Monday, February 6, 2012

Unio

Here is today's distich by John Owen, with an English translation by Thomas Harvey, 3.19. This is another one of those intricate parallelisms that Owen likes so much: oneness belongs to God, who is one, while demons are countless, and multiplicity is the demon's spawn.

Unio
Unio divina est; divisio Daemone nata:
Unus enim Deus est, daemones innumeri.


UNION
Divine is Unition, Division evil’s:
For there’s one God, innumerable Devils.

Here is the vocabulary:

unio - the number one, oneness, unity
divinus - divine, belonging to the gods
sum - be, exist
divisio - division, distribution
daemon - demon, devil
nascor - be born, come into being
unus - one
enim - in fact, indeed
deus - god; feminine: dea
innumerus - countless, without number, innumerable