Talk:Tempora mutantur

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Translation of mutantur

Add section title. —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 15:22, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I started putting my contributions to this argument when I found this Wiki page by chance and realized it was reporting some inaccuracies; e.g. mutamur mistaken for an active form. Regarding the following statement in the Wording section:
-- The verb mūtō means both "to move" and "to change", so an alternate reading is "The times move [on], and we move [along] in them." This recalls the image of time as a river, moving along, as in Heraclitus' Πάντα ῥεῖ (panta rhei) "everything is in a state of flux". --
In my opinion that should be deleted altogether, because it 's reporting an inappropriate translations of the verb muto. The usual latin verb signifying movement is "moveo"; while "muto" always expresses the idea of changement. However changements may be of various types. A special kind of changement is when you change the place where a thing or a person is located. This way the verb "muto" may sometimes signify movement; but only in this acceptation: i.e. taking things or persons from a place and putting them somewhere else. That is like tranferring, displacing, transplanting something or somebody.
The proposed translation in the above statement goes too far in the idea of movement. Tempora mutantur cannot mean times move on and nos mutamur cannnot mean we move along. If you propose this interpretation of "muto", the only meaning allowed by grammar is "Times are displaced and we too are displaced in them". Honestly this is not a viable translation.
Thus I propose to re"move" the paragraph, but I don 't like to waste somebody else 's work. So, the person who wrote it should do the removal; or please join this discussion page. Hi.
--PetroniusArb (talk) 10:12, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Just a note about the claim that mutantur/mutamur are in the passive voice. I believe that mūtō "to move/change" is one of those tricky Latin verbs that can be found in both the common active form but also the deponent form (passive in form, active in voice). So in this case the verb root is mūtor, but the voice is active (i.e., the meaning is still "I change", not "I am changed"). Furthermore I believe that the deponent form is more common when the verb is used intransitively (as is the case for this phrase), with the active form generally matching transitive usage. Memoro (talk) 06:27, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to join this discussion. The common translation ("Times change and we change with them") is - I believe - so platitudinous that it has little value or meaning. Of course we cannot know for certain, unless we chance upon a contemporary Roman discussion of it, but I simply do not agree that the Romans were ever so superficial. The passive rendition in the second half ("mutamur") is quite possibly the most significant element of the saying, and the part which gives it its unique cachet. Thus "Times change (or are changed), and WE ARE CHANGED with them" - this subtle difference conveys the utter inevitability of the process, and conceals (unstated) an imperative : "Deal with it!" In other words, "if you try to resist change, you go against nature, and it could prove your undoing". So not transitive after all (except perhaps the first instance "mutantur"), but subtle and philosophical, which would explain its survival, where a shallow platitude would not. 88.105.138.219 (talk) 19:00, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Interesting points in the response above: you're delving into the philosophical significance of the phrase, I was just plodding along with Latin grammar (but I'm no expert in either field). I have a feeling that we are probably in at least partial agreement here, at least as to the sense of the phrase. Let me see if I can explain...

In English, saying "the times change and we change with them" is not all that different from saying "the times change and we are changed with them", except that the latter is a bit awkward and more restrictive. The former allows, but doesn't necessarily imply, only voluntary, active change: the verb is used intransitively and is sort of in the "middle voice" here (interestingly, I seem to recall that some of the deponent verbs in Latin are related to middle-voice Greek verbs, but I could be wrong about that). I guess technically English doesn't have a middle voice, but semantically the expression "I change" falls into this category. Often when a verb is ambitransitive (can be used either transitively or intransitively) it is active when transitive, "I crashed the car," but passive when intransitive, "the car crashed." But when we look at the verb "to change" it isn't so clear. Sometimes it is obviously active, e.g., "Winter comes, and I change my clothes" (transitive, active); but consider "Winter comes, and I change" (intransitive, but active or passive? A bit of both, I would say). Aphorism, and poetic language in general, delights in this sort of ambiguity, which is why I would argue for the common translation in the case of our dear old tempora mutantur. I acknowledge, though, that my previous contribution just bluntly asserted the "active" voice for the correct translation: I'd say that this is still true grammatically, but the response above has motivated me to think more about the underlying meaning, so thanks for the contribution! Alright, I think that's enough: "... in this 'change' is my invention spent." Memoro (talk) 03:44, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

There are three things to point out about this discussion: 1. The "material" concept of time. Time here is not intended as an abstract entity, a chronological coordinate, as we are used to. A "time" is the complex of all existing beings, things, circumstances and processes occurring in a particular historical instant. So it 's like an enormous set including everything existing or going on at that moment. If you consider the next instant, another enormous set is determined and that 's different form the previous one, as many things or situations have been changed. So we are included in the times because we are among the countless things and beings "contained" in the flowing times.

2. Sorry Memoro, but I must notice that your feeling of a possible deponent behaviour of the verb "muto" is baseless and factually incorrect. Indeed, consulting several Latin grammars and dictionaries I found no trace, no hint of a use of "muto" as a deponent or semi-deponent verb, at least in the classics. Simply, when a verb is provided with both forms, active and passive, it cannot be a deponent. It is however true that "mutare", as well as "to change" in English, may have a transitive or intransitive meaning. When it is transitive there is someone who performs changing and someone who undergoes it; so we can use the active or passive form to determine who 's the agent. We can say : "I change you" or "I am changed by you", leaving no doubt on who 's the author and who the object of changing. In the second case (the passive one) it 's wholly evident that change is not due to my will. With the intransitive meaning instead, the concept of voluntariness of change remains more shaded and vague. When I say: "I change", I make quite clear that some changing is affecting myself, but nothing is said about whether this change is due to my will or to the events, circumstances or somebody else 's will. Thus, using the active form with intransitive meaning, we can leave an open door to both possibilities: - a. I am changing because I actually want to, or - b. I am forced to change by circumstances or others. Therefore, whoever was the author of this maxim, he had a simple way to let us think that we might be the artificers of our own change. He only had to write the verb in its active form: "mutamus". A simple "s" instead of an "r". That wouldn 't even afffect the hexameter 's rhythm. But he (purposedly in my opinion) chose the passive form; so expressly underlining our "passivity to the change". Moreover, he used a special trick to give an even stronger emphasis to the passivity. Normally speaking in Latin, one would say "et nos mutamur"; but here we see "nos et mutamur". Exchanging the pronoun with the conjunction is a rare expedient to emphasize the latter (in Latin language, everything that comes "after" has higher importance in a sentence 's context). This special exchange serves to point out that this "nos et" is not a simple "et nos"; we should translate it as "and we too"; but other stronger translations could be: "and we forcedly", "and we ineluctably", "and we a fortiori". All this drives me to the conclusion that the sentence 's author wanted to stress as much strongly as possible that we are "passive" poor things in front of the general changing going on through the entire universe. So the true extensive meaning of the phrase is: "When everything existing in the universe is subject to change by circumstances and force majeure; how could we, poor little human things, pretend not being changed as well?" This way of reasoning comes quite natural if you "think in Latin".

3. According to the ancient and medieval way of thinking, this sentence is nothing else than an Aristotelian categorical syllogism; i.e. the basic unit of logical reasoning. Here we have: - a major premise: "Tempora mutantur" - a minor premise: "in illis" saying that we humans are included in times - a conclusion: "nos et mutamur". That simply means we are forced to change because we are part of all things that are changed. In mathematical logic and set theory, these relations concern set inclusion. So here are: a set H containing all humans; a set T containing all times (as defined above) and an even bigger set C containg all things, beings, situations, processes, and complexes af all them, that are subject to changing. The minor premise states that H is included in T, the major premise says T is included in C and the conclusion is H is included in C. In other words this is what 's usually defined as "the transitive property of inclusion". Thus, a synthetic translation of our sentence in sheer mathematical terms is: H ⊂ T, T ⊂ C ⇒ H ⊂ C — Preceding unsigned comment added by PetroniusArb (talk • contribs) 09:55, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi PetroniusArb. A very nice summary of the issues: I particularly liked your use of set theory! I don't think our views on this issue are so very far apart, but I might just comment briefly on your responses. First, though, let me note that you're obviously a more dedicated student of Latin than I: as I noted above, I'm no expert in the field. My motive for writing in the first place was simply that I like the compression and elegance of the traditional English translation - "the times change, and we change with them" - along with a certain sense of loyalty to the character of Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes Minister (who uses the common translation). So, on to your points:

1. No argument here: seems a good summary of the sense of the phrase, "the times". Certainly the times are more than chronology.

2. Hmmmm, can I say that I think you are partly right here? You are right that I was sloppy in my use of the term deponent: I shouldn’t have said that muto is found in the deponent form—that’s not really what I meant. But I do think that the issue is not as simple as you have implied. Yes, a Latin grammar would always list muto in the active form, because that is how it is generally found. But I’m not so sure about “no hint, no trace”! Not trying to be contrary here, but the whole issue of a possible Latin middle voice is quite interesting. The forms of verbs changed over time, even within the classical period. The reason why I had that thought about the deponent form in the back of my mind is because I recall (though some years bygone now) that my old Latin teacher had mentioned something about muto in passing when he introduced the deponent verbs (something about the ambiguity of the passive voice at times). Not having much variety in the way of hard-copy Latin grammars at my fingertips, I did some Google-based digging instead. There is some interesting literature on the middle-voice in Latin. The delightfully named Henry Belcher presented a paper on the middle voice to the New Zealand Institute back in 1889 on the middle voice in Latin, in which he traces the question of the development of the passive voice from a reflexive usage. Interestingly, he notes that Plautus (immutantur), Lucretius (mutarentur) and Tacitus (mutati) use passive forms of muto, but in a reflexive (active) voice. If that’s too obscure a reference, a 2005 paper by Chiara Gianollo, “Middle Voice in Latin and the Phenomenon of Split Intransitivity” makes a similar point, arguing that the deponent form only makes sense in terms of a middle voice. He also explicitly lists mutor as a verb that is passive in form but a “true middle use”. The paper is very interesting for the whole discussion of the evolution of the deponent form.

3. Again, no argument here. I think that we agree about the meaning of the phrase, but maybe just disagree about the best way to translate it into English. My (very simple) point is that “to change” is a verb in English that takes a middle voice usage very naturally, so it is legitimate to translate tempora mutantur as “the times change, and we change with them”. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.108.250.177 (talk) 11:17, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

mutantur

It is fairly clearly a 'middle' usage and so reflexive/intransitive. To translate this with an English passive is merely to brutalize English. As a translator of long standing my belief has always been that all languages should be respected, not only the understanding of them but also the writing of them (Pamour (talk) 21:46, 16 January 2014 (UTC)).

Grammar

“Tempora” is a neuter plural and the subject of the first clause, meaning “times”. “Mutantur” is a third person plural present passive, meaning “are changed” literally. “Nos” is the personal pronoun and subject of the second clause, meaning “we”. “Et” here does not mean “and” but more “also”, so it is best translated as “and also”. “Mutamur” is the first person plural present passive, meaning “are changed” as well. “In illis” is an ablative plural in apposition with “tempora” and so means “with them”. The sentence is also in hexameter I believe.

• Quora

Overall it means “Times change, and we too change with them”.--Rævhuld (talk) 15:20, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

What do you think about having a grammar section?

Yes or no?--Rævhuld (talk) 15:21, 13 March 2017 (UTC)