Nil desperandum

This month sees the publication of a new edition of the Oxford Latin Mini Dictionary, an opportunity to revisit a language which has had an enormous influence on our own.

It was Ben Jonson who said of Shakespeare that he had 'small Latin and less Greek', but the Bard still managed to include one famous Latin quotation in his plays: Julius Caesar's dying words 'Et tu, Brute? [You too, Brutus?]'. In fact even today we still use many Latin quotations, often without realizing their origin. Cicero's question 'Cui bono? [To whose profit?]' is still just as relevant today as in a court case two thousand years ago, while the satirist Juvenal's cynical query 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? [Who is to guard the guards themselves?]' is still frequently heard.

It was the Roman poet Horace who first exhorted us 'Carpe diem [Seize the day]', urging us to make the most of the present, but such partying led the orator Cicero to lament 'O tempora, o mores [ Oh the times! Oh, the manners!]', a cry repeated by every generation since.

Juvenal's ideal of 'Mens sana in corpore sano [A healthy mind in a healthy body]' is still much sought after today, though there is less agreement on Horace's line 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori [Lovely and honourable it is to die for one's country]'. Warfare has produced some memorable lines: Julius Caesar's 'Veni, vidi, vici [I came, I saw, I conquered]' continues to be used in many contexts, while the proverbial cry 'Vae victis [Down with the defeated!]' is as true as ever.

It was not just the ancient Romans who gave us Latin quotations. The French seventeenth-century philosopher Descartes famously said 'Cogito, ergo sum [I think, therefore I am]', while on a less elevated note the saying 'Nil carborundum illegitimi [Don't let the bastards grind you down]' dates from the Second World War. And in 1992 Queen Elizabeth II spoke of her 'annus horribilis [dreadful year]', reworking the poet John Dryden's 1667 phrase 'annus mirabilis [remarkable year]'.

But the great majority of the Latin phrases we still hear today derive in one form or another from the Roman poets. 'Tempus fugit [Time flies]' is an abbreviation of one line by Virgil, while the untranslatable 'Lacrimae rerum [the sadness of life]' is another. And Horace gave us the most encouraging line of all: 'Nil desperandum [Never despair]'.

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