Translate "Eat, Drink, and be merry" to Latin

Question

In the spirit of the holidays, I was thinking about how you would say Eat! Drink! Be Merry! in Latin (or written as Eat, drink, and be merry!).

There are multiple words for each, but I'm not sure which best captures the feeling of this in English. To me, it's not just to literally eat, drink, and be happy, it's to do them in a celebratory context with others (except this year, of course). I also feel like it could be said in second person plural in addition to singular.

Per Joonas's post about a word least likely to mean drinking alcohol, bibere or potare both would work for drinking. I also think that laeta seems an easy choice for merry. I'm not sure about eating, though.

Answer 1

I would suggest simply: Ede, bibe, gaude! Or to several people: Edite, bibite, gaudete!

I prefer to keep something like this simple and avoid prefixed verbs or other unnecessary detours. I like making a holiday greeting as accessible as possible to everyone with a limited knowledge of Latin. For eating and drinking the simplest verbs are edere and bibere. There are various options for being merry. Laetare means "to make someone happy", whereas the passive laetari means "to be happy". There is no major difference between gaudere and laetari (if you want to study this further, I would be happy to see a comparison question between them), and I chose gaudere simply because it is active in form. This makes the three imperatives more similar and understandable.

Answer 2

This is from the Bible, Ecclesistes 8:15.

Therefore I commended mirth, because there was no good for a man under the sun, but to eat, and drink, and be merry, and that he should take nothing else with him of his labour in the days of his life, which God hath given him under the sun.

The Vulgate renders this thus:

laudavi igitur laetitiam quod non esset homini bonum sub sole nisi quod comederet et biberet atque gauderet et hoc solum secum auferret de labore suo in diebus vitae quos dedit ei Deus sub sole.

Unlike the English, which is presented as an imperative, this is a subjunctive.

In an imperative, but preserving other parts of the Vulgate

Comede et bibe atque gaude!

"Comedo" has a connotation of "devour" or "eat to excess", rather than the more neutral "edo"

Answer 3

As James K said, this is already in Latin. I would offer one thing, though: avoid the imperative. Whom are you ordering with the imperative? For these sorts of things, Latin prefers the jussive subjunctive:

Comedamus et bibamus atque gaudeamus.

Let us eat, drink, and be merry.

Answer 4

Adapting Horace's "nunc est bibendum" = "now one must drink", which was his exhortation to celebrate the fall of Antony & Cleopatra, in 30BC:

"nunc est edendum, bibendum et gaudendum." = "now one must eat, drink & rejoice".

For a full grammatical analysis of this use of the impersonal, neuter gerundive see Q: Nunc est bibendum: gerund or gerundive?.