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Please can someone help me translate the following into Latin as correctly as possible? Or if there are other suggestions, they are all welcome.

I am not alone,
I live with the memories,
regret is my home,
this is my true freedom

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Here is my take on the lyrics:

Non secubo,
cum memoriis vivo,
maerore domo,
haec mi vera libertas.

Some background:

  • I found something with matching lyrics on YouTube and guessed that this might be the song you are interested in. I made sure the translation is actually singable. The rhythm of the original is fairly free, but it does exist.
  • Not having room for all the syllables one might want to have forces the translation to be a bit mystic and terse. But I find that very suitable.
  • The verb secubare means "to live alone". More literally, it means "to sleep alone".
  • The third line is an absolute ablative: "grief being home" or "home being grief". You can't really tell which way it is. Ambiguity like this works well in my opinion.
  • When you say something like "this is my treasure" with an abstract "this", then the grammatical gender and number is often adapted to the one of "treasure" instead of being simply neuter. I would translate "this is my treasure" as hae sunt divitiae meae. This is why I have haec in my translation.
  • The fourth line translates to "to me this is true freedom". I felt that the rhythm does not allow replacing the dative mi with the possessive pronoun mea. It would be valid too (literally "this is my true freedom"). And I quite like the tone of "this is freedom to me" as opposed to "this is my freedom".

Based on my experience of translating lyrics to Latin for professional musicians, the best translation is always reached in collaboration with the performer or original writer. So many things affect what makes a good translation, not all of which are under the translator's control. Therefore I will gladly welcome any feedback on the translation.

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I'm only a beginner with Latin, but, inspired by Middle School Historian, I'm posting an attempt:

Solitarius non sum,
Memoriis comitantibus habito.
Desiderium domus est mihi,
Ecce Eleutheria vera mea.

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  • Perhaps you can include a brief overview of some of your translation choices? I'm particularly interested in the use of desiderium and Eleutheria. – brianpck May 4 '17 at 14:22
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I'm no expert (just a kid who's interested in the language), but I think I could translate this.

Solus non sum,
cum memoriis convivo,
paenitudo domus mea est,
hoc est libertas vera mea.

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  • 3
    Also the gender of this needs some caveat. – Rafael May 3 '17 at 17:15

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