Salvete omnes!

[Mattheus]

Hello all! I'm wondering if my friend Maximilianus hasn't already joined. If you're out there, respond please so we can start a discussion.

Mattheus

[Maximilianus]

Am here already, Mat. What are we gonna talk about?

[Mattheus]

Salve, good to see you here. Thank you for joining!
I don't even have a webcam, besides, I prefer to correspond in this manner. You must be joking when you say Ludoviciana has snowy winters. That's extremely far from the truth! We live almost at the Gulf of Mexico, we're too south. However, I heard that Shreveport and northern Ludoviciana do get snow, but not always. I miss the real, hard winters. Is that something that's completely unknown in Argentina? Maybe further south, closer to the Tierra del fuego (did i say that right?) one can experience different climates. Is that correct? Vale.
Mattheus
Tell me what you think of that pdf file I told you about.

[Maximilianus]

You're quite welcome, amice.

Okey-dokey with the webcam. It was just a thought in loud voice (LOL).

I was kidding about snow in Louisiana, just to talk about something. We don't have much snow here either, except for the very mountainous regions, very far in the western mountains and in the highest altitudes where only professional climbers (or professional reckless madmen) dare. And surely in the southern provinces like Tierra del Fuego (you spelled it well), and also in Neuquén (our palindromic province) Chubut and Santa Cruz. All in all, there snowed here last winter, surely due to this global heating suffered by the planet, because under normal conditions, it would have never snowed this far from the peaks.

Mattheus said:

Salve, good to see you here. Thank you for joining!
I don't even have a webcam, besides, I prefer to correspond in this manner. You must be joking when you say Ludoviciana has snowy winters. That's extremely far from the truth! We live almost at the Gulf of Mexico, we're too south. However, I heard that Shreveport and northern Ludoviciana do get snow, but not always. I miss the real, hard winters. Is that something that's completely unknown in Argentina? Maybe further south, closer to the Tierra del fuego (did i say that right?) one can experience different climates. Is that correct? Vale. Mattheus Tell me what you think of that pdf file I told you about.

[Mattheus]

Salve iterum!

Oblitus sum tibi hoc mittere = I forgot to send you this
Fruere = Enjoy
Liberate tu temet ex infernis = Free yourself from hell? (Line in the movie Event Horizon. Ever saw it? English subs show this translation)

If this is addressing one person, and since the English says 'yourself', then the correct way to put it would be: Libera temetipsum ex infernis. But yes, you have the right idea regarding sense, it's just the sentence itself is poorly gramatically constructed. I hope it's all clear now. No I've never seen this. Do you know any other films that feature Latin? I've heard from Iosephus that 'Tombstone' starring Val Kilmer and Kurt Russell, but I've never seen that one either.

I see that is truly is your passion to discuss ancient weaponry. But I don't understand those people who try to reenact ancient Rome. How do they accomplish to faithfully restore and reenact events that happened two millenia ago? Do they dress in togas, speak Latin, and bear weaponry? Seems a little anachronistic to me. Well, but if they land jobs in movies, why shouldn't we do the same in matters concerning Latin? Maybe people say the same things about them that they to do about us, id est, trying to bring back a supposedly 'dead' language? Do you follow what I'm saying? It's curious to note how much we yearn for the past these days. Something must be wrong with the present culture. Funny...Drop me some opinion on this. Maybe reenactors do this to show the world the Roman world and our were similar, or that maybe we should learn from them.
I shall visit your links in a minute.
So do you have any means of ordering or printing the pdfs?
Vale,
Mattheus

[Maximilianus]

Salve iterum quoque!! (Correct if wrong please. I meant Greetings again too)

First of all, many thanks for translations, elucidations, corrections and so forth.

Yes, yes, yes, Tombstone (1993), one of my favorite westerns, features a Latin duel between Val Kilmer and Michael Biehn (well, between the characters they portrayed). Thanks for reminding me of this movie, for I read your post this very afternoon and this very afternoon I embarked myself on a quest to get the movie. I stumbled upon a copy with various subs including Spanish, English and Polish, amongst others. The English and Polish subs are the only ones that include this Latin dialogue, with slight differences in syntax.
I've attached a sound clip of the dialogue. The Latin text I got from the English subs reads as follows:
In vino veritas.
Age quod agis.
Credat judaeus apella, non ego.
Luventus stultorum magister.
In pace requiescat.
These are the differences with the Polish subs:
....
Eventus Stulorum magister.
In pace requiest.

What do you think of these spellings? I understand it to be recquiescant, and in the penultimate line I hear Eventus stultorum, though am not sure. Tell me your mind, will you?

I’ll attach the Event Horizon line as soon as I get the movie (am working on it).

Regarding reenactment of ancient events, it can never be fully accurate. Remember that movies, even when meant to be historically accurate, suffer from historical flaws that cannot be avoided. We can never know for sure how events exactly happened back then, and it's surely not enough to read every history book one can come up with.

[Maximilianus]

In my very humblest opinion, reenactors search through the past for three reasons:
1. To find points of contact between us and our ancestors; to tell what has changed from what remains the same, and in some way analyze our evolution as a species.
2. Because in some way they get bored with everyday modern life, which is somewhat boring if we consider that nowadays you can’t stab people with a sword without going to jail (LOL).
3. To land jobs in movies (LOL). Something that Latinists could imitate, considering that sometimes Latin in movies really sucks (regarding grammar, pronunciation, syntax and so on).

Now speaking with due seriousness, by evocating the past we can change what is wrong and keep what is right. But thus is how we meet our species' all-time conundrum: Who's to tell wrong from right? Is there anyone suitable? What moral layout would be the most appropriate? Who are going to be the guardians of such morality? And if we find them, then Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Regarding my passion for old weaponry (with all due LOL):
Oh yes! You should see me hurling rocks on fire to my neighbors' walls with my mini-trebuchet (actually a blend between a trebuchet and a catapult, regarding mechanical features), and how I run them through with the bolts from my half-finished crossbow (it needs some fine-tuning) after I batter their fences, and clad in chain mail and helmet. All this is quite a mediaeval sight to see - LOL.

BTW: I think I'll try to print some of the pdfs, though I find it hard for the printer is not mine, the documents are so huge, and I am not sure that the owner will let me commit such an abuse. The thing is I don't have a PayPal account or a credit card that I can use to pay for Web operations, so until I have some of this I remain stuck.

Cras iterum scribam et bene ambula, amice!
Maximilianus.

[Mattheus]

Salve,

Yes you had the greeting correct. You must be a true Latin addict, if you went out and got that movie the same day! But don't get me wrong, I really really admire that! So you knew about this movie...I'm curious what the Polish subs say, for I'm having a little trouble deciphering some of this myself, no doubt due to the crappy pronunciation. Anyway, thanks for sending the clip. One of the characters is obviously drunk, so no wonder he says
In vino veritas, meaning a drunken man tells the truth.

Age quod agis means 'do what you do!'

I'm not sure about the next one, not even the transcript makes sense, I know for sure the first word is 'credat' and the last two 'non ego', but as for what's in between remains a mystery.

The following one is definitely Eventus stultorum magister, which could be rendered many different ways: The result/outcome of foolish things is a teacher, but I'm not completely sure on that one either, but maybe this means that we learn by commiting stupid things? Eventus/magister are in apposition to one another.
I wish to God someone else on this forum would clear this up, so we could all work together. No offence to you, Maximilianus.

In pace requiescat is absolutely correct, and I think you know what it means, for there was a similar sentence on Braveheart. This means 'let him rest in peace.'

Of course reenactment of ancient events and culture can never be fully historically accurate. I do, however, admire those people's ardour and passion in the recreation process, to show today's modern degenerates how life might have been long ago. I think we are reenactors in our own way too, in trying to bring Latin back to its status as a living, spoken tongue. What say you? As for telling wrong from right, it would be wise enough for our culture to adhere to the original texts of the Ancients themselves, id est, Cicero, Caesar, Seneca, Virgil, etc...We have to start somewhere, and since those writings provided a moral, cultural background for Western Civilisation for more than two millenia, I think it's safe to put our trust in them. Quis, inquis, custodiet ipsos custodes? Well, it is we, not God, who have to show the world that the values they believed in are still valid and applicable to today's world, for human nature doesn't change.

Were you joking when you said you hurl flaming rocks at your neighbours' house? Do you hate them that much? I'm sorry but I don't understand, or are you just having fun firing at them?

Don't worry about the printers. Yeah, I realise those pdfs are huge and not suitable for a poor home laser printer. Tell me which book or books you would like, and I'll get them for you. Anything. Make an early birthday wish, if you wish hehe. There's a lot of good Latin materials out there. For starters, I would suggest the Adler textbook and its key to the exercises, otherwise you'd be stuck in front of the computer for too long. If we want to reenact Latin, then we'd better do it from a book in the old-fashioned way, you catch my drift?

Cura ut valeas,
Mattheus

[Maximilianus]

Salve Amice!!

First of all I want to make clear that I’m not that violent. I was kidding about the flaming rocks, though I must confess that one day a rock (a small one, and not on flames) flew above a neighbor’s wall, but that was just an accident; a miscalculation due to my poor aim. I was practicing with a sling I had devised at the time, and as it was the first hurl, it went bad. Since then I’ve become more careful. Other than that, the mini-trebuchet exists and so does the crossbow (I made them some time ago with some unused lumber I borrowed from my dad). Whenever I shoot them, I make sure there’s nobody near, to avoid unwanted victims. Remember that ego sum homo indomitus, but not a murderer (LOL).

Going back to Tombstone, I very well remembered that Latin talk between Kilmer and Biehn, but I had never been able to get an idea of its meaning until now, and everything because of the lovely internet and my Latinist friend. The last time I saw this movie must have been some two years ago, if I don’t fall short, and due to our Latin debates I had the chance to see it again and even make a copy to see it every now and then (I like collecting movies). The drunken man in question is Doc Holliday (the character portrayed by Kilmer) and he begins this talk with the phrase In vino veritas. As for your problem with the third line, I think I listen Credat Judaeus Apella, non ego; at least it is what the English subtitles show. By doing some research on Google, regarding the sentence in question, I came up with the following link:

http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/full/4/1/lt-1826...

It’s within a site dealing with Mr. Thomas Carlyle letters to his wife Jane (he was a famous Scottish writer during the Victorian era, in case you don’t know him). If you go to the bottom of the letter displayed there’s a link that says Footnotes. By clicking on it, the second note literally says: “Apella the Jew may believe [this]!” (Horace, Satires, I, v, 100).

Being obviously a quote by Horace, I figure we can translate it as Apella the Jew may believe it, not me (or something similar, if we append the non ego part). So I figure that Mr. Carlyle must be right, considering he was a writer at a time when Latin was still in vogue. Tell me your opinion, and I also wish someone else gave us another view, in case I’ve made a mistake in my research. Besides I found another link dealing with this Latin conversation in Tombstone:

http://www.dacc.cc.il.us/~jeff/tombstone-latin.html

So tell me your mind on it, please (here there’s another wav recording of the conversation at the beginning of the page).

BTW: I’m appending a rip of the Polish subs. I don’t know if you are aware of how to read subtitle files in the SRT format, but it’s quite simple. All you have to do is to open the file in Notepad for example, and if you look for the paragraphs numbered between 432 and 436 you will find the Latin dialogue (in the case of Polish subtitles there are syntactic mistakes. I’m sending you the subs as I got them).

I very much agree with your comments on reenactment. As for the matter of the pdfs, please check your e-mail for a message with subject “PDF printing”.

Vale et bene ambula!!
Maximilianus

[Maximilianus]

Salve iterum amice.

It just came to my mind another Latin phrase in the movie The sixth sense (1999) starring Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment, amongst others. It's this movie about the kid (Osment) who can see dead people. There's a recurring Latin prayer he pronounces that reads "De profundus clamo adite domine", and the subs translate it as "From the depths I cry to you Oh Lord".

Is the prayer correctly spelled? How about the translation?
Sometimes I've seen profundis instead of profundus. Is it a spelling mistake or it means something else?

Vale!!
Maximilianus.

[Maximilianus]

Ego iterum amice Matthee.

This time to attach the Latin dialogue audio clip from Event Horizon. Below is what the English subs show:

[ Turns On Tape Player ]
Voice on tape: Liberate tutemet ex inferis.
[ Turns Off Tape Player ]
Go on.
I thought it said "Liberate me", Save me.
But it's not "me".
It's "liberate tutemet", Save yourself.
And it gets worse.
[ Turns On Tape Player again]
Voice on tape: Liberate tutemet ex inferis.
[ Turns Off Tape Player ]
There.
I think...
That says "ex inferis".
Save yourself...
from hell.

So tell me your mind on this, will you? I also append another clip from the same movie. This part does not have any subs and I can hear an Ave at the beginning, but I'm not sure about the rest.

Salve!!
Maximilianus.

[Mattheus]

Salve amice!

Thanks for doing the research on Tombstone. Now I see what they meant by Credat Judaeus Apella, non ego. So cowboys in the Old West knew some Latin? How peculiar...I'll bet none of today's cowboys even heard of Latin. So yeah, I would go with: Let Apella the Jew believe, not I.

Mind telling me how you got the Polish subs? The last two are obviously spelled wrong, that shows ignorance. Yet I myself was not able to decipher the one about the Jew. If I had read Horace, maybe I would have recognised it.

All right, you're not a violent person. Yet you do have an inclination to fabricate weaponry? I can admire your zeal, but I think you must have revenge against something. You are obviously a non-conformist, and a homo indomitus. I am glad to see you use that quote, for you see a kindred soul in Wallace, am I correct? You probably feel revenge against the world? Could you tell about this, quaeso?

As for The Sixth Sense, the line de profundis clamavi ad te, domine is used in the Church. It is psalm CXXX, one of the penitential psalms, one of the most famous ones. It means: out of the depths I shouted to you, O Lord! This was frequently set to music, notably by W.A. Mozart, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, G.F.Handel, Mendelssohn, Josquin des Prez, and even the great Johann Sebastian Bach.

[Mattheus]

Regarding Event Horizon, if the meaning is to be 'save yourself from hell', then the possible Latin versions are: Libera te ex infernis or Libera temet ex infernis. The second version simply puts emphasis on yourself. The tape recording is definitely not to be trusted, but if you listen closely you can perceive what the message is.

Ave atque vale means 'hail and farewell', from Catullus, carmen 101, addressed to his deceased brother. It is a short elegiac poem, used by ancient Greeks to express grief and lamentation. The last line reads atque in perpetuum, frāter, avē atque valē. And forever, brother, hello and goodbye. It is a really moving poem, I just read it.

Thanks for the clips.

Di te optime custodiant!
Mattheus