Assistance with grammar on two inscriptions

[MatthiasD]

Hello,

I am composing two brief phrases for use as an inscription. In English, they read:
"I am made of ash"
"Because of shadow, there is victory"

After some work, this is how my Latin translations currently stand:
"Sum cinerio"
"Propter tenebris victoria"

I am fairly certain about the words, but not so much the suffixes. I wonder, however, if the first inscription should include "ego." Also, I am unsure about the ending "victoria" has in relation to the two preceding words. Any assistance is much appreciated.

 

[Petrus Cotoneus]

"I am made of ash/ashes" would be ex cinere/cineribus sum factus (or facta, for a feminine subject). You can include ego if you want to put extra emphasis on the first person subject, but it isn't necessary.
"Because of shadow, there is victory" could be rendered as ob/propter tenebras victoria. Strictly speaking, the noun tenebrae (acc. tenebras) means "darkness" and always takes the plural. For maximum literalness, you could translate "shadow" as umbram - though the accusative plural umbras would probably be preferable, since the singular makes it sound like you are referring to a specific shadow.

 

[MatthiasD]

"I am made of ash/ashes" would be ex cinere/cineribus sum factus (or facta, for a feminine subject). You can include ego if you want to put extra emphasis on the first person subject, but it isn't necessary.
"Because of shadow, there is victory" could be rendered as ob/propter tenebras victoria. Strictly speaking, the noun tenebrae (acc. tenebras) means "darkness" and always takes the plural. For maximum literalness, you could translate "shadow" as umbram - though the accusative plural umbras would probably be preferable, since the singular makes it sound like you are referring to a specific shadow.

Thank you, Petrus. I suspected the ego was an implication of the grammar, not a necessary addition to the meaning. I would literally translate ex cinere to mean "Out of the ashes (am I from)."
Concerning "shadow," the shadow in question is not mere darkness, i.e., absence of light, but a shadow caused by light. I have not yet come across a Latin word that suffices for such a meaning; other languages (Sanskrit कलङ्क kalaṅka, “dark blemish," Ancient Greek κηλίς, “spot, stain”) supply closer meanings. Perhaps caligo, but I am still searching for synonyms.

 

[Petrus Cotoneus]

In this context, the preposition ex does not mean "out of" in the directional sense. Rather, it is the customary preposition used with an ablative of material. The Latin factus ex cinere/cineribus is exactly analogous to the English "made from [or out of] ash/ashes."

I don't understand what you mean by "a shadow caused by light," and I am confused by your example of Gk. κηλίς, which - as you rightly say - does not mean "shadow" at all. The Latin umbra can mean either "shade" (in the sense of darkness, or relief from the sun) or "shadow" (in the sense of a dark silhouette cast by a person or object). For example, in Tusc. 1.46, Cicero writes:

"Gloria . . . virtutem tamquam umbra sequitur."
(Glory . . . follows virtue like an <umbra>)

In this passage, Cicero is clearly not using umbra to mean "darkness" generically: he is explicitly comparing the way that glory follows virtue to the way that a shadow follows the person or object by which it is cast. Hopefully this suffices to convince you that umbra is indeed a faithful translation of the English "shadow." However, as I wrote in my previous post, you probably should not say ob (or propter) umbram victoria, since that might make it sound like you are talking about a specific shadow, or even "shade" in the abstract; instead, I would recommend using the plural form umbras.

The word caligo, on the other hand, literally means a thick fog, but is often used metaphorically to mean darkness or calamity.