From: lwl@graphics.cis.upenn.edu (Lydia Leong)
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 1995 02:40:28 -0500
I've been trying to figure out _what_ Tariq told Cain. I seem to remember this phrase as one that was connected to the book that was taken from down below, but:
"Aperiant apitus ardeo aenigmata apparet." I grabbed my dictionary to look up the words, and it still doesn't make sense to me.
"aperiant" is 3rd person plural, present subjunctive of "aperire", which means, "to open, uncover, lay bare, disclose, reveal; to prove, demonstrate; to explain; to recount; to cut open, split".
"apitus" is not a word in my dictionary. The closest I found was "apertio, -onis" (act of opening; the word for opening, as in "aperture", is "foramen, foraminis"). The only possibilities for the case of "apitus" would be nominative or accusative, anyway.
"ardeo" is, "I burn" (present indicative).
"aenigmata" is "enigma". Singular, nominative or accusative (it's a neuter noun).
"apparet" is 3rd person singular, present indicative of "apparere", which means, "to become visible". (Or, "apparet" can be used impersonally, as in, "It is apparent".)
I, at least, can't make a coherent sentence out of this. Either my translation is at fault (very possible, Rob, Bill, you know Latin better than I do, I think?), or it's just weird. :)
-- Lydia
Nah, the equation that produced that phrase goes like this:
+ 2 yrs. of high school Latin
+ 1 decade of intervening time with no usage of the language
+ 5 years of h.s. French
+ 1 year of h.s. German
+ 4 semesters of Italian
+ 0 grammars available to me when I was coming up with it
+ 4 hours of sleep the night before
+ 2 hours until game time
------------------------
1 fucked-up crawdaddie.
Retconning the translation of the phrase:
I couldn't remember how to do a gerund in Latin, so I did it the way you do it in Italian (stem + ant more or less -- Italian is a beautifully simple language). So assume "aperiant" = "opening/uncovering/revealing/explaining"
You're right about "Apitus." The person who wrote the *Inluminatus* apparently coined the word, and uses it as 2nd declension masculine noun. It could be a completely made up word, or an abbreviation, or an acronym, etc. So for the moment, think of it as capital-A Apitus, with a question mark in parenthesis.
"Ardeo". One of the few things I remembered.
"Aenigmata." This one was a lucky guess.
"Apparet." "(It) becomes visible/apparent."
The confusion arises because I had no idea how to do "as" to link concurrent actions, so I dropped it entirely, since it is a coded, obscure text anyway and not meant to be easy to read.
So the key phrase translates (very roughly) to:
"In opening/revealing the (?)Apitus(?), I burn, as the Enigma becomes visible/apparent."
There's a definitely intentional play on words here on the part of the author, since "inluminatus" has an older, more literal translation as "that which makes something else aflame/ablaze" as well as "that which illuminates (the mind/spirit/genius)".
-m.
"In opening/revealing" == ablative of means == "aperiendo"; aperire is 4th conjugation, forming its gerund with its present stem, plus -e, plus -nd, plus the neuter endings for 2nd declension.
"Apitus" (assumed 2nd decl. masculine) then becomes accusative == "Apitum" since it's the direct object of the gerund.
"as (whatever)" isn't, as far as I know, really a construction in Latin; it's replaced with a bunch of things which are a lot more specific with regard to the exact time they're happening. You can have a construction of the, "When (x), (y)" (temporal or circumstantial cum clause) variety, or "Whenever (x), (y)" (concessive cum clause) or, "(y) because (x)" (and this last is split into two possibilities, that of actual cause and that of alleged cause), or just a "(y), while (x)" (and you have another two possibilities: straightforward, or with notion of purpose or intention). "(y), while (x)", is, I think, what's intended, which yields: "dum aenigmata apparet" (continued action in past time denoted with the "historical present").
Though come to think of it, you probably want to keep all the "a" words, so I suppose, "When the Enigma is becoming apparent" is the way to go, as it allows use of an ablative absolute (using the present participle). "aenigma, aenigmatis" (3rd decl. neuter), with "apparere" (2nd. conj.), so: "aenigmate apparente"
Therefore, putting all this together in a more conventional word order:
"Apitum aperiendo aenigmate apparente ardeo"
Literally, "By opening/revealing the Apitus, when the Enigma is becoming visible, I burn."
(There's probably a better way to say this, but I can't think what it might be, so.)
But I have a grammar available to me. :) Websurfers who are into masochism may, however, look at the one that's on-line, which is based off Wheelock's: http://www.to.icl.fi/~aj/wheelock/contents.html
-- Lydia
who must do _something_ to keep this language in her memory. :)