Sunday, February 5, 2012

Tempus, Veritas, Odium

Here is today's distich by John Owen, with an English translation by Thomas Harvey, 9.19. This epigram creates a delightful family tree: since truth is the mother of hatred and, in turn, is also the child of time (these are both famous Latin sayings), that means that hatred is time's grandson! Very elegant indeed.

Tempus, Veritas, Odium
Mater Aletheia est odii, sed filia longi
Temporis. Est odium temporis ergo nepos.


TIME, TRUTH, HATRED
Truth is Times Daughter, Hatred’s Mother is,
Then Hatred’s Nephew unto Time by this.


The vocabulary is keyed to the DCC Latin Vocabulary list. There are two words which are not on the DCC list, plus one Greek noun:

alētheia - truth (Greek: ἀλήθεια)
odium, odiī n. - hate, hatred
vēritas, vēritātis f. - truth

ergo: therefore
filia -ae f.; filius -ī m.: daughter; son
longus -a -um: long, far; longē, far, far off
māter, mātris f.: mother
nepos nepōtis m.: grandson, descendent
sed: but
sum, esse, fuī: be, exist
tempus -oris n.: time