Stand Alone Sentence

Textkit Community Open Board
1

I’ve been asked to add “Breve et irreparabile tempus” as a motto for something we are working on, from Aeneid X, 467.

However, I believe they’ve missed the end off, i.e. “Breve et irreparabile tempus omnibus est vitae”.

Can the 4 words stand in isolation? Or have we just been left with 2 adjectives and a noun?

Thanks for your help.

P

2

“Breve and irreparabile tempus” makes sense by itself, specifically it says “[A] brief and irreparable time.” The meaning of the full sentence, however, will only be evident to those who know its original context. I don’t think this is a problem per se; lots of mottoes will be snippets of or nods to longer sentiments. Whether your audience will understand this is another thing, but given the fact that today’s Latin reading audience is very small anyways, I suppose it wouldn’t be a problem for them (at least they could go look up the full phrase, if they were curious).

3

Great … thanks for your help.

Much appreciated.