Nota tamen quod Henricus Deffiat habuit

[penelope]

I am trying to see whether a legitimate translation can make a true statement of a sentence that seems to
perhaps say something that is false. The sentence to be translated is:

Nota tamen quod Henricus Deffiat habuit Sun Jupiter & Mars in Aries & octava domo, & periit morte violenta
ob Mars, judiciaria ob Jupiter, & publica ob Sun; quia haec combinatio quadrabat infortunio Mercury domini
Horoscopi, ac medii Coeli, a Saturn in decima domui octavae inimico, suoque aspectu inficiente Sun Jupiter & Mars.

(The names of planets and signs are in English because the Latin text uses astrological glyphs. )

It would be false to say: "because this combination was squaring the misfortune of Mercury," or anything else that
would say that the combination of the Sun, Jupiter and Mars squares Mercury. Saturn squares Mercury, but
those three planets do not.

I have doubts about my proposed translation, especially because the best true statement I know how to get from the
Latin interpolates the word "and." Is there a way to get a true statement with a legitimate translation and
without an interpolation?

My current translation is:

Note, however, that Henri d’Effiat had the Sun, Jupiter and Mars in Aries in the eighth house,
and died a violent death from Mars, a judicial one from Jupiter, and a public one from the Sun—
because of this combination [and] the misfortune that Mercury, ruler of the Horoscope and of
the Midheaven, was squaring Saturn, unfriendly to the eighth house in the tenth house, its own
aspect infecting the Sun, Jupiter and Mars.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Pacifica]

(The names of planets and signs are in English because the Latin text uses astrological glyphs. )

I wondered if the text had been massacred by autocorrect!

Why not transcribe the glyphs as Latin?

died a violent death from Mars, a judicial one from Jupiter, and a public one from the Sun

Is there a reason to prefer "from" to the more literal translation "because of/owing to"?

because of

Quia means "because" (conjunction), not "because of".

[and]

As you suspected, this addition doesn't work.

its own
aspect infecting

*infecting with its own aspect (inficiente goes with Saturno).




As for the main question: classically, quadrare + dative means "to square with" (be consistent with, etc.), which here would give us the meaning "this combination squares/is consistent with a misfortune of Mercury..." Again, I don't know much about the topic, so I'm asking you: could that make sense?

 

[penelope]

Yes, the misfortune of Mercury does square with the unfortunate meaning of that combination. This solves the main problem I was having. Thanks so much for that.

"Because of" was part of how I was torturing the text to try to get it say something I could understand as true.

Thank you for the correction on ob, and about inficiente and Saturno.

I appreciate your reply. I'm in learning mode with self-taught Latin, and your explanations are a great help. Thank you!