Live your life to the full - I will see you again my friend

[podder]

Hi all, I could really do with a hand...this latin melarky is kinda hard

I recently lost my best friend (male) out in afghanistan and i want to translate his last words to me and part of a letter he left for me into latin. The phrase in particluar is....

"Live your life to the full - I will see you again my friend" (as in heaven) (also emphasis is on the "will" as if there is no question about it i.e. i WILL see you again

i have had a go at it but im kinda useless but heres my version,

ago vestri vita ut plenus ego volo competeto qu iterum meus amicus

also how do you express the number 314 or 101 in latin??

am i anywhere near?? could anyone give me some pointers

Many thanks in advance

a much perplexed michael

 

[Nikolaos]

(working from the bottom of your post and on upward)

101 -
Roman numerals CI
Latin - depends on what you're counting. The basic form, though, would be:
Centum [et] unum

314 -
Roman numerals CCXIIII or CCXIV
Latin - depends on what you're counting. The basic form would be:
Trecenta [et] quattuordecim

"Live your life to the full - I will see you again my friend"

I don't know how to do the first part, but here's my attempt at the second:

Posthac te, amice mee, videbo

Latinists - does "posthac" work in this context?

 

[Bitmap]

Not sure, I would use iterum for "again" here.
The vocative of meus is mi.

 

[Nikolaos]

Not sure, I would use iterum for "again" here.
The vocative of meus is mi.

Ah, okay. I thought that "mee" looked odd.

Iterum te, amice mi, videbo

 

[Bitmap]

yes ... one more thing, I don't think I've ever seen a vocative mi following the noun it belongs to... it usually stands before the noun - which I think is pretty logical since you either want to make it emphatic or you just leave it out, since calling someone "amice" in the vocative should by itself make it pretty clear that you're not talking to some random person's friend.

 

[Nikolaos]

Again the voice of reason rings clearly - that leaves, for the final half of the quote -

Iterum te, [mi] amice, videbo

Of course, the original English didn't have to include "my" either - so I would recommend keeping mi in the translation.

That still leaves the first half, though, which I do not know how to faithfully render.

 

[podder]

thanks for the input guys, just go a few questions,


the friend is a male - should i use amice or amicus or does it not matter?

also, i have had another go at the first part of the sentence, it may not be an exact word for word but its the closest to the meaning that i can find - does the following make sense and have a similar meaning - fruere vita quam maxime (i believe it is "enjoy life as much as possible")

BUT IF ANYONE DOES FANCY A CRACK AT A TRUE TRANSLATION I WOULD REALLY APPARECIATE IT AS THAT IS WHAT HE SAID/WROTE TO ME

so is the below correct - Fruere vita quam maxime - iterum te, [mi] amicus(or amice), vibedo

do i need thew commas after "te" and "amice"??

christ my latin is really really bad. really struggling to pick it up :?

 

[Nikolaos]

Classical Latin had no punctuation, so the commas aren't necessary. The difference between amicus and amice is that the former in in the nominative case (the subject, or actor, of the phrase), while the latter is in the vocative case (being directly addressed). It can't be changed in this context.

I did a quick Google search for "fruere vita quam maxime" (I didn't feel like taking it apart to see what made it tick : P), and found out that it was actually recommended by Bitmap on this forum. As Matthaeus pointed out in the same thread, it can also be translated as "enjoy life to the utmost," which is very close to your request.

Now, to finish this, you could add "tua" after "vita" to change it to "your life", but it isn't really necessary.

Here's the full phrase (pending approval):
Fruere vita [tua] quam maxime - iterum te, [mi] amice, vibedo

The bracketed words may be omitted.

 

[podder]

Nikolaos & Bitmap thank you so so much for your help on this matter! I really appreaciate it! I think im going to get myself a few more latin tutorial books and really try and learn latin as it is interesting. Thanks again

 

[scrabulista]

It is videbo not vibedo.

 

[Nikolaos]

Oops, the dangers of copy and paste...

Good luck with your study, Podder. There are a good number of free resources on the Internet that can be used.