I’m looking for a nice pithy Latin translation of “Behind our efforts, let there be found our efforts.” It’s a line from a Gene Wolfe novel, in the context of ‘behind every thing there is another thing - behind the bird, the tree. Behind the tree, the Earth. Behind the Earth, the Sun. Behind our efforts, let there be found our efforts.’ I really like the phrase, because it reminds me of Blake’s Proverbs of Hell - is it a philosophy to be admired as in ‘our motives are pure’ or ‘our work is never done’, or rejected as in ‘there is no thought or plan behind our action’ or ‘action for action’s sake’? Beautiful ambiguity, I think.
Google Translate gives me “post labores laboribus inveniatur”, which seems pithy enough, but I wonder if the “post” means more like ‘after’ our efforts, instead of ‘behind’ in the English sense of both location and motivation.
Post, pone and secundum would all be possibilities for ‘behind’. Secundum is the one of them that can also mean behind in the sense of supporting/helping something out. So that seems right for the ‘behind’ in this context.
Secundum nostros labores, ibi nostri labores inveniantur.
The repetition of nostros labores/nostri labores sounds whacky. Latin would prefer expressions not needing the possessive pronoun unless being emphatic. Wolfe emphasizes the ‘our’ by putting it in the penultimate position each time it appears, so I’d feel ok with one ‘nostri’ for emphasis.
But we have to write the word twice because the idea of finding one’s efforts behind themselves is so paradoxical that we can’t omit one of the ‘nostri’ and assume that the reader will understand it is implied. Unfortunately, repeating the already emphatic ‘nostri’ takes the emphasis way beyond the elegant underlining performed by Wolfe’s word order.
So I say we sacrifice the gentle emphasis on ‘nostri’ upon the altar of translation. A more Roman way to render Wolfe’s idea would be:
Secundum labores, ibi labores inveniamus. Behind our labors, there let us find our labors.
Shifting the verb to first person plural creates context that makes it unnecessary to write a first person plural possessive pronoun.
Vaevictus, thanks very much for your help. I appreciate the explanation that goes along with your translation. I last dealt with Latin grammar never ever ago, so can you let me know if I have this right?
“Secundum labores, ibi labores inveniamus” would be, literally,
“Behind/supporting (our) labors, there let us find (our) labors,” where the (our) is understood but not explicit, and the ‘let us find’ is in an active voice?
I’m going to ask my neighbor about this one - he’s a linguist but not a Latin scholar - but it seems to me that the second half of the English phrase is in a passive imperative mood, like “let it be done” or “let there be light”. Can that passive imperative be captured in Latin? Maybe you already did that; I don’t know.
Whenever I read Vaevictis, I realize how primitive Google translation is, and what good translation consists of. I have no doubt modern languages are the same, although I’ve never tested it. I’m sure many sites have put Translate through its paces.
Brossa, you’re right I changed the passive to active. Without much context the easiest way to indicate to whom these labors belong is to assign them to the subject of the sentence. Latin does not have a first person imperative, but it does have a jussive use of the subjunctive that is basically an imperative. So I used first person jussive subjunctive active.
On reflection, here’s a different way to avoid repeating noster and still make it clear that we are talking about our efforts both times:
Secundum nostros labores, ibi eidem labores inveniantur.
Literally: Behind our efforts, there the same efforts are found.
‘Eidem’ means ‘same’, but it often does little more than add a ‘likewise’ or ‘also’ flavor. So the above basically sounds like ‘Behind our efforts, there also our efforts are found.’
That is a good solution. Latin stylistics aren’t going to be happy with repeated nostri, so we vary it with an equivalent pronoun.
Inveniantur is 3rd person passive jussive subjunctive. Latin does have a 3rd person imperative, but it tends to have a weighty tone (used for laws and such) that might be unwelcome here.
Leo, I hear you on google translate. It just gives gobbledygook.
Quartz, I think that can work too, but maybe put in nostros/eosdem because the shift to second person leaves the reader without an indication that we’re talking about anything first person.
Nostros labores videte, nunc labores invenite. Losing the ‘behind’ element really makes it say something different, though. Pone or post would work almost as well as secundum, we’d just lose the stress on the implication that the efforts behind our efforts support those efforts.
For secundus to work, I think you’d need a primus in first. What do you think about using the imperative infinitive - “Labores videre; nunc labores invenire”?
He’s not using secundus. Secundum, the preposition, is obviously derived from secundus, but it does not require a primus in the same way the ordinal adjective does: its is secondary by position, and “our efforts” are the implied primus.
Hard to assess the infinitive as imperative because it is rare. In many literary instances it would be seen as grecizing. Szantyr says that one place it is not so rare is ecclesiastical Latin, and indicates that it is grecizing in that context too.
But it can show up in a variety of other places, including inscriptions, so there might be other forces at work. For instance, could some homegrown uses of the infinitive as imperative just be omission of debeo or similar verbs? That is just a guess, and I have no certainty here.
No need for a primus. This secundum is just a preposition, and by definition its object is what is primus.
Would it be the same translation if the English was tweaked to “behind our efforts, let our efforts be found”? I have always thought that the “let there be found (object)” was a more formal way of saying “let (object) be found” rather than “let our efforts be found in that place”. Perhaps that weighty tone that Vaevictis spoke of would be welcome.