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Cassius , are you certain you have the translation right? I just received a copy of the Humphries translation in the mail this week, and my version has it; (Quote) I remember the audible version vividly enough to know it is the same there. And I would have remembered it anyway, as his is my favored translation of this passage!

(Quote) And also "plane" or "plain". In the Hymn to Venus "Aequora Ponti" is usually translated "waves [i.e. surface] of the sea". In English another word for this would be "reach", as a noun. "Sailing over a broad reach", and so forth. Perhaps "reach the stars" is not so far out of place?

(Quote) I suspect it was this! When I searched for the exact wording of the quote the only two results are this thread and NewEpicurean.

(Quote) Don Latin-Dictionary.net has these four variants under aequo. The poet in me rather likes number 4, for the 'reach' double-entendre I mentioned above. Edit; I had a long-suffering English professor in college who I think grew somewhat tired of my etymological leaps (reaches? ); but even he was impressed when he put me on the spot in a close reading of Milton's Paradise Lost, and I was able to furnish a connection extemporaneously between "malice" and "apple" in the scene in the Garden of…

(Quote) Aequor would be a noun adapted by metonymy from the adjective aequus, no? And aequo the same word as a verb.

This would be sort of like the word "level" in English: Noun; "a smooth, even surface" Verb; "level the playing field" Adjective; "a level, easy stroll"

(Quote) It's interesting that the Brown edition alone uses 'Gods' for 'caelo', instead of heaven, stars, sky, etc. That's a highly daring translation of the most dangerous line in a hugely subversive poem. It's no great wonder the translator remained anonymous!

Don I wonder whether you've ever seen The Browning Version? I love the 1994 production with Albert Finney. The film is set in an English boarding school (I think?) and the background of the main plot deals heavily with translation, as the title implies.

This is a link to Latin Per Diem, in the episode in which he parses this particular passage. He gives the following translation: (Quote) There's your 3rd person present active indicative, Don! "[His] victory raises us | victoria exaequat nos".

...The trouble is that I can't find a way to keep the tense and the meaning, and also make it sound good in English. "[And] his victory lifts us to heaven" The 1st person plural packs a much better punch. In glancing over the translations, Humphries is the "worst" of the lot in keeping to the original grammar, and yet his has the better economy of language–and to my ear is more elegantly phrased.

(Quote) 😂 For an extra treat, look up the etymology of the English word 'adequate'. After reading the thread I spotted it at once. Also, if someone can post the Stallings translation I'd like to see how she handles it in long lines.