# I'm the master of my fate: I'm the captain of my soul



## Medea7

Buenas a todos!

Vaya por delante mi agradecimiento a quien pueda ayudarme.

Quería traducir la frase "Soy el amo de mi destino, el capitán de mi alma" al latín, pero hace más de 10 años que estudié Latín (a nivel bachillerato) y me está costando mucho sacar la traducción... es importante para una persona y agradecería mucho cualquier ayuda.

Un saludo!

Hi everybody!

I'm trying to translate the quote "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul" into Latin but it's hard to me, so I would appreciate your help!


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## fdb

It might help to point out that this a translation of the last lines of a well-known English poem of the 19th century: "Invictus" by a certain W.E. Henley:

I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.


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## Medea7

You're right. Thank you very much for your help. Now maybe someone can help me with the translation of the phrase into Latin.

Sorry if I do not speak well in English, and again thanks for the suggestion.


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## metaphrastes

Salve, Medea,
I will try a shot, although I am not a Latinist, and this is for me more to exercise than to teach (that is, I may be wrong or writing in bad style):

"Ego sum dominus (magister) fati mei,
ego sum nauarchus (dux, capitaneus) animae meae."

Now there are some issues I welcome the insights of more knowledgeable people: the personal pronoun "ego" is seldom used, since the verb inflexion in Latin is clear enough to understand who is the subject - however it may be used as a matter of emphasis. Since these lines are exactly affirming the freedom or sovereignty of the poet, maybe the double use of "ego" will not be excessive.

I am not sure what would be better to render the English "master" in this context, "magister" or "dominus".

Regarding "captain", there is "capitaneus", but it is not found in the Classics, being rather Neo-Latin, to supply the lack of modern terms or usages. Thus, if the translation wants to emphasize the image of the soul as a ship on the troubled waters of the sea of life, one has to search for a naval term, that would be _nauarchus, _that is, _the master of a vessel._

However, _captain, _originally, was not a naval term, meaning just leadership and coming from the same root of _caput, _that is, _head - _and from these two lines it is not clear if the poet meant this naval imagery. If one does not want to emphasize this aspect, I found _centurio, _that is, _centurion, _but this does not seem to match well. There is also _dux, a leader, a guide, a conductor, a commander, _that would be close to the meaning of _dominus _or _magister _(then, loosing semantic contrast).

Lastly but not the least, I am not sure if the possessive _mei _and _meae _should actually come in genitive, agreeing with _fati _and _animae, _or if they should agree with _dominus _and _nauarchus, dux, _in nominative.

Besides that, there is also the issue of style and the words order. Latin allows much more freedom, and one might change the natural order of subject, verb and complement according what one wants to emphasize. Thus, it would be possible to emphasize the key-words, starting with them (the emphasis on the "ego" would be left behind):

"Dominus sum fati mei,
dux sum animae meae."

Or, for example: "Fati mei dominus sum,
animae meae dux sum."

Now, I would thank any correction or insight


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## Medea7

Salve, Metaphrastes, 

It's very interesting everything you have explained and I appreciate your help. 
I share some doubts that you have explained in your message.

Let's see if anyone can bring something more about this topic. 

Thank you very much for your help!


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## Penyafort

metaphrastes said:


> Or, for example: "Fati meu dominus sum,
> animae meae dux sum."



In my opinion, this is the best option. But the possessive should agree with the noun it modifies.

*FATI MEI DOMINVS SVM*
*    ANIMAE MEAE DVX*​
I guess another option could be joining both:

*DOMINVS FATI MEI SVM*
*DUXQVE ANIMAE MEAE*​


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## metaphrastes

Penyafort said:


> In my opinion, this is the best option. But the possessive should agree with the noun it modifies.


Thank you, Penyafort, I am glad to know there is no blatant error, so far. The "fati meu" was a distraction, I simply slipped to the Portuguese form "meu".


Penyafort said:


> *FATI MEI DOMINVS SVM*
> * ANIMAE MEAE DVX*


In capitular letters and with the V instead of U it seems real Latin!  _(note @Medea7: in Latin, actually there was no "u" letter, a "v" would work for both, being in general a vowel but in some cases a consonant or semi-consonant, something between a "v" or "w", I think). _Now, in such couple of sentences, would the repetition of "SVM" be unnecessary? I can now recall a few cases of ellipsis in Latin, of elements used in previous clauses, but would be their repetition actually in bad style? (at least in English, it seems me part of the strong effect of the ending verses comes from the repetition of the "I am" and the exact parallelism in the order of terms and metric, that expresses a very determined mindset - each verse is an exclamation by itself -, but maybe it would simply be bad style in Latin)



Penyafort said:


> *DOMINVS FATI MEI SVM*
> *DUXQVE ANIMAE MEAE*


Another note @Medea7: the "que" added to "DVX" works as the conjunction "and". In modern languages, it seems weird to have a conjunction after the first word of the conjoined clausula, but in Latin or Greek some conjunctions works so (note however that "et" works exactly as in English, Portuguese or Spanish, before the first word of the conjoined clausula).
Now, @Penyafort: the same issue that I pointed above applies to this alternative, about the emphatic character of each verse, and if whether or not it might be expressed in Latin.

Besides that, I would add the metric of versification. As we can see in this page: Invictus by William Ernest Henley, the whole poem is made upon English verses of eight syllables. Thus, one would be tempted to render it in regular Latin verses. If "SVM" might be repeated, and adding also the conjunction in "DVXQVE", we would have two regular verses of seven syllables:

*DOMINVS FATI MEI SVM*
*DUX ANIMAE MEAE SVM*

Yes I am aware Classical Latin metric did not work as modern poetry metric, but it would be definitively beyond my paygrade


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## Medea7

Your contributions are very interesting and I'm very grateful for the help, since you have clarified some important points 

Someone has told me that it could also be correct "Fati dominus animaeque meae dux sum", is this true?


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