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

[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