# Latin translation request: "Amor matris" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 11, 2013, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-translation-request-amor-matris/652618 "2013-03-11T06:12:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-translation-request-amor-matris/652618/1 "2013-03-11T06:12:32Z")
See subject. My understanding is that it has multiple meanings depending on its grammatical definition. Thanks ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-translation-request-amor-matris/652618/2 "2013-03-11T06:36:10Z")
Literally, “mother’s love”. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-translation-request-amor-matris/652618/3 "2013-03-11T06:40:40Z")
Mother love (i.e., the love of a mother for her children). There is no grammatical ambiguity to it, so far as I can see. _Matris_ is unambiguously the genitive form. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-translation-request-amor-matris/652618/4 "2013-03-11T07:32:13Z")
Motherly love, a mother’s love. You can phrase it in different ways in English, but it amounts to the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-translation-request-amor-matris/652618/5 "2013-03-11T13:06:49Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Mother love (i.e., the love of a mother for her children). > > There is no grammatical ambiguity to it, so far as I can see. _Matris_ is unambiguously the genitive form. Yes, but no. It is a genitive, but the genitive can be a objective genitive or a subjective genitive. Depending on which it is, the phrase can mean ‘love for the mother’ (objective gen - the mother is the object of ‘someone loves the mother’) or ‘love of the mother’ (for someone else) (subjective gen - mother is the subject of ‘the mother loves someone’). The meaning of the phrase is ambiguous and dependent on context. ETA: [link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitive_case), [moar link (pdf)](http://www.stcharlesprep.org/01_parents/oneil_j/Useful%20Links/Latin%20II%20Class%20Notes/Notes/class2-23.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-translation-request-amor-matris/652618/6 "2013-03-11T13:41:23Z")
I love my bed. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-translation-request-amor-matris/652618/7 "2013-03-12T02:01:28Z")
> [@Svejk\_1](#): > > Yes, but no. It is a genitive, but the genitive can be a objective genitive or a subjective genitive. Depending on which it is, the phrase can mean ‘love for the mother’ (objective gen - the mother is the object of ‘someone loves the mother’) or ‘love of the mother’ (for someone else) (subjective gen - mother is the subject of ‘the mother loves someone’). > > The meaning of the phrase is ambiguous and dependent on context. I’m open to correction here, but I’m not sure that you have the subjective genitive in Latin. What in English we can talk of as a man’s “love of his mother”, in Latin we have to call a man’s “love _for_ his mother”, which uses the dative case, not the genitive - so, _amor matri_, not _amor matris_. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-translation-request-amor-matris/652618/8 "2013-03-12T08:04:20Z")
Did you read the links I posted? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-translation-request-amor-matris/652618/9 "2013-03-12T08:18:54Z")
Oops! First time round I couldn’t open your .pdf link, but it works now and I see that it covers the point exactly. Your other link worked find, but didn’t explicitly address the question of the subjective genitive in Latin. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-translation-request-amor-matris/652618/10 "2013-03-12T08:28:58Z")
True, the wiki just discusses it in general terms. In any case, it’s been a while since I’ve dealt with Latin but I distinctly remember discussing subjective and objective genitives when I did, and particularly using the example of love, and a phrase like ‘so and so’s love’ being ambiguous. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-translation-request-amor-matris/652618/11 "2013-03-12T09:02:54Z")
Amor = Love Matris = Mother So, literally, “Motherfucker”. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-translation-request-amor-matris/652618/12 "2013-03-12T10:49:41Z")
Thanks. The word(s) are from a theme in _Ulysses_, and are identified by the character who says them, Stephen. I wanted to hear it doped out here, but didn’t want to queer the pot, as it were. I apologise if OP seems like a “gotcha.” It is from the Nestor chapter, and Stephen broods on his love for his mother and her love for him (“the one true thing”). Here, as a paid teacher, he is helping a not-so-bright child, Sargent, do his sums: In long shaky strokes Sargent copied the data. Waiting always for a word of help his hand moved faithfully the unsteady symbols, a faint hue of shame flickering behind his dull skin. Amor matris: subjective and objective genitive. With her weak blood and wheysour milk she had fed him and hid from sight of others his swaddling bands. Like him was I, these sloping shoulders, this gracelessness. My childhood bends beside me. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-translation-request-amor-matris/652618/13 "2013-03-12T12:38:47Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > I love my bed. _plaudere lusus clava et pila_ ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-translation-request-amor-matris/652618/14 "2013-03-12T13:02:46Z")
Latin does have both subjective and objective genitive, and the Romans sometimes used this fact in wordplay. There’s an [interesting bit](http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Gellius/9*.html#12) in Gellius’ _Attic Nights_ V.12 that is on point (Latin original [here](http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Gellius/9*.html): > [@](#): > > _Metus_ also and _iniuria_, and some other words of the kind, may be used in this double sense; for _metus hostium_, “fear of the enemy,” is a correct expression both when the enemy fear and when they are feared. Thus Sallust in the first book of his History speaks of “the fear of Pompey,” not implying that Pompey was afraid, which is the more common meaning, but that he was feared. These are Sallust’s words: “That war was aroused by the fear of the victorious Pompey, who was restoring Hiempsal to his kingdom.” It is clear from the Ulysses quote that Joyce wants to press the simultaneous double meaning of _Amor matris_–it means both “Mother’s love” (subjective) and “Love for mother” (objective). ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-translation-request-amor-matris/652618/15 "2013-03-12T21:58:04Z")
Thanks for the cite. I might add it (with citation of you) in the Ulysses-List, and pretend I know Latin.