# The mind winged by the words.



## breezeofwater

Hello all,
I would like to translate into Latin the following sentence piece:

The mind winged by the words.
Anima + verbum + alatus?

- Anima alata verbis?

Many thanks for any replies.
BW​​


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## wandle

Unfortunately the phrase 'The mind winged by the words' is not good English. 
It is not clear what you are trying to say.
Can you express the intended meaning differently?


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## Scholiast

Greetings

The phrase comes from an exchange in Aristophanes' _Birds_, ll. 1436ff. (wherein there is lots of word-play about wings, flight, feathers &c.), but probably carries deliberate resonances of Homer's phrase, _epea pteroenta_, although Aristophanes' word here for "words" is _logoi_ rather than _epea.

_The Greek does not mean exactly what the English "By words the mind is winged", however. The Informer asks Peisthetairos to clarify what he means when he says that "One [fellow] says that his son has 'taken wing to tragedy' and his senses have been made to fly about":

Informer: Then people are equipped with wings by words?
Peisthet.: For sure, for *the mind is elevated through words, and a man is raised up by them*. So having equipped you with wings, I want to direct you through noble words to a legitimate occupation.

A direct translation from the Greek into Latin might then be:

_verbis mens elevatur,et homo effertur_.


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## breezeofwater

Thank you both very much for your help.
I’m sorry that I forgot the verb in my sentence: The mind is winged by thewords.
 
Scholiast understood exactly wherethat came from: Aristophanes.
I wish to get a general rendering inLatin.
By words the mind is winged > The mindis winged by the words mind > T*hemind is elevated through words.*
 
*Thank youvery much for your precious suggestions; I especially appreciate:*
_verbis mens elevator_
_ _
Would it be possible in your opinionto replace ‘elevatur’ by ‘alatus’ as an adjective? In my case it's also aquestion of sound as I wish to use in a poem.
 
_Many thanks.
BW_
 
BW


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## Scholiast

Greetings once more (not least seasonal)



> *Thank youvery much for your precious suggestions; I especially appreciate:*
> _verbis mens elevator _ _elevatur _
> 
> Would  it be possible in your opinionto replace ‘elevatur’ by ‘alatus’ as an  adjective? In my case it's also aquestion of sound as I wish to use in a  poem.



_alatus_ as an adjective unfortunately does not exist. But _pennatus_ ("equipped with wings") does, so grammatically you could say _verbis pennata mens_, or _mens verbis pennata_. This might have the extra bonus of a double nuance:  _penna_, "feather", takes on the additional meaning of English "pen", just as "quill" in English also refers primarily to a feather, but comes to mean "pen" because of the use of quills as writing-instruments from late antiquity until the nineteenth century.

In the context of a poem you have in any case poetic licence to write whatever you will, but also, for discerning readers, the allusion will not be lost. I'd like to read the poem when it is finished.


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## breezeofwater

Thank you so much for your help and interst *Scholiast*. 
'penna' is indeed a lovely alternative. 
So long!
BW


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