I don’t know Latin very well and every site that I’ve gone to has just confused me. I want to get a memorial tattoo for my grandfather and for a miscarriage I recently had.

I’ve been wanting to get a tattoo of something from Lewis Carroll’s “The Walrus and The Carpenter” for a long time. My Grandfather used to read “Through the Looking Glass” to me all the time and quoted that poem to me a lot growing up. I read the poem at his funeral for him. He also was a language major and spoke 6 different languages. His favorite was Latin.

So what I’m thinking about getting is the quote “‘I weep for you,’ the walrus said” in latin.

This is what I have so far…
defleo vos odobenus locutus

I’m thinking about using the scientific name for walrus since I’m a zookeeper… or would this be too out of place for this quote?

Odobenus is the genus for a walrus.

Does anyone know if this is right, can correct it, or point me in the right direction?

Hello Melissa! :)

I’m glad I saw this thread! I will try my best to help with the translation (and explain a couple of things too). I like the idea of the tattoo very much!

SO:

I weep = defleo – it’s good; other variants would have been: ploro, lacrimor or even fleo, but I like this better.

for you – if you want to use the plural, vos is the correct form. If you want the singular, you should use te. This is the Accusative case, because the verb defleo is transitive.

the walrus – I looked in up in my dictionaries and didn’t find anything other than the scientific name, I think it is all right to use it in this case. I don’t think the Romans had ever seen a walrus, so the scientific name will do!

said – locutus est (with the est ) would be ok, but I think it would be more natural to use inquit. Loquor (from which the locutus form comes) is a verb meaning “to speak” in general, but when the words of a character appear, the verb is inquit….

My variant:

“Defleo te,” inquit Odobenus.

As you probably know, word order in flexible in Latin, but I’d use this particular one (with the word for walrus at the end to put emphasis on it).

Hope this helps!

Thank you so much Sandra for your help! <333

You’re very welcome, Melissa!

Hi Melissa and Sandra (or perhaps I should say Salvete!) What about “dixit” for “he said”? That would be suitable too, no?

Salve Christina!

Yes, dixit would be perfectly correct from gramatically, but as far as style is concerned, I don’t think it would be the most appropriate in this context….. I don’t have a certain rule in mind when I say this, but from all the Latin text I’ve gone through, I’ve never come across dicere used when someone’s words are cited. Inquit, on the other hand, is very frequent in this context.

But yes, strictly it is correct grammar.

Ah, ok. . . I was thinking of “ipse dixit”, but after reading your reply, I looked online for a specific rule, and found that inquit should always be used with direct quotations, whereas dixit only works indirectly. . . in other words, to use it one would have to say “The walrus said that he weeps for you”. Not quite the same. Thanks for clearing it up a bit (and inspiring me to review my Latin grammar again)!

Well, my pleasure as always! :)

And thank you, too – I honestly say that I didn’t know that specific rule…. I just “felt” that inquit would be better…. But now I’ll remember the rule! :)

Sandra ! I read that Plinus called a walrus “hippocampus”.
The old Scandinavian word was ROSM. That’s the reason why Linné called it ROSMARUS.
I think some Romans saw this animal and were astonished by the biting fangs of the beast : French Morse < Latin MORSUS “biting”.
One question : How do you say TRAIN in Latin ? I met the word TRAMEN < TRAHERE + -MEN.