can some one tell me if this is the correct translation for this sentance
A prayer for a sound mind strong body and free soul
copos mens fortis corpus liber cor
I would actually like it to say “A Prayer for an indepedent mind, a strong body and a free soul”
If anyone could help me or point me in the right direction, I would be very appreciative.
A
A prayer for a sound mind strong body and free soul
copos mens fortis corpus liber cor
There are many ways to say this. Here is how I would say it with the words you have given:
oratio mentis compotis, corporis fortis, liberi cordis
Has a nice rhythm, no?
A nice little English phrase.
I did enjoy your undulating rhythm benissime; perhaps reversal of the middle adjective and noun would have improved the euphony with a little chiastic twist?
I’m not sure about oratio, however, unless April(le) envisages an eloquent speech of sorts, and doesn’t necessarily desire any religious connotations. Also the objective genitive that your construction demands is perhaps an unnecessary ambiguity.
I thought about putting my attempt in verse, but I couldn’t get the effect I wanted, so I resign to prose in failure:
preces sanandi animi animaeque liberandae et valendi corporis causa.
The distinction in English between ‘mind’ and ‘soul’ is a very blurred (if existing) one, and the best pair of words I could find to represent this were the masculine and feminine counterparts anim-us and -a; I think the use of-que with this pair yokes them together so as to be the opposing group in the mind/body dichotomy. I used gerundives so as to highlight the purpose of the prayers (for which preces is really the only valid word, if indeed I interpret the English correctl). Finally, I think I created an interesting, if perhaps too quick, rhythm with the mind and soul - to be read “san-and-yan-i-myan-i-mae-kwe”.
~dave
Hey whiteoctave, great to have you back! (for how long?)
I wasn’t very sure of the connotations of oratio, only that I had recently translated a Christian prayer which was titled Oratio, perhaps that was an Ecclesiastical or extended meaning. My translation seems to have sort of an ominous sound because of all the open-mouthed vowels, I am just started to experiment with sounds. If I reverse the middle adjective with its noun then it also creates a triplet of alternating C’s. I would normally have looked up more precise words, but I was interested to see what could be done with the words at hand.
I was almost going to do something with purpose, such as an ad construction, but your gerundive has nicely handled that aspect.
Hey Benissime, it’s nice to be back, albeit briefly. I’ll probably be around another 7 or 8 days, then back to term time.
What kind of education are you in? If you’re the same age as me, are you in your first year of University (or College as I think it’s termed yonder)?
~dave
Skylax Albo Octavo salutem !
May I add a note about VALENDI : as VALEO is an intransitive verb, I think that the gerundive (verbal adjective) can only found in the singular neuter in a sentence such as VALENDUM EST “One has to be in good health”. Here, I would use the present participle VALENTIS (or perhaps VALITURI, future participle?), or simply the adjective VALIDI.
Vale
I am afraid, Skylax, that with regard to Classical Latin, you are quite right. I think I must have got carried away with the causa+gerundive construction and forgot to raise my head up to the intransitivity of valeo! However, various forms of intransitive verbs can nonetheless be found in the gerundive, other than in the neuter singular (e.g. utor, fungor, vescor etc. and in Book 8 of Augustinus Hipponensis’ De Civitate Dei one can find the bizarre sentence “Quis multum valendo leonibus et elephantis?”!).
Accordingly, my version needs correction, and I suggest “confirmandi” to further the (perhaps cacophonous!) alliteration at the phrase’s close:
preces sanandi animi animaeque liberandae et confirmandi corporis causa.
cheers for the reminder 
where is my mind?
~dave
/Bows to Skylax
Coming nowhence lying in wait like Voldemort. (Apologies, reading too much “Harrius Potter”)
Whiteoctave why do you have to go? Surely the workload is not that great? 
Cambridge Classics puts out a lot of work but there is a great spectrum of effort on the students’ parts. If you want to really achieve your best, it’s effectively non-stop. I haven’t spent more than half a day in succession! not doing some kind of Classics work since early August! I’ve even converted my girlfriend (who reads Arch & Anth) to a strong interest in Greek tragedy, so the subject continues to pervade! It’s the greatest fun though!
~dave
Well, just make sure to post as much as possible while you’re here then! Your posts are always interesting and especially knowledgeable. Yes, I am in my first year of college, though technically I am still in my senior year of high school. Hoping to get into the Uni at San Francisco for their superb medical school, but I also want to keep studying linguistics and speech. How old are you again? I turned 18 last month.
p.s. - help me out and do some prose comp! 
A minute’s silence, I think, for another loss from Classics to Law or Medicine! It’s sad that you’re not going to stay with Classics, you appear to be a v impressive linguist. I’m 18 too.
As regards prose comp, where am I to do it?
~dave
Nonsense, I am not lost nor will I ever be! Latin is really my greatest interest and so I can never separate myself from it, I just feel a responsibility towards this other thing as well. The fact that Latin helps law & medicine is not at all my reason for studying it, but it is of course an asset. I would be a (jobless) classicist if I could… 
I was referring to the Latin Composition Corner, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to of course 
Well what’s going on in the corner? It seems pretty dormant. I think the people who give responses, viz. Ulpianus, Episcopus, Bingley, Rhapsody and, if need be, you, are above the level of the earliest North and Hillard exercises. Perhaps you could initiate some random piece of English to be put into Latin (in whatever authorial style one chooses), so that variation in the Latin is meaningful, as opposed to trivial deviation from the N&H key?
I think that’d be fun.
And as regards medicine, if you really are keen to follow it and actively wish to pursue the career of a medic, then go for it; it’s just in England many people are pushed or drift into and then realise it to have been against their real wishes. I’m not saying that is the case with you but I just wanted to check that you’re really up for medicine.
~dave
Well whiteoctave not every one wishes to dedicate one’s life to classics. Not at all am I saying you to be so for your music, females and whatnot Yet there is one specimen whom Raya to me identified, with 27 years, a PHD and a great deal of conceitedness. She said “what kind of life could he have had?!”
I respect more than he will ever know Steven for this decision to be a doctor, since I could never be so. I would faint.
I surely would not wish to spend my life reading dead texts in a dead language just because of some classics tradition of dedication and loyalty. If there were a possibility of travelling back in time I might, since that would be fun, a great experience.
Ah, Steven, a name!
Yeah I am perfectly fine with anyone’s decisions as long as they are active. The case of the 27-yr old who is embroiled in conceit is saddening to hear. Are you still planning on reading Classics? It needs people to keep coming in to stay alive; for alive it is, by no means dead (the amount of time I have to go through such statements!). A language “dies” only when (and if) it becomes untranslatable and hence useless for communication. No one has ever been able to come up with a satisfactory definition of language because forms of communication are so very manifold.
~dave