Absalom and the Sola Busca Three of Swords

Abrac said:

I found a decent online Latin translator here, and I'm wondering if a better translation for Unus Non Sufficit Ictus might be, "One not adequate for the strike." I've been trying to make my way through the body of text and it says some pretty bad stuff about Absalom. Translating Latin is turning out to be no cake walk.

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I am no expert in Latin and it can literally take me hours to parse a small bit of text (and even then probably contains errors). In Latin the relationship between words in a sentence is marked by word endings, not word order, in this case I read it as:

un(us) {=one} modifies or answers to ict(us) {blow, strike}

non sufficit = not sufficient or not enough, ergo

one strike is not enough

Abrac said:

Translating Latin is turning out to be no cake walk.

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Truer words were never spoken. It usually takes me days to translate a few lines and make grammatical sense of them, sometimes (for me) it seems impossible with these old texts.

I'm about three-quarters of the way through looking up the words I don't know and checking the others HERE. (I hope that link is right, as the site won't load at the moment - I'll check it later.)

As far as I can tell without working out the grammar, the text begins by speaking of loyalty to one's parents, and goes on to retell the story of how Absalom was caught by his long hair in the branches of a tree, and left hanging there (his mule went on). The three lances finished him off. There's mention of wickedness, hell etc. too.

Abrac, if you like I'll finish copying out the words today and send you the file to look at, as I'm not at all sure I have the time needed to do the job properly, or that I'd like to expose my inadequate Latin translation skills on a public forum.

If anyone else would like one, just send me a PM.

As for wickedness, ingratitude to one's parents etc., King David was no angel either. And Absalom did give Tamar, his sister, shelter (and later avenged her), after she was raped by her half-brother - David her father did nothing, althoughy she was supposedly much loved.

Pen

It is the right link GW, but it is down at the moment.

goldenweb, thanks but I believe I have the gist of it and I'm satisfied with that for now. I'm not really interested in trying to do a proper translation of the whole thing as it would take me forever and then would probably still be wrong.

"In Latin the relationship between words in a sentence is marked by word endings"

I wasn't aware of that. Good to know!