Thursday, July 28, 2011

Eclipsis Animae

Here is another distich by John Owen, with an English translation by Thomas Harvey, 4.101. The poem is a metaphor for a lunar eclipse, when the earth stands between the sun and the darkened moon. And thanks to the power of Wikipedia, you can find out just what eclipses of the moon were visible in the United Kingdom - I'm guessing Owen could have seen the one of 1598.

Eclipsis Animae
Ut solem tellus lunamque stat inter opacam,
Stat peccatum inter meque deumque meum.

As th’ Earth ’twixt Sun and Moon doth stand we see
In her Eclipse: so sin ’twixt God and me.

The vocabulary is keyed to the DCC Latin Vocabulary list. There are two words in this poem that are not on the DCC list:

eclīpsis (eclīpsis, f.): eclipse
opācus, -a, -um: dark, shadowy

anima -ae f.: breath, spirit
deus -ī m.; dea -ae f. god; goddess
ego meī mihi mē: I, me
inter: between, among; during (+ acc.)
lūna -ae f.: moon
meus -a -um: my
peccō -āre: commit a wrong, injure
que (enclitic) - and
sōl sōlis m.: sun
stō stāre stetī statum: stand
tellus tellūris n.: earth
ut, uti: as (+ indic.); so that, with the result that (+ subj.)