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One of the more memorable scenes in the Lord of the Ring's movies is the moment when Gollum's two personalities argue with each other, and finally one of his selves orders the other, "Go away and never come back!" So, let's say we are rendering this in Latin. At first I thought it would be this:

Discede et numquam redi!

  1. However, after thinking about it, even though we say "never come back" in the present tense in English, the returning action would actually be in the future, so should the imperative be the future imperative?

Discede et numquam redito!

In other words, in Latin should it be "Go away and never will you come back!"

  1. Also, I wonder if discede is the right idiom. Would it be stronger and more appropriate to write:

Abi et numquam redito!

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    Can you explain 'E ut ab' in the last version? You appear to be using 2 prepositions, but without supplying nouns to serve as their objects.
    – cnread
    Commented Oct 21, 2020 at 19:45
  • @cnread I think it is an idiom that roughly means "away from". So, "e ut ab" would be "go away!"
    – Tyler Durden
    Commented Oct 21, 2020 at 19:48
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    Can you cite a source? I've never seen that as an idiom, and a corpus search on PHI didn't yield any results. Is it Medieval or otherwise non-Classical?
    – cnread
    Commented Oct 21, 2020 at 21:18
  • Tyler Durden: In Latin the present & future tenses are not separate countries; see A & G section 468.
    – tony
    Commented Nov 18, 2023 at 12:09

4 Answers 4

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"et numquam" should be avoided (North and Hillard, Latin Prose Composition p. 11, note; Rubenbauer-Hoffmann, Lateinische Grammatik §224a)

Abi neque umquam redi

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    Welcome to this site. interesting input from N&H. FWIW, (1) PHI has more et numquam than neque umquam; (2) Not particular to this answer but virtually to every suggestion in this page: It is not so clear that numquam can be used with imperative as in English. Still waiting for a classical example. A question was asked here about this.
    – d_e
    Commented Nov 17, 2023 at 22:25
  • Yes, this is right.
    – Tyler Durden
    Commented Nov 17, 2023 at 22:27
  • Thanks! And you're right: "et numquam" does exist. I am trying to figure what N&H had in mind. Rubenbauer-Hoffmann §224a has a parallel example: "Neque" is used to bind sentences together; "et non" is ONLY used when a single word or entity of words is negated (or so they say). I think this might be true for "et numquam", which is perhaps more often used to combine words than sentences. PHI gives three instances in Cicero for ”et numquam” (words negated, not sentences), thirteen for ”neque umquam”. But the important thing is ”numquam / ne umquam” + imperative. I’ll look out for that.
    – Allan Rosengren
    Commented Nov 18, 2023 at 20:39
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    What a delightful forum! Enlightened by d_e above (thanks) and the discussion here about the problems of ”numquam” + imperative I now suggest: Abi nec umquam redieris !
    – Allan Rosengren
    Commented Nov 19, 2023 at 12:39
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Abi is good and regularly used in this context, often with hinc added, e.g.,

  • Abi hinc - Go away
  • Abi hinc ab oculis (or: ... e conspectu meo) - Get out of my sight
  • Abi hinc in malam rem - literally: Go away to misfortune, probably better translated as "jump in a lake" etc.

Then there is the useful interjection apage, translated by Lewis & Short as: away with thee! away! begone! avaunt! --- and often used in the form apage te (a me). Amove te is another option.

With that in mind, I think your suggestion: Abi et numquam redito is pretty good already, and may be seasoned to taste by adding a little hinc, apage, etc.

(Like cnread in the comments, I cannot make heads and tails of e ut ab.)

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You've done a great job, just avoid the future imperative.

  1. In general, never use the "future imperative." Unless you are in a courtroom. The term "future imperative" is not accurate. It should have been named the "formal imperative," since it has nothing to do with future time. (If someone wants to open this can of worms, please create a new question.)

  2. discede and abi are both great to use here. They are very common and the Lewis&Short lexicon says they are both used

frequently in all periods and sorts of composition

Specifically, discedere can apply to people

To depart from any place or person, to go away from, to leave

While abeo has a specific usage appropriate to Gollum's situation. But, This sense is only used in poetry (Terence, Plautus)

The imper. "abi" is often a simple exclamation or address, either with a friendly or reproachful signif.

In conclusion, keep discede / abi et numquam redi. Gollum is not a fancy hobbit, not even as Smeagol. His word choice should reflect his character. No courtroom expressions, and no need for local idioms or purpose clauses with ut. He's just saying GTFO!

Note - I translated a couple of Gollum/Bilbo's riddles from the Hobbit into (simplish) Latin and posted them in my bio/about me page.

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    "This sense is only used in poetry (Terence, Plautus)" -- these two gentlemen weren't poets but playwrights, and between them are our best source of colloquial everyday Latin. It's also not true, cf. "Abi hinc cum tribunatibus ac rogationibus tuis" (Livius, Ab urbe condita 6,40).
    – Sebastian Koppehel
    Commented Oct 22, 2020 at 19:19
  • I agree that they have a lot of colloq. Latin. But I'm not saying that "abi hinc" is only in Terence/Plautus, I'm saying that only they use it in the sense of "friendly or reproachful signif." (perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=abi&la=la) (Also, plays = poetry. Latin comedy is written in iambic senarius & iambic trimeter mostly).
    – eyesplice17
    Commented Oct 23, 2020 at 12:44
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    @eyesplice17 I think that entry is referring to a pretty specific usage of abi similar to English "get out of here!" The literal usage ("go away") is common to all authors and can certainly be friendly/reproachful as the context dictates, cf. latin.packhum.org/search?q=%23abi%23&first=111
    – brianpck
    Commented Oct 23, 2020 at 18:06
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There's imperative, "peri" (from "pereo-"to die) giving, "Go and die!". If the receiver goes away and dies, he won't be coming back.

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