How's your Latin?

[ewx]

This cartoon contains the Latin phrase “MENDACII IN CLOACA TRUCES SIDERA”. I’m trying to make some sense of it.

MENDACII is the genitive singular of mendacium, which has variety of meanings mostly amounting to “a lie”. Being in the genitive means that there is something “of the lie” or “of a lie”.

IN is a preposition with with a variety of meanings.

CLOACA is the nominative, ablative or vocative singular of cloaca, sewer. I think the IN goes with this, making both “in” and “into” fit.

TRUCES is the nominative, accusative or vocative plural of trux, meaning several things along the lines of “wild” or “grim”.

SIDERA is the nominative, accusative or vocative singular of sidus: constellations, stars, seasons. Being plural, TRUCES obviously modifies SIDERA rather than either of the other nouns in play.

“The sewer of the lie” makes much more sense than “The grim stars of the lie”, so I think MENDACII modifies CLOACA rather than TRUCES SIDERA.

So: “the grim stars in the sewer of the lie”? Perhaps with “the grim stars in the sewer of lies” being a more natural but less literal translation.

(Of course I may be onto a loser by assuming it’s supposed to be anything more than dog Latin in the first place…)

Comments

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it wasn't just me puzzling over that one. Do we have any friendly classicists floating around?

[songster.livejournal.com]

I strongly suspect it's dog Latin. In particular, a reference to "lies wearing a cloak of truth" - a saying which has become something of a proverb in multitudinous variations. Probably popularised by this line in Romeo and Juliet: "Oft under cloak of truth hath Falsehood served her lust". That plus a pun on "cloaca" will result in something like the line in the cartoon.

[songster.livejournal.com]

Thinking a bit further on it, and the methods of tabloid journalists, I would say the intended meaning is "(dragging) stars into the sewer of falsehood" with the bracketed verb being implied.

"Truces" is there to give the visual pun on "cloak of truth", but doesn't really contribute to the meaning of the sentence. Also, the pun on stars/celebrities only works in English, not in Latin.

[songster.livejournal.com]

If Simon's right that "into" is not allowed, you can parse it as "(verbing) stars in the sewer of falsehood" with whatever implied verb best suits your perception of the redtops.

[purplecat]

I suspect the commenter on the cartoon who suggests that Sidera should be translated as "the Sun" is along the right lines, given the context.

[simont]

I suspect songster has the truth of it, but momentarily supposing otherwise, one quibble with your analysis immediately jumps out at me: since the possible cases of CLOACA do not include the accusative, surely that rules out IN meaning "into"?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I must have got confused with the possible cases of TRUCES/SIDERA when tying those bits together.

[gerald_duck]

My best guess is it's supposed to be "Mendacia in cloaca; truces sidera" meaning "lies in the gutter; truth(s) in the stars".

[fanf]

It seems "truces" can also mean staring. So it's Wilde. (ho ho)

[gerald_duck]

Mmm. I spotted the cognate — hence suggesting "gutter" instead of "sewer". But if so, is it not grammatically flawed?

And, if it is grammatically flawed, is getting the wrong sense of "lie" in the Latin another error, or a sophisticated bilingual pun?

[songster.livejournal.com]

"truces" can indeed mean "staring", or perhaps even better "glaring", but only as an adjective - "his glaring visage", or some such.

Google Translate does however suggest the complete phrase when asked to translate "lying in the sewer staring at the stars". So, no clever punning, just some muppet using mechanical translation instead of knowledge. O tempora, o mores.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Ha, well spotted. Oh well, I had fun trying to translate it properly anyway l-)

[gerald_duck]

Meanwhile, what on earth have you done to get your LJ so far up Google's pagerank? (Well, apart from configuring LJ not to let search engines crawl it, of course.)

I just searched for truces latin to check fanf's assertion, and this entry was hit number four!

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I've noticed LJs other than mine rapidly become early hits for things they're discussing too. So I think Google just loves LJ.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I shall ask the classicists in the family ...

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Truces can't agree with sidera, which is neuter plural - it would have to be trucia. I think it makes most sense to assume "to be" and translate as "In the sewer of lies, savages are stars".

[twigletzone.livejournal.com]

"Grim are the stars (ie. constellations, mythological arbiters of fate) that shine on the gutter of lies"?

Can you tell I got marked down for overly free translations as an undergrad...

[twigletzone.livejournal.com]

Or it's a comedy mistranslation of "We are all lying in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars"...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

My uncle-in-law offers:
"It seems to mean something like "In a sewer of falsehood, fierce (or savage) people are stars."
Or perhaps "....the stars are the savage ones."
Not very satisfactory, I'm afraid.

And my father-in-law offers:
I don't think it is very good Latin. Literally: "of a[or the] lie / in the sewer / grim, savage / stars." Possibly he means Murdoch's lies are going to be beastly to the stars (modern sense)?

mendacii in cloaca truces sidera

[(Anonymous)]

Whatever else 'truces' cannot go with 'sidera' since the latter is a neuter plural noun and the form of 'trux' to go with it would have to be to be 'trucia', a neuter plural form of the adjective. Since there is no noun in the phrase which 'truces' could qualify, it has to stand on its own and mean "dreadful, appalling, people". There is no verb in the phrase so 'sunt = are' has to be understood. I think that Wellinghall is on the right lines and it means 'In the sewer of lies the appalling people are stars'. Keeton

Re: mendacii in cloaca truces sidera

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Or, more briefly: http://ewx.livejournal.com/581199.html?thread=4062287#t4062287