h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi,

I've just become a father and I'm getting a tattoo of my daughters name, I would like to surround the tattoo with an appropriate phrase like "I will love and protect you always" can you help me with any latin translations. P.S i will be checking it later just incase somebody tries to get me to tattoo "I'm a tit" in latin on my back!!!


Cheers

TE SEMPER AMABO ET CVSTODIAM (alternatively, SEMPER TE AMABO ET CVSTODIAM gives a more balanced visual effect for a tattoo - and stresses the 'always' part slightly. CVSTODIAM is actually custodiam, but the Latin 'u' was written as a 'v' and should be used that way for tattooes)

There are lots of different ways this could be translated, particularly the word for 'protect'. I've gone for 'custodio', which has more of the 'custodian' feeling about it than the warrior. But maybe the latter is what you prefer You can preface it with 'ego' if you like, which is Latin for 'I', but it's not strictly necessary - it would sound as though you were making the point that it is you, and not anybody else, who is going to protect her. Which, again, is perhaps what you're after. I actually prefer 'in aeternum' rather than 'semper', but that would make for a longer, and more painful, tattoo So for comparison, here are a few other translations...

EGO TE IN AETERNVM CVSTODIAMQVE AMABO

TE SEMPER AMABO ET TVEBOR

IN AETERNVM TE SERVABO ET AMABO

And so on...

Oh, and for your peace of mind, since the tit belongs to the family 'paridae' (apparently), the translation of 'I'm a tit' would be '(ego) sum parsus' Or, if you'd like to be a blue tit, it would be '(ego) sum parsus caeruleus'

This is very straightforward to translate:

"I will love and protect you always"="Semper te amabo et defendam."

Instead of "defendam" you may put "tuebor" or "protegam" or "custodiam".

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King Cthulhu: re your translation "EGO TE IN AETERNVM CVSTODIAMQVE AMABO", I have never seen the the conjunction -que appended to the first of two items. Always to the second. I don't think this is a good translation.

I have put "semper" first because a) it is usual to put expressions of time at the front unless there is some reason not to, and b) it sounds nicer that way.

Banjo Golly: Thanks for picking that up, I meant to write amabo custodiamque. That aside, -que is occasionally appended to the first of two conjuncts in poetry (there are a few places in Propertius, from memory) where necessary to get the right effect - tattooes, I suggest, should be just as liberal in their application of such 'rules' as poetry. As for the rest, well, it's a matter of stylistic preference, though appearance should probably be more the guide than phonic factors