# Be Confident!



## pinklady7127

Can someone please translate: Be Confident! for me into Latin?


----------



## Cagey

A possibility:
For one person: _Confide tibi!_  "Have confidence (trust) in yourself!" 
For more than one person: _Confidite vobis!_ "Have confidence in yourselves!" ​Generally, Latin requires that you specify in whom you have confidence. You can't just have confidence in general.  If you want to tell people to trust in something other than themselves, we will have to find another wording.


----------



## Joca

Cagey said:


> A possibility:
> For one person: _Confide tibi!_ "Have confidence (trust) in yourself!"
> For more than one person: _Confidite vobis!_ "Have confidence in yourselves!" ​Generally, Latin requires that you specify in whom you have confidence. You can't just have confidence in general. If you want to tell people to trust in something other than themselves, we will have to find another wording.


 
Alternatively, you could say:

Esto fidens (for one person, whether masculine or feminine);

Estote fidentes (for more than one person).

Fidens/fidentes stands for self-confident.


----------



## Mezzofanti

In Matthew chapter 9,Vulgate version, Christ says "Confide, fili," with no complement. Hence I suggest a straightforward "confide" unless you are determined on Ciceronian purity.


----------



## Cagey

Mezzofanti said:


> In Matthew chapter 9,Vulgate version, Christ says "Confide, fili," with no complement. Hence I suggest a straightforward "confide" unless you are determined on Ciceronian purity.



As I read this, Christ is telling him to have faith in a religious sense, that is, to trust in something outside himself.  The earlier suggestions advise a person to have _self_-confidence.

It makes a difference what _pinklady_ intends to say.  Perhaps she can clarify this for us.

EDIT: There is a long thread on "Believe [in yourself]".  It would be relevant If that is the sense of "confident" intended here.  Click on > Believe.


----------



## Mezzofanti

Cagey,

Your theory sent me to the Greek NT, where I find that the verb used is θαρσειν  which seems to support my view that it is a recommendation to be confident, even bold, rather than yours.

I then looked at Lewis and Short, which emphasises that "confidere" means trusting _in something_, but concludes from this fact that intransitive uses (common in Plautus) can only mean trusting in _oneself_, i.e. self-confident, which I think is more or less what we are looking for (subject to conifrmation from Pinklady). Lewis and Short also indicates that "confidere" without a complement often, though not always, has a negative sense : overconfident.

Mezzo


----------



## Hamlet2508

Mezzofanti said:


> I then looked at Lewis and Short, which emphasises that "confidere" means trusting _in something_, but concludes from this fact that intransitive uses (common in Plautus) can only mean trusting in _oneself_, i.e. self-confident, which I think is more or less what we are looking for (subject to conifrmation from Pinklady). Lewis and Short also indicates that "confidere" without a complement often, though not always, has a negative sense : overconfident.



Somehow I got the impression that there are about 400 instances of "confidere" as used both in class. prose and poetry frequently meaning "to trust confidently in something, confide in, rely firmly upon" against a total of 40 examples , restricted to poetry , only 15 of which seem to convey the meaning of being overly "selfconfident".

Even in the Vulgate there are numerous instances of "confidere" being used with a complement.

As long as pinklady has not shed any light on what she intends to say , one might consider including classical Latin usage as well.


----------

