# Poena funesta natus



## Faethin

Right, although the gender discrepancy would be obvious in the phrase

_Poena funesta natus_

I'd like to know if this translation is correct. I include the whole paragraph to add context:

_Qui mortem invitavis_
_Poena funesta natus_
_Noli nomen vocare_
_Ille iterum veniet_

Translation:

_You, who invite death,_
_are born to an ill-fated grief_
_Don't call his name_
_That _[man] _will come again_

Am I correct? Thanks in advance for any help.


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## Joca

Faethin said:


> Right, although the gender discrepancy would be obvious in the phrase
> 
> _Poena funesta natus_
> 
> I'd like to know if this translation is correct. I include the whole paragraph to add context:
> 
> _Qui mortem invitavis_
> _Poena funesta natus_
> _Noli nomen vocare_
> _Ille iterum veniet_
> 
> Translation:
> 
> _You, who invite death,_
> _are born to an ill-fated grief_
> _Don't call his name_
> _That _[man] _will come again_
> 
> Am I correct? Thanks in advance for any help.


 
It doesn't look bad, but...

1._ poena_ actually is punishment
2. I don't know the form _invitavis. _What mood and tense is that? Do you perhaps mean _invitabis_ or _invitavisti_?
3. I don't see what _ille_ refers to. Death is _mors, mortis_ and is feminine in Latin, so it should be _illa_ rather than _ille_.

Could you please check the original again?

JC


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## Faethin

Joca said:


> It doesn't look bad, but...
> 
> 1._ poena_ actually is punishment
> 2. I don't know the form _invitavis. _What mood and tense is that? Do you perhaps mean _invitabis_ or _invitavisti_?
> 3. I don't see what _ille_ refers to. Death is _mors, mortis_ and is feminine in Latin, so it should be _illa_ rather than _ille_.
> 
> Could you please check the original again?
> 
> JC


 
1. You're absolutely right. My bad. It's just that the Spanish word for grief and/or punishment is, precisely, _pena. _Alittle mix up by my part.
2. I believe it is the simple past, second person. Just like, again, in Spanish, _invitaste_, "you invited".
3. _Ille_, as far as I know, is "that [person]" as in, (sorry!) Spanish, _aquél_, which means "that (masculine) person over there".

So the actual verse would be more like:

_You, who invited death,
are born to an ill-fated punishment
Don't call that name
That man will come again_

I appreciate your comments.


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## Joca

Hi Faethin

I am still puzzled. I don't understand "invitavis"; it appears to be 2nd person singular, but what tense? Is that the whole poem, or are there any more stanzas or strophes to it? It might help to know. 

Cheers,

JC


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## Faethin

Faethin said:


> 2. I believe it is the simple past, second person. Just like, again, in Spanish, _invitaste_, "you invited".



As I said, I believe it is in the simple past tense. There are other verses, but none of them mention the word _invitavis_.


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## modus.irrealis

I don't want to speak for Joca, but I think he's trying to say that the problem is that _invitavis_ doesn't seem to be a Latin word at all. If it was the 2nd person singular perfect (sort of = simple past) of _invito_ "invite", it would be _invitavisti_.

I'd also add that I'm not sure _poena funesta_, being ablative, is best translated with "to." I think that "in," "with," "from," or "through" would be more accurate, but I find the ablative tricky so I can't pick which one. And also, as long your addressing a male, there is nothing wrong with the gender of _natus_.


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## Faethin

So right word would be _invitavisti_...

Right, I did not know that.  

As for the gender, well if instead of _poena funesta natus_ were _poena funesta nata_ it would (however different from the one in question) still make some sort of sense. That was, in fact, the reason of the post: I was not sure whether the sentence had a meaning if it were with _natus_ ot not.

Ooookay, so, with all said corrections, the stanza would go:

_Qui mortem invitavisti_
_Poena funesta natus_
_Noli nomen vocare_
_Ille iterum veniet_

Which is:

_You, who invited death,_
_are born with an ill-fated punishment_
_Don't call the name_
_That man will come again_

Now that I remember, I've seen some cases where the ablative is left without a _cum_ clause, which is implied. I believe this is one of those cases.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the lyrics refer to Final Fantasy's self-same Sephiroth.


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## Whodunit

The poem doesn't make much sense to me eitehr. Here's my try to rephrase it:

_Tu __qui mortem invitavisti_
_poena funesta natus es,_
_Noli nomen vocare!_
_Ille iterum veniet._

You, who invited death,
were born in disastrous punishment.
Do not call his name!
That one will come again.

However, I think that they mean it like this:

_Tu __qui mortem invitavisti_
_poena funesta natus es,_
_Noli nomen suum vocare!_
_Illa iterum veniet._

You, who invited Death,
were born in/under disastrous punishment.
Do not call Death's name!
He (= Death) will come again.

I've found many distastrous translations on the Internet; some people even suggested "He is the invited Death" for the first line.


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## Faethin

Could you explain to me why it doesn't make much sense to you?

Surely I don't know Latin as many on this forum do, but I can't help it: The verses are almost Spanish disguised as Latin, if you know what I mean. So I understand many of the things Whodunit was kind enough to point out as wrong (such as the lack of _Tu_ in the first verse, and the _es_ in the second verse); there are cases, in Spanish, in which the pronoun can omitted because of its implication in the verb.

As for the _suum_ in the third verse, I'm pretty sure (because of the context of the verse) that the _nomen_ we're not supposed to call is the name of "he who invited death".

Thanks for everything. I wait for your response.


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## clara mente

I must agree with Whodunit. The reference to death (which grammatically makes the most sense) must be rendered by "illa" The stanza starts off in the 2nd person indicative and continues with the use of the 2nd per. (polite imperative) "noli" thus, the latter reference to "ille" would not follow and therefore should revert back to "mortem".


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## modus.irrealis

Maybe it's best then to think that the original _invitavis_ should be corrected to _invitavit_ and not _invitavisti_, and get rid of the the whole "you" thing. Then you'd have something like

He, who invited death,
[was] born with an ill-fated punishment.
Don't call [his] name.
He will come again.

That way you get _ille_ referring to the subject of _natus [est]_, which is of course masculine, so it's grammatically okay.


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## clara mente

Very astute observation, modus. 
You have bolied it down to only one "typo" which would simplify the the rest entirely. Reminds me of the court case in which this doctor was about to lose his licence for malpractice and his defense attorney showed the judge the original presciption. "One dose every 2-4 hrs" but the patient read it as "every 24 hrs." and subsequently died. Darn those little mispelled letters!


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## Faethin

Absolutely. I concur. This definitely is a typo. The way Modus puts it holds, basically, the whole meaning of the context in which the song, _Advent: One-winged Angel _(to which the verses belong), is presented.

Thanks a lot to everybody! I sincerly appreciate your help.


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