# nos seseque nominabit cervisia



## matildamother

Hello all, 

I was just wondering if anyone here could help me translate the following phrase into English:

"Cervisiam non nominabimus nos, sed nos seseque nominabit cervisia: Nominator nominetur."

My best try is this: 

"We shall not name the beer, but the beer shall name us: let it be named The Namer."

But, I have no idea what "seseque" is supposed to mean . . . I've never studied latin at all, I'm just guessing really, with some help from the perseus dictionary. 

The words are spoken by a brewer who invented a beer and uttered the statement above, which turned out to be prophetic, because a certain Duke liked the beer so much that he ennobled the brewer, giving him a noble name. 

Thanks!


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## Cagey

'Se' is a pronoun used to refer to the subject of the verb -- in this case, the beer.
_sese_ an emphatic form of the pronoun.  (Adding _que_ to this is curious, but I fairly certain _sese_ is what they had in mind.

You could translate it as _'itself'_:

"We shall not name the beer, but the beer _itself_ shall name us: let it be named The Namer."​
Your translation is a pretty good 'guess'.


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## Scholiast

salvete!

What an entertaining question! I'm wondering where the original quotation comes from.

Cagey knows almost everything there is to know about Latin, but I venture (timorously) a possible improvement:

"It's not we who name the beer, but the beer that names itself - and us as well.  Be it named the namer."

Σ


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## Cagey

Ah, yes.  That explains the _'que' _[=and]:_ seseque _= 'itself and'. 

I did miss that.


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## matildamother

Ah, beautiful. Thanks to both of you. I didn't know you could blend words together like that in Latin. The quote's from the novel _Tlooth_ by Harry Mathews—quite a read.


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## Cagey

(You can't usually blend words in Latin -- there are just a few that work like that, and _que _is one of them.)


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