question

[KelliM]

has anyone noticed that on Johnny's website between his banner that says Johnnymusic.net and the buttons to the different links that there are words in very tiny print? well if you zoom in it says this:

<center><font color="green"> si meliora dies, ut vina, poemata reddit, scire velim,chartis pretium quotus arroget annus, scriptor abhinc annos</font></center>


I thought it was italian but it doesnt translate very well....anyone have a clue as to what this says??

[Kate4711]

I believe (from having studied Latin for a few years) that would be Latin..hence it not translating well. Most Italian words end in vowels, not consonants.

Kate xx

[KelliM]

Yeah that's what i thought it was later on - but i can't find a latin translator online - i'm just curious what it says...anyone wanna have a go at it??

[mimidavis]

I'm trying, all I could figure out so far are a few (easier) words... and I'm not even sure if I interpreted them right. tranlated word for word, it's something like

if better day, ut vina (???), poem retell (red- is the same as re-, and dire has something to to with saying/telling... I think)), chartis pretium quotus arroget annus, scriptor abhinc annos

as I said I could be totally wrong even on those, since I just grabbed most of teh translations from french or spanish, since I never learned latin. But the whole quote is something that seems to be very commonly used as a space-holder on websites (just feed it into google and you'll see what I mean), but no translation yet...

[Kate4711]

Right I've been having a hunt online and found the source of the quotation. It's from an epistle (piece of writing in the style of a letter) by the Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace). It was addressed to the Roman leader at the time, Augustus.

It's not possible to directly translate this word for word. It's written in a poetic style using almost the equivalent of Roman 'slang'. Also some of what is said (ie the first Si meliora dies) is a figure of speech. Such as "tell me about it" is now..it means "I know" but if translated could veyr much confuse someone!! Basically if you want it translated you'll have to find someone who studies Roman poetry (specifically that of Horace..and he is a famous Roman poet). If you try to translate you'll get something totally garbled, even if you use a Latin dictionary, because the word order won't make sense & many of the words won't be in a dictionary.

Kate xx