# Abyssus abyssum invocat! Caelitus mihi vires de profundis!



## been4years

Hello, teachers

I am translating an English book and it has some Latin sentences that I don't understand.
Of course I tried to look it up on the internet, but it didn't make any sense.
Google translation says it means 
"Deep calls! From the depths to befriend me strength."
But it doesn't make sense at all.
Could you tell me what does this following Latin sentence mean?
"Abyssus abyssum invocat! Caelitus mihi vires de profundis!"

Thank you in advance.


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## Flaminius

Hi,
Your sentence actually combines three independent quotes that merit one thread for each.  I will treat them in separate posts in case the moderators need reorganize the thread.

Abyssus abyssum invocat.
Most literally: Deep calls for deep.
Its source is Ps 42:7 in Vulgate Bible.  The phrase has, detached from the original context, come to mean evil cals for evil, or there is no end for turpitude.


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## Flaminius

Caelitus mihi vires
This means, "my powers are from heavens."  The "from heavens" part is expressed by the adverb caelitus. I don't know the source of this quote.


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## Flaminius

De profundis
This means "from the deep [bottom of waters]" and symbolically implies dangers of both physical and moral natures.  Originally from Ps 130:1, it is the name of a section in the mass for the dead.  The phrase is quite at odds with the rest of your sentence because the former speaks of heavens, and the latter, the deep.  It may be for artistic reasons I cannot surmise.


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## been4years

Hello Flaminus,

I don't know how to thank you.
Your answers really helped.
In this book, this person says this Latin sentence because he is cross about someone who said very mean words to him.
I think I can manage to translate this sentence into my language based on your explanation.
It doesn't have to be exact word-to-word translation, but I needed to know what's behind the sentence.

Thank you very much for your detailed and kind answer.


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## flljob

profundus, -a, -um
3 alto, eccelso: caelum profundum, l'alto cielo, VERG.;

profundus también tiene que ver con lo alto. No solo con deep, también con high.


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## Circunflejo

If it's the book that I'm thinking about, I'd say that they didn't translate that into Spanish but Latin isn't that strange for us because we speak a Romance language so I don't know if it would really work for Koreans to leave it in Latin.



Flaminius said:


> Caelitus mihi vires
> This means, "my powers are from heavens."


It's true that vires is plural but I've seen many times this sentence translated to English as _my strenght is from heavens._



Flaminius said:


> I don't know the source of this quote.



I know it was a motto of a viscount of Ranelagh but surely the motto was chosen for a reason and I don't know it. It could refer (not literally) to bible texts like 1st Maccabees 3, 19 or luke 22, 43.


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## been4years

Hi Circunflejo,

No, I don't think leaving it in Latin would work. That's how they do as most of readers wouldn't understand it at all.
I should try to make this sentence into something senseful in Korean.
Or, I could leave the original sentence in a footnote or the other way round.
Anyway, thank you for giving me the source of the quote.


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## Circunflejo

Profundis also means boundless and I think it can be a metaphoric reference to God.


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