# To live is to die and to die is to awake



## tony99508

Can some one help me translate this to Latin?


"to live is to die and to die is to awake"


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## tony99508

Not sure if I got it right, 


vivo est morior quod morior est resurrectio

or

ago is est intereo quod interio is est suscitatio



I'll _appreciate it if some one can help me thanks...._


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## Redline2200

Welcome to the forums!
I know nothing about how to translate that into Latin, but I can help you by saying that you may get more responses if you name the title of your post what you want translated.
For example, instead of "can someone help me to translate..." maybe it would have been better to name it "To live is to die and to die is to awake."

Just a clarification 

And by the way, I'm sure someone who knows what they are doing will help you soon, it's just that the Latin forums are not nearly as big as the other ones here at Word Reference, so it takes longer for things to get answered.


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## tony99508

sorry about that, and thanks for the tip.....


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## Flaminius

Hello *tony99508*,

and welcome.  

As *Redline2200* has said (thank you, Redline!), please help make the forum a searchable and poster-friendly place by giving informative titles to your enquiries.  Also, we, as a language forum, require posts to be written with the orthography of respective languages.

Now, let me try to translate your sentence as:
vivere est mori et mori est expergefacere.

_Vivere_, _mori_ and _expergefacere_ are the infinitive forms of "live," "die" and "awake."


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## modus.irrealis

Hi,

With your attempt, the thing is you need to use the right form of the verb. A straightforward translation could be

Vivere mori est, et mori oriri.

Edit: I notice Flaminius got in his response just before mine and made me realize I had sort of made a mistake (my original _moriri_ doesn't seem to be wrong but _mori_ seems to be the usual version). It also makes me realize that "to awake" is ambiguous. Do you mean "wake someone up" which corresponds to _expergefacere_ or just "wake up" in which case, I think you need a verb like _oriri_ because I believe _expergefacere _has to be used with an object.


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## wonderment

Hi. The correct deponent infinitive form is 'mori' (not 'moriri') because 'morior' belongs to the 3rd -io conjugation (which could easily be mistaken for 4th conjugation).


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## J.F. de TROYES

modus.irrealis said:


> Hi,
> 
> Do you mean "wake someone up" which corresponds to _expergefacere_ or just "wake up" in which case, I think you need a verb like _oriri_ because I believe _expergefacere _has to be used with an object.


 

I think so for the same reason. Instead of "expergefacere" the intransitive verb "expergiscor,-i " could be used ; so I would suggest :

"Vivere mori, mori est expergisci"


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## modus.irrealis

wonderment said:


> Hi. The correct deponent infinitive form is 'mori' (not 'moriri') because 'morior' belongs to the 3rd -io conjugation (which could easily be mistaken for 4th conjugation).


But I was sure I had recently seen _moriri_ somewhere and it's listed here (when the site works) as an alternate, and my dictionary says _morior_ had 4th conjugation forms in an older period so that's why I went with "sort of made a mistake."



J.F. de TROYES said:


> I think so for the same reason. Instead of "expergefacere" the intransitive verb "expergiscor,-i " could be used ;


Yeah, I like that word better than my more general _orior_ 'rise.'


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## wonderment

modus.irrealis said:


> But I was sure I had recently seen _moriri_ somewhere and it's listed here (when the site works) as an alternate, and my dictionary says _morior_ had 4th conjugation forms in an older period so that's why I went with "sort of made a mistake."



The entry in Lewis and Short presents 'morior' as a 3rd conjugation verb: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=#29708. But also notes that archaic forms conjugating according to the 4th conjugation. I didn't know that. Thanks. 

As for the choice between 'expegiscor' and 'orior', it seems they're synonymous according to Lewis and Short; a main difference is that 'expegiscor' is archaic. So if you want to sound classical rather than archaic, I'd go with 'orior'.


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## Flaminius

wonderment said:


> As for the choice between 'expegiscor' and 'orior', it seems they're synonymous according to Lewis and Short; a main difference is that 'expegiscor' is archaic. So if you want to sound classical rather than archaic, I'd go with 'orior'.


I didn't know that, _gratias tibi_.  Okay, still wanting to salvage _exgediscor_, I'd translate like this in case you want to sound archaic  :
vivere moriri est, moriri expergisci.

Modus, thanks for explaining the form _moriri_.


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## tony99508

Thanks a lot for all the info, I got that line from the movie "La Bamba" the original line is in Spanish.... "el vivir es morir y el morir es despertar"
but its almost the same in English.......


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## tony99508

"Vivere est mori et mori est expergefacere"

Is this the right one?


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## Flaminius

If you want classical Latin, replace _expergefacere_ by _oriri_.


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## J.F. de TROYES

wonderment said:


> As for the choice between 'expergiscor' and 'orior', it seems they're synonymous according to Lewis and Short; a main difference is that 'expergiscor' is archaic. So if you want to sound classical rather than archaic, I'd go with 'orior'.


 
Sorry, but the standard  Latin-French "Gaffiot" gives Cicero's references with this meaning  ; as for the choice I agree with you they are synonymous : "expergiscor" seems more precise, "orior" is more usual.


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## wonderment

J.F. de TROYES said:


> Sorry, but the standard  Latin-French "Gaffiot" gives Cicero's references with this meaning  ; as for the choice I agree with you they are synonymous : "expergiscor" seems more precise, "orior" is more usual.



Here’s the reference in Lewis and Short: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=#17019

I'm not sure on what basis they mark the word as ‘archaic’ but it’s there in the heading. The frequency is rare (a total of only 21 instances attested in all of extant Latin texts). I'm not saying that it's the case with this particular word, but sometimes classical authors (e.g. Lucretius) used archaizing diction for effect.


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## J.F. de TROYES

Thanks for the link.The first reference given by Lewis and Short is the same as Gaffiot's and if we refer to Cicero's letter , it seems that the verb is colloquially used at that time  "si dormis expergiscere, si stas ingredere, si ingrederis curre", but as I said I do think ""orior" is also adequate to the meaning.


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