....
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I like that. Let's see if we can get it word perfect.....
 
Malc2098 said:
My old Traffic Dept had Festina Lente. ————- Hasten Slowly.

That could easily apply to woodworking.
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If it was something I was carving into my bench, that would work really well. But this is for a dining table.....
 
Can't help on the dining table, but I was thinking of making some "cave hominem" signs, in the anticipation that folks with a limited understanding of Latin would buy them for their sheds.
 
From rowing days at Uni, Latin t-shirt mottos were not uncommon:

Usque ad mortem bibendemus

Perhaps suitable for a symposium room
 
Assuming that you might actually be under the table in order to read what is on the stretcher

mens caput tuum

I hope google's got that right.
 
For your shorter inscription why not use the Horace quote: nunc est bibendum. If you want it longer add other appropriate activities: eat, feast, sing &c. edendum, convivandum, epulandum, canandum and so on. I believe in that formation they all have to be gerunds. ‘Gerund with the verb to be always means necessity’ was the ditty one of my latin tutors used.

And bear in mind classical latin didn’t really do punctuation. So one word can just follow on from another. Although a lot was added in later transcriptions. So you can be excused for that.

Or you can be tricksy and have one in anglo saxon. Or greek.
 
Tiresias said:
For your shorter inscription why not use the Horace quote: nunc est bibendum. If you want it longer add other appropriate activities: eat, feast, sing &c. edendum, convivandum, epulandum, canandum and so on. I believe in that formation they all have to be gerunds. ‘Gerund with the verb to be always means necessity’ was the ditty one of my latin tutors used.
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OK, there's mileage in this. So, "nunc est convivandum et bibendum" would be "now we must feast and drink"?

I don't understand "gerund".
 
f course, if you're ever in the doghouse, there's always 'O me miserum'

Woe is me.
 
Mike G said:
OK, there's mileage in this. So, "nunc est convivandum et bibendum" would be "now we must feast and drink"?
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Near as I can remember, yes.
Mike G said:
I don't understand "gerund".
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It's one of those formations that does exist in English, but hides in plain sight by looking exactly the same as a participle in most cases. It's essentially a verb that's been turned into a noun, referring to the act of doing whatever the verb is.

"Nunc est bibendum" can be translated literally as "Now there is drinking [to be done]" - 'drinking' being the gerund*.

*Latin actually uses a gerundive for this purpose, but the two constructions are functionally identical in English so there's little point distinguishing them if you're not translating Ovid.
 
I have 4 options. I need 2:

Societas bonorum amicorum convivium facit (The company of good friends makes a feast)

Cibus bonus, amici boni, tempora bonum (Good food, good friends, good times)

Nunc est convivandum et bibendum (Now we must feast and drink)

Meliores amici, cena melior. (The better the friends, the better the feast).

The last one piles a bit of pressure on the chef! If a souffle collapses or a Hollandaise sauce splits, the guests might be tempted to think that they're not great friends!
 
Do you plan to carve upper case or lower case? What I found when carving Latin phrases is that it is a good idea to set it out in carving spacing (I use the David Pye book for guidance) and preferred font and see what looks most elegant. In my case I almost invariably carve in upper case as it's easier.
 
AJB Temple said:
Do you plan to carve upper case or lower case? What I found when carving Latin phrases is that it is a good idea to set it out in carving spacing (I use the David Pye book for guidance) and preferred font and see what looks most elegant. In my case I almost invariably carve in upper case as it's easier.
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Dining furniture.jpg
The advantage of drawing for a living......
 
Both of our big tables have a stretcher in similar fashion, and unless one is on the ground for some reason, or one is very short, the stretcher is invisible and doubly so when chairs are around the table.

On the table I just taught offspring to make, we carved his initials into the edge (actually into a contrasting wood lozenge which we let in to deal with a defect. Would your carving be better placed somewhere visible? Or is discretion part of the point?
 
AJB Temple said:
,,,,, Or is discretion part of the point?
Click to expand...

Yes, precisely. Someone will see it, eventually. There are no aprons on this table, and I'll not carve into the edge of the boards, so this is the only available place.
 
It's a nice font to carve though Rog as it has virtually no awkward curves.
 
Mike G said:
Morning Roger, and happy christmas. .......... Specsavers, perhaps? :)
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I think the kerning between the characters is not enough for the length of the serifs. For example bonum ...very hard to distinguish the individual letters IMO. Slightly greater kerning would help, I think
 
I've had some time to kill over Christmas, due to an unplanned excursion to A&E, and so was thinking about the dining table. Dining tables are a place to bring people together - especially family - and maybe a phrase providing a link between the two daughterly locations and their central family home would make this an heirloom piece?

For example: uxor mea et filiae sunt omnia

Would need to dig my Latin book out to check it, but it is intended to mean my wife and daughters are everything.
 
RogerS said:
I think the kerning between the characters is not enough for the length of the serifs. For example bonum ...very hard to distinguish the individual letters IMO. Slightly greater kerning would help, I think
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I take your point, Roger, but where carving differs from the printed version is that there is a centreline to carved letters, and it's that which the eye sees when reading....whereas with the image I posted here, you see the outline only.
 
Late to the party, damn. I did A-Level, if that’s any help. It should be “tempora bona”, tempora being neuter plural, the adjective should agree.

For euphony, the ideal vowel order (for something called ablaut reduplication) is, according to QI: I,E,A,O,U. As in, ‘bish, bash bosh”.

Following this, try “Amici Boni, Tempora Bona, Cibus Bonus”.
 
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