# Parvule patrissa



## lerossignol

Bonjour à tous. Au bas d'un tableau représentant un(e) enfant de 7/8 ans très richement paré époque Renaissance, ce texte, que je ne parviens pas à traduire. Qui y parvient? Je cite" Parvule patrissa, patriae virtutis et haeres esto, nihil maius maximus orbis habet.Gnatum vix passunt coelum et natura dedisse, huius quem patris victus honores honos. Agnato tantum, tanti tu facta parentis, vota hominum vix quo progrediantur, habent vincito, vicisti, quot reges priseus adorat orbis, nec te qui vincere possit, erit" Désolé pour la longueur du texte. On peut répondre en français ou en anglais. Merci d'avance.


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## relativamente

Hi!

I'm only giving the translation of the beginning since I do not have available the dictionary right now

Oh, child patrissa, be also the heir of your father's courage,I suppose Patrissa is the child's name.


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## lerossignol

Thanks, RELATIVAMENTE, I had understood that far.Anyway I think patriae refers to "fatherland (nation)" and not to "father" , the genitive of which being "patris".Will someone else have a go?


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## relativamente

Patria is a noum  but there's the adjective patrius -a- um. I think here is the adjective

I can translate another litle fragment  

vincito, vicisti quot reges priseus adorat orbis, nec te qui vincere possit, erit. I read priscus instead of priseus

Do win!. you defeated so  many kings tha tthe ancient world adores, but there will not be who can defeat you.


Could be passum instead of passunt? This would make more sense


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## infinite sadness

Patrissa is a imperative form of the verb patrisso-as-are.
Parvule could be an adverb.


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## lerossignol

I am pretty sure about possunt, but I cannot check because I copied the text at the time and don't have the printed version any longer. If necessary, though, I still could check as I know where I saw the picture. As to parvule patrissa, I thought it was a vocative form. Thanks for trying. Maybe someone else will make another attempt.


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## Fred_C

Ah. Ainsi vous dites que c'est "possunt", et non "passunt"?
Oh, petit patrissa, sois aussi l'héritier du courage de la patrie. Le monde immense n'a rien de plus grand, Le ciel et la terre ont à peine pu donner un fils, et l'honneur (a donné) les honneurs du mode de vie de son père." Après, j'y comprends rien, ensuite, ça reprend comme l'a dit relativamente.

(J'ai supposé qu'il fallait lire "hujusque" à la place de "hujus quem".)


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## lerossignol

Je ne peux vérifier de suite les mots contestés, car ma copie du texte est manuscrite. Pour "possunt" et "huius quem" je suis à peu près sûr de moi. Réponse dès que je peux, si le tableau est toujours à sa place (décoration dans un labo d'analyses près de mon domicile)
Merci de vos efforts et à +


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## Starfrown

Here is the text, as it was inscribed:

PARVVLE PATRISSA, PATRIÆ VIRTVTIS ET HÆRES / ESTO, NIHIL MAIVS MAXIMVS ORBIS HABET. / GNATVM VIX POSSVNT COELVM ET NATVRA DEDISSE, / HVIVS QVEM PATRIS, VICTVS HONORET HONOS. / ÆQVATO TANTVM, TANTI TV FACTA PARENTIS, / VOTA HOMINVM, VIX QVO PROGREDIANTVR, HABENT / VINCITO, VICISTI, QVOT REGES PRISCVS ADORAT / ORBIS, NEC TE QVI VINCERE POSSIT, ERIT.

The image may be seen in full glory here.


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## wonderment

Hello!  The text is apparently corrupt in several places, with variant readings for several words. I found two other versions on the web: here and here. In the latter, there is an English translation in the footnotes (I'm not persuaded). Here's my try; I looked at the all versions, and put together what seems to me the most coherent reading:
Parvule patrissa, patriae virtutis et haeres 
esto, nihil maius maximus orbis habet.
Gnatum vix possunt coelum et natura dedisse, 
huius quem patris virtus honoret (honos) 
Aequato tantum, tanti tu facta parentis, 
vota hominum vix quo progrediantur, (habent)
vincito, vicisti, quot reges priscus adorat 
orbis, nec te qui vincere possit, erit​(_parvule_ is vocative, _patrissa_ imperative) I chose to ignore _honos_ and _habent_; if these verses were elegiac couplets, those words would throw off the rhythm. _habent_ seems like a transcription error; perhaps somebody (the artist?) mistakenly recopied _habet_ from line 2? same with _honos_ from _honoret_? Anyway, this is the best sense I could make of these lines without distorting the Latin too much:
_Little one, be like your father, and be also the heir of his courage. This very great land possesses nothing greater. Scarcely could the heaven and nature give (to the world) this child whom the excellence of his father distinguishes. Strive greatly to reach the deeds of such a parent, to where the wishes of men could scarcely advance. Be victorious, you have surpassed so many kings whom the land reveres, and there will be no one to surpass you.​_-----
Edit add: Starfrown, I had not seen the image you linked to before I posted. I still think that there are transcription errors by the artist; perhaps the painting and verses were commissioned separately...


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## infinite sadness

Ok.
My attempt:

   Oh baby, imitate your father, also will be heir of paternal virtue, the huge world hasn’t anything more. Nature and sky hardly can be given to a son, (or) honours to honour  of his won father.
  Oh you only comparable, making up of so great father, oppose man hardly so that they will not progress, you will stop they will have, you won, as many kings of the world as Priscus invokes, and there will be no one who can win you.


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## Stoicorum_simia

wonderment said:


> The text is apparently corrupt in several places, with variant readings for several words. I found two other versions on the web.... In the latter, there is an English translation in the footnotes (I'm not persuaded).
> 
> The English translation in the second place (Wornum's book) seems about right to me. Here's a literalish version:
> 
> _Little one, be like your father; be the heir of your father's virtue/merit, the huge world holds nothing greater [than this]. Heaven and nature could scarce have given a son to whom this father's vanquished repute gives repute [i.e. it would hardly be possible for Henry's son to be better than Henry]. Only equal the deeds of so great a parent; human prayers scarcely have anywhere further to go [nothing more could be asked]. Be victorious [over him, and] you have conquered/surpassed all the kings whom the ancient world adores, and there will be none who can surpass you._


 I chose to ignore _honos_ and _habent_; if these verses were elegiac couplets, those words would throw off the rhythm. 

I am not sure what the problem is here; on the contrary, these words are necessary to complete the pentameters. Maybe you have forgotten the elision in _vota hominum_? I could write out the scansion with pen and paper, don't know how to represent it here....


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## lerossignol

Many thanks to all contributors, mainly Starfrown and Wonderment for digging out both the portrait and the litterature about the painter.All these are far beyond my hopes. Merci et CHAPEAU!


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## Starfrown

Stoicorum_simia said:


> ...Heaven and nature could scarce have given a son to whom this father's *vanquished repute* gives repute [i.e. it would hardly be possible for Henry's son to be better than Henry]...


 
_victus honos_ threw me for a bit of a loop. I still am not entirely sure what the author meant by it.

There are several other things about this text that bother me somewhat. I'll think about them for a while, and try to make a decent post summarizing my concerns.


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## wonderment

Stoicorum_simia said:


> I am not sure what the problem is here; on the contrary, these words are necessary to complete the pentameters. Maybe you have forgotten the elision in vota hominum? I could write out the scansion with pen and paper, don't know how to represent it here....


Thank you, I see now how the line scans (-xx -- - // -xx -xx -); I had counted _h_ as a consonant. Still, both the Latin and Wornum’s translation present difficulties for me in several places.


> The English translation in the second place (Wornum's book) seems about right to me. Here's a literalish version:
> 
> Little one, be like your father; be the heir of your father's virtue/merit, the huge world holds nothing greater [than this]. Heaven and nature could scarce have given a son to whom this father's vanquished repute gives repute [i.e. it would hardly be possible for Henry's son to be better than Henry].


To speak of the father’s “vanquished honor” (_victus honos_) in an encomium seems odd to me, though I suppose one could take it to mean “vanquished (by the son)”.  Without the _victus_, the sentence makes more sense to me; it honors and bodes well for the son to be born to such a wonderful father. 


> Only equal the deeds of so great a parent; human prayers scarcely have anywhere further to go [nothing more could be asked]. Be victorious [over him, and] you have conquered/surpassed all the kings whom the ancient world adores, and there will be none who can surpass you.


It's a bit schizophrenic to command “Only equal your father” and at once “Surpass him.” Well, which is it? I take _aequato_ as synonymous with _patrissa_: “Really strive (_tantum_) to be like (_aequato_) your father in his achievements” (i.e. 'equal' in the sense of "be like" rather than "rival in performance"). The only sense I could make of line 6 is: other men wish to reach the father's level of success but are unlikely to do so. It’s possible to interpret the line as “men could not ask for more than for the son to equal his father.” But that seems like a strange conceit to me. What parent doesn’t want his child to surpass himself in all his good deeds and qualities?


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## Stoicorum_simia

wonderment said:


> To speak of the father’s “vanquished honor” (_victus honos_) in an encomium seems odd to me, though I suppose one could take it to mean “vanquished (by the son)”. Without the _victus_, the sentence makes more sense to me; it honors and bodes well for the son to be born to such a wonderful father.


 
Yes, it is a bit tortuous, and gave me pause for a bit, but I think it has to mean 'vanquished by the son'. The idea is surely that the father's reputation is so great that if it is surpassed (and _vinco_ throughout must have the sense of surpass, rather than literally conquer) this very fact must necessarily itself give honour. Beat the world no 1, and their reputation, plus your victory, amounts to your honour. That's saying more than the sentence would without _victus_, and you have to remember that these guys like a clever epigram.




> It's a bit schizophrenic to command “Only equal your father” and at once “Surpass him.” Well, which is it? I take _aequato_ as synonymous with _patrissa_: “Really strive (_tantum_) to be like (_aequato_) your father in his achievements” (i.e. 'equal' in the sense of "be like" rather than "rival in performance"). The only sense I could make of line 6 is: other men wish to reach the father's level of success but are unlikely to do so. It’s possible to interpret the line as “men could not ask for more than for the son to equal his father.” But that seems like a strange conceit to me. What parent doesn’t want his child to surpass himself in all his good deeds and qualities?


I don't think the last couplet actually means 'surpass him', though that is literally what it says - I think the imperative is used as equivalent to the protasis (if clause) in a conditional sentence: '_if_ you surpass him, you will surpass everybody'. Compare in English, e.g., 'Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone.' The poet is using every ingenuity to flatter both father and son. He can't say right out that anyone could be better than Henry, but equally leaves the possibility just open that his son could...


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## wonderment

Stoicorum_simia said:


> Yes, it is a bit tortuous, and gave me pause for a bit, but I think it has to mean 'vanquished by the son'. The idea is surely that the father's reputation is so great that if it is surpassed (and _vinco_ throughout must have the sense of surpass, rather than literally conquer) this very fact must necessarily itself give honour. Beat the world no 1, and their reputation, plus your victory, amounts to your honour. That's saying more than the sentence would without _victus_, and you have to remember that these guys like a clever epigram.


I do see your argument for _victus_, and it makes sense. But Wornum’s translation of _huius quem patris virtus honoret honos_ as “...a son whose glory should surpass that of such a father” still seems loose and unsatisfactory to me; it may convey the sense of _victus_, but little else. 



> I don't think the last couplet actually means 'surpass him', though that is literally what it says (_vincito_ = be victorious/conquer (literally), there's no 'him' there)- I think the imperative is used as equivalent to the protasis (if clause) in a conditional sentence: '_if_ you surpass him, you will surpass everybody'. Compare in English, e.g., 'Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone.'


Correct me if I'm wrong, but this reading is only possible if one forces Latin syntax to conform to English. I’m not sure that Latin conditions could be expressed in this formulaic way with an imperative for the protasis. Are there other examples of this construction in Latin? Far as I know, in a future more vivid condition, the apodosis is in the future or future perfect indicative. (Similarly for the present simple condition, present indicative for the apodosis). All contrafactual conditions take the subjunctive. _vicisti_ is clearly perfect indicative (“you have surpassed”). 



> The poet is using every ingenuity to flatter both father and son. He can't say right out that anyone could be better than Henry, but equally leaves the possibility just open that his son could...


I’m sorry to say it, but I think Wornum’s interpretation flatters neither. Only the most self-centered and unloving of parents would be displeased by the thought of his own son surpassing him. Seriously, what parents (then and now) do not want their children to be better and achieve more than they themselves ever did?


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## Stoicorum_simia

> I do see your argument for _victus_, and it makes sense. But Wornum’s translation of _huius quem patris virtus honoret honos_ as “...a son whose glory should surpass that of such a father” still seems loose and unsatisfactory to me; it may convey the sense of _victus_, but little else.


It is quite difficult to render in English. 



> (_vincito_ = be victorious/conquer (literally), there's no 'him' there)


 Yes, sorry, I put the 'him' in because I don't think you can have 'surpass' without an object in English, and that is what I take it to mean. 



> Correct me if I'm wrong, but this reading is only possible if one forces Latin syntax to conform to English. I’m not sure that Latin conditions could be expressed in this formulaic way with an imperative for the protasis. Are there other examples of this construction in Latin? Far as I know, in a future more vivid condition, the apodosis is in the future or future perfect indicative. (Similarly for the present simple condition, present indicative for the apodosis). All contrafactual conditions take the subjunctive. _vicisti_ is clearly perfect indicative (“you have surpassed”).


From Gildersleeve and Lodge, Latin Grammar, p 379: 'The Protasis may be expressed by an Interrogative, or, what is more common, by an Imperative or equivalent....Cedit amor rebus: res age tutus eris, Ovid, _Remedium Amoris_ 144; _love yields to business; be busy (if you plunge into business),_ _you will be safe_. Immuta (verborum collocationem), perierit tota res, Cicero, _Orator_ 70, 232.' 



> I’m sorry to say it, but I think Wornum’s interpretation flatters neither. Only the most self-centered and unloving of parents would be displeased by the thought of his own son surpassing him. Seriously, what parents (then and now) do not want their children to be better and achieve more than they themselves ever did?


Well, maybe Henry VIII would be a candidate...but the poet isn't saying that the father doesn't want his son to be better than him, just that, in the opinion of others, he hardly could be. Fairly standard encomiastic stuff.


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## Starfrown

Stoicorum_simia said:


> From Gildersleeve and Lodge, Latin Grammar, p 379: 'The Protasis may be expressed by an Interrogative, or, what is more common, by an Imperative or equivalent....Cedit amor rebus: res age tutus eris, Ovid, _Remedium Amoris_ 144; _love yields to business; be busy (if you plunge into business),_ _you will be safe_. Immuta (verborum collocationem), perierit tota res, Cicero, _Orator_ 70, 232.'


 
That still leaves the problem of the following "vicisti." In English, it would be acceptable to say:

"Surpass him, and _you have surpassed_ all the kings the ancient world adores."

However, I, like wonderment, am not yet entirely convinced that the use of "vicisti" in reference to a future event would be acceptable in Latin. It seems as though "viceris," or maybe just "vinces," would be required.


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## Stoicorum_simia

Starfrown said:


> That still leaves the problem of the following "vicisti." In English, it would be acceptable to say:
> 
> "Surpass him, and _you have surpassed_ all the kings the ancient world adores."
> 
> However, I, like wonderment, am not yet entirely convinced that the use of "vicisti" in reference to a future event would be acceptable in Latin. It seems as though "viceris," or maybe just "vinces," would be required.


 
Yes, in prose I would expect a future perfect. but surely verse can get away with a more vivid construction (and of course neither viceris not vinces would fit the metre). Do you have an alternative suggestion for the meaning?


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## Starfrown

Stoicorum_simia said:


> Yes, in prose I would expect a future perfect. but surely verse can get away with a more vivid construction (and of course neither viceris not vinces would fit the metre). Do you have an alternative suggestion for the meaning?


 
No, I think the intended meaning is as you say. I'm only suggesting that _perhaps_ the author, a native English speaker, followed the English example a bit too closely. Of course, his Latin may well be perfectly fine. If someone could find an example of a native Latin speaker's using a present or perfect in the apodosis after an imperative in the protasis, we could put the matter to rest.


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## wonderment

Starfrown said:


> No, I think the intended meaning is as you say. I'm only suggesting that _perhaps_ the author, a native English speaker, followed the English example a bit too closely.


I think so, too, that what Stoicorum proposed is the intended meaning, and that perhaps the author was writing in Latin but thinking in English. 

Just one couplet that still troubles me: 
_Aequato tantum, tanti tu facta parentis,
vota hominum vix quo progrediantur, habent_ ​which Wornum translates as: “You, only equal the acts of your parent, the wishes of men cannot go beyond this.” 

I looked up _habere_: “With an object- or relative-clause, _to have the means, ability,_ _or_ _knowledge_, i. e. _to be in a condition, to be able, to know how to do or say any thing._” e.g.: _nihil habeo, quod cum amicitia Scipionis possim comparare _(Cic. Lael. 27, 103) = I have nothing which I could compare with Scipio’s friendship = I am able to compare nothing with Scipio’s friendship. Our verse: _vota hominum, vix quo progrediantur, habent_ = the wishes of men, scarcely where they may go further, they have = the wishes of men are scarely able to go further (i.e. men could scarcely wish for more; what more could anyone ask for? ). 

I would translate _tantum_ to mean “so greatly or to such an extent” rather than “only, nothing more beside”: _Aequato tantum, tanti tu facta parentis_ (Equal so greatly the deeds of so great a parent). The idea is that the father’s glory is so great, if the son could just equal him, he (the son) would fulfill people’s fondest wishes; anything more would be icing on the cake. I find this reading less troubling than: “Only equal your father; no more could be expected or hoped for”  (which is a lousy thing to wish a child, IMHO).



Stoicorum_simia said:


> The poet is using every ingenuity to flatter both father and son. He can't say right out that anyone could be better than Henry, but equally leaves the possibility just open that his son could...


In my view, it's flattering for a great father to hear that his son will be even greater still. I think the author can’t say it out right, not because it would violate the decorum of encomium or irritate Henry (unless he's a jerk of father), but because it would be extreme hubris to do so, like tempting the fates. The best he could do is to offer well wishes and gentle exhortations to this little child.


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## relativamente

I would translate   gnatum huius patris quen victus honoret Honos.

I think here Honos is intendet to mean the essence of the honour or the god of honour, and the father is said to be so honorable that even the god of honour is defeated by him and shoud honour him.


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