Language desk
< January 14	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 16 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

January 15

Latin translation needed

I am starting a rewrite of our Siege of Exeter (1068) article. One anecdote illustrating English defiance, recorded by William of Malmesbury, is too amusing to leave out and was described by Edward Augustus Freeman as "an insult as unseemly as it was senseless". Freeman helpfully provides the Latin text in a footnote:

Unus eorum, supra murum stans, nudato inguine auras sonitu inferioris partis turbaverat, pro contemptu videlicet Normannorum. [1]

I think I have the gist of it, but perhaps a Latinist could help with a fairly literal translation please? Alansplodge (talk) 11:27, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One of them, standing on the wall, had broken wind through the naked loins with an explosive sound of the nether regions, clearly in contempt of the Normans. 156.61.250.251 (talk) 12:48, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good for him. Thank you kindly. Alansplodge (talk) 14:17, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if this specific incident was the inspiration for the famous scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Python and co-Director Terry Jones was, of course, an historian, whose book Chaucer's Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary greatly impressed me when it was first published in 1980, so it's quite plausible that he knew of it. (Note that the fearsome Rabbit of Caerbannog in the same movie was reportedly inspired by a small carving on the façade of Notre Dame) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.195.175.103 (talk) 16:49, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm certain you're right; "I fart in your general direction".

Also, my faith in the English education system is restored by finding that the Exeter episode is included in the GCSE History syllabus. Alansplodge (talk) 23:00, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One can also read nudato inguine as an absolute ablative: "standing on the wall, with the groin exposed (literally: bared), had broken wind ...". In the context, the defiant besieged citizen obviously assumes a mooning posture, so a better way to translate inguen may be "his posterior". I do not quite see that the sound of the flatus was explosive; merely that the citizen "disturbed the air with a sound of the nether region". --Lambiam 22:28, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It reminds me a bit of Caterina Sforza's Fatelo, se volete: impiccateli pure davanti a me ... qui ho quanto basta per farne altri. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:25, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]