Dublin City’s motto is “Obedientia Civium Urbis Felicitas” and is displayed on the city’s coat of arms. I know there is more than one way to translate something but is “An obedient population makes for a happy city” an accurate translation?
Close enough. Its literal meaning is “The citizens’ obedience is the happiness of the city”, which could then be rendered in any number of ways…obedient citizens make for a happy city…the happiness of a city lies in the obedience of its people…
Felicitas can also mean luck/good fortune.
It could also be interpreted to mean that the citizens obey when they’re happy.
My Latin is very rusty, but as my teacher used to say, “Analyse, dear boy, analyse!”
Obedientia is singular nominative feminine.
Civium is plural genitive.
Urbis is singular feminine genitive or plural accusative. The former makes more sense.
Felicitas is singular nominative feminine.
So these are word pairs. In English there might be a semi-colon between them. Thus we have Obedience of the people (means) the happiness of the city.
This is interesting as it is slightly less sinister than my interpretation.
The motto serves as one of the strongest and most fertile tune for Joyce’s riffs in FW.
Dublin is, after all, Everything.
You have been warned.
Dublin is a load of cobblers.