Tempus fugit irreparablile

Amici fures temporum is far from being the only Latin proverb about time.  Perhaps the best known one of all is tempus fugit irreparabile, which means time flees irretrievably.

Tempus fugit irreparabile and similar sentiments are often inscribed in Latin on sundials.

Amici fures temporum

I can attest to the truth of this proverb: amici fures temporum, which means friends (are) the thieves of time.  These wise words are attributed to the eminent Elizabethan and Jacobian Sir Francis Bacon in his 1605 book The Advancement and Proficience of Learning Divine and Humane.

Amici is the nominative plural of amicus, -i (m), which means friend, and fures is the nominative plural of fur, furis (c) which means thief.  Temporum is the genitive plural of tempus, -i which means time.

Sepulcrum artifis ignoti

I saw this phrase, which translates as "the tomb of the unknown artist", on a postcard the other day.  The picture on the card was of a piece by the artist Grayson Perry.  The work of art was not my taste, however the phrase caught my eye, because it illustrated a simple grammatical observation.

As every student of Latin knows, an adjective must agree with its noun in number, gender and case.  As a consequence the ending on nouns and their accompanying adjectives are quite often the same.  For example, puella pulchra meaning beautiful girl.  However, whilst adjectives must always agree with their nouns, the actual ending expessing this need not be the same.

In the phrase "sepulcrum artifis ignoti", artifis is the genitive singular of a third declension masculine noun artifex, artifis, whilst ignoti is the genitive singular masculine of a second declension adjective ignotus, -a, -um.   Thus although the two words still agree, their ending are different.

Homo homini lupus

The bitter observation "homo homini lupus" translates into English as "Man is a wolf to man."

The pattern in Latin is the same as in asinus asino et sus sui pulcher - the noun first in the nominative (ie subject) case and then in the dative (ie indirect object) case.  Homo, hominis is, of course, a third declension noun same as sus, hence the dative with an -i ending.

Sus sui pulcher

Sus sui pulcher is part of a pithy Latin proverb: "Asinus asino et sus sui pulcher (est)."  The full phrase means: "A donkey (is) beautiful to a donkey, and a pig to a pig."

Asino and sui are the dative singulars of the second declension noun - asinus, -i donkey and the third declension noun sus, suis pig.

Redde Caesari

Jesus, when asked whether it was lawful under Jewish law to pay tax to Caesar, replied with the question "Whose head is on the coin?"  When he was told that it was Caesar's head - ie the head of the Roman emperor, he replied in the King James edition of the Bible "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's."

In Latin, this is "Redde Caesari quae sunt Caesaris, et quae sunt Dei Deo."  This immortal phrase is a simple illustration of how it usually takes less words to say something in Latin than in English; Here ten and sixteen words respectively.

Caesar, Caesaris is a third declension noun.  Caesari is the dative singular - to Caesar, and Caesaris is the genitive singular - of Caesar.

Similarly, Deus, Dei is a second declension noun.  Dei is the genitive singular - of God, and Deo is the dative singular - to God.

Vincit qui se vincit

The motto vincit, qui se vincit means: he conquers, who conquers himself.  Of course, it also means: she conquers, who conquers herself.  That's the beauty of third person singular and plural verb endings in Latin;  They can be masculine, feminine or neuter as the context requires.