What is 'O nate vulneratus Cito veni ad me Te amplectabor et vulnera tua lingam Utinam te haberem mi amor caelestis' in English?

Answer 1

O wounded son, come quickly to me is the English equivalent of 'O nate vulneratus cito veni ad me'. I will embrace you and lick your wounds is the English equivalent of 'Te amplectabor et vulnera tua lingam'. Would that I might hold you, my heavenly love is the English equivalent of 'Utinam te haberem mi amor caelestis'.

In the word by word translation, the interjection 'o' means 'o'. The masculine gender noun 'nate', in the vocative singular of 'natus', means 'son'. The masculine adjective 'vulneratus', in the nominative and vocative singular, means 'wounded'. The adverb 'cito' means 'quickly, speedily'. The verb 'veni', in the imperative of 'venire', means '[you] come'. The preposition 'ad' means 'to, toward'. The personal pronoun 'me', in the first person singular in the accusative of 'ego' as the direct object of the verb, means 'me'.

The personal pronoun 'te', as the second person singular in the accusative of 'tu', means 'thee, you'. The verb 'amplectabor', as the first person singular of the future indicative of the infinitive 'amplectare', means '[I] will embrace, love, welcome'. The conjunction 'et' means 'and'. The neuter noun 'vulnera', in the accusative plural of 'vulnus', means 'wounds'. The possessive pronoun 'tua', in the second person singular of the accusative plural of 'tuum', means 'thy, your'.

The adverb 'utinam' means 'would that, O that'. The verb 'haberem', as the first person singular of the imperfect subjunctive of the infinitive 'habere', means '[I] might have, hold'. The possessive pronoun 'mi', as the first person singular in the vocative of 'meus', means 'my'. The masculine gender noun 'amor', in the nominative singular, means 'love'. The masculine adjective 'caelestis', in the nominative singular, means 'heavenly'.

The word 'natus' is a second declension noun. Second declension nouns that end in '-us' don't have the same forms in the vocative and nominative cases. The vocative ending is '-e', and the nominative '-us'. In contrast, fourth declension nouns that end in '-us' have the same forms in the vocative and nominative cases: the ending remains '-us'.

The same rule doesn't tend to apply to adjectives that modify second declension nouns. That's why the Latin phrase above is 'nate vulneratus'. The noun and the adjective are both in the vocative case. But the adjective respects the general rule of vocative and nominative case endings as being the same.

But if you want to make an exception with adjectives, you can do so with a possessive. In the Latin sentence above, 'mi amor caelestis' is a vocative phrase. The possessive adjective 'mi' is 'meus' in the nominative case as the subject of the sentence. So if you want to write 'meus' as 'mi', you can do so. But you also can write it as 'meus'. For example, the cry of Jesus Christ [6 B.C.E.-A.D. 30] is found in the Vulgate as, 'Deus meus, Deus meus, quare me dereliquisti [My God, My God, why have you forsaken me]?'