We all, unlike most “qualified” english degree holders (I would wipe my bum with one to be honest), know very well that latin in particular will give the writer so many possibilites openings different ways of rendering one basic idea that it is indeed better to write whatever you wish to write in latin, unless of course you want people to read it
I should be curious to know how the latinists of this forum render the below English, and then I shall post how I wrote it, a long time ago now in the summer. There is no right and wrong way, provided of course that grammar be sound. Then again I myself am a hypocrite and tend to stretch rules past the limit of proportionality. jam sermonis nimis, traducite! si amplius vivere vultis!
Das English
We looked at eachother worriedly and unbeknown to him decided, according to the custom of the decent friend, that he was to be left behind. But it was too late.
Surely there are other paths to honesty, mi Episcope? I’ve not come across this one before now, regardless of whether you mean ‘bum’ in the British or American sense.
The mind boggles: “Episcopus wipes his hobo [perhaps a personal attendant, a bit like an ornamental hermit on a wealthy 18C English landowner’s estate?] with a degree holder [perhaps this is an object not much found in antique shops nowadays: a special holder, similar to a menu holder or name card holder at a posh banquet, but substantial enough to hold a degree parchment upright, hallmarked (hence"qualified”?) silver or gold, and of English manufacture or design?] He does this in order that he might achieve truthfulness and moral integrity."
I proffer this translation hesitantly, in the hope that it may help scholars in the far distant future who ponder these particular words of yours. I cannot predict how they will interpret or exegesize your mysterious action, except perhaps they will conclude that it is to do with some obscure talismanic ritual, as a prophylactic against the regettable dishonesty to which mortal man is heir.
