Short English to Latin translation

Latin Learning Latin
1

I’m trying to translate a motto into Latin for a friend of mine, and my Latin is rusty enough that I’d love some other sets of eyes to check my work before it gets calligraphied and painted onto things!

The original English is:
Light a candle or suffer in darkness.

My Latin translation is:
Incendete candelam aut dolete in tenebris.

So, any errors you can catch? I know there are some other options for “suffer” so let me know if you happen to know the connotations for this one are all wrong. But I’m mostly concerned about my rusty grammar.

Thanks for any help you can give!

2

I can’t comment on word choice or anything like that, but I can tell you that it should be “incendite”.

3

I think “accendite” for “light” and “incendite” for “burn”.
Strictim “accendite” non “incendite”, ut opinor.

4

Yes, I’d wondered if accendite would be more appropriate to the context. And I’m not at all surprised I got some grammar wrong.

Thanks, both of you!!

5

unam candelam accendite aut in tenebris dolete

although I would perhaps use umbris rather than tenebris?

6

hi, I had some questions on how you are using the two imperatives in your sentence:

INCENDITE: is your phrase meant to be addressed to a specific group of individuals? or is it more a general statement, like a maxim or precept, giving general advice and not addressed to any specific individual? if the latter, i would use instead the second person singular subjunctive ACCENDAS: see woodcock page 96, s126 note (ii):
http://books.google.fr/books?id=WmT6mS5v4dAC&pg=PA96

DOLETE: are you actually ordering the persons to suffer if they don’t do X? or are you saying that they should do X in order to avoid suffering? if the latter, i would use instead NE plus subjunctive. for an e.g. of this construction, see cicero’s pro caelio s80:

CONSERVATE PARENTI FILIVM, PARENTEM FILIO, NE AVT SENECTVTEM IAM PROPE DESPERATAM CONTEMPSISSE AVT ADVLESCENTIAM PLENAM SPEI MAXIMAE NON MODO NON ALVISSE VOS VERVM ETIAM PERCVLISSE ATQVE ADFLIXISSE VIDEAMINI.

this would give overall ACCENDAS CANDELAM NE IN TENEBRIS DOLEAS, without considering other options for the other words, e.g. CANDELAM/CEREVM etc. cheers, chad :slight_smile: