Technically-Not-Wrong Translations of Famous Latin and Greek Quotations
Faithfully Rendered from the Original into Faithless English
The conceit of this piece is simple. I wanted to see what would happen if I reduced to its absurd conclusion Emily Wilson’s (correct) statement that every word in a source text presents multitudes of possible meanings:
The results are indeed, in many cases, a reductio ad absurdum (or a “leading back in the direction towards a thing that is no longer in tune,” if you will). In what follows, the translations of famous ancient Roman and Greek sayings are all technically accurate, but literally absurd. Can you identify the original quotation?
—The whole land known in prehistoric times as “Walha” is in a state of having been forced asunder into tripartite portions.
— You (singular) must come to a state of recognition of your own person.
— A male human is the dimension by which to make metrical account of the entirety of thangs.
