How to translate the following into Latin:
Spend it all now = no profits and enjoy life
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2Welcome to the site! Translating something like a motto well is hard without context. For example, are you referring to spending all of one's fortune or perhaps a single gift? You can edit your question to elaborate on the message you want to convey. It really makes a big difference.– Joonas Ilmavirta ♦Commented May 4, 2020 at 15:44
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3 Answers
I keep on bringing up this bit from Ovid's Cleopatra Ode on the Stack Exchange: "Nunc est bibendum." One could translate this phrase as 'Now must be drunk = Now is the time for drinking.'
This phrase has imagery reminiscent of a battle and dancing. And it has a phrase about bringing down a fine wine from the ancestral cellars. This to me could be what you're looking for; it is a poem about enjoying the fruits of one's labor to the fullest.
If you're looking to retain the spirit of this work, but not to rip it off entirely, how about 'Nunc est ludendum?" The verb that ludendum comes from has a sense of playing games and getting up to mischief. I would roughly translate this phrase as "Now is a time for playing."
I may update/add to my answer if you add more information to your question.
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1Don't forget (English) impersonal pronoun, "one". giving "now one must drink".– tonyCommented May 4, 2020 at 16:28
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I don't think you can read that pronoun into the Latin. There is no neuter pronoun that can refer to both genders. I suppose my translation is not entirely direct, but putting in the pronoun feels like a stretch to me. Commented May 4, 2020 at 16:33
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2I agree with @tony. The English impersonal "one" corresponds well to the Latin impersonal passive. It's certainly not a must to put the pronoun in, but it's no stretch either. Depending on context, you can justifiably supply pretty much any English pronoun, like "now we must drink/play". Anyway, I do like this choice of Latin phrase for this purpose, so +1!– Joonas Ilmavirta ♦Commented May 4, 2020 at 18:18
Literally, you could say nunc totum expende (spend the whole now as an imperative).
EDIT: Or you could combine all of the existing answers and say
nunc est expendum, nunc mente libera carpenda dies
(with dies feminine, because it corresponds to nunc and hence denotes a specific day).
The classic Carpe diem may be a good fit for the sentiment here, especially considering the line from Horace containing it: Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero. It urges acting now rather than putting things off for later, which I think captures the gist pretty well. Not a literal translation, of course, but quite apt.
