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Did I translate this passage correctly? Is there something that could be corrected or improved?

Original:

Where other men blindly follow the truth, remember, nothing is true. Where other men are limited by morality or law, remember, everything is permitted.

My translation:

Ubi vero sequitur aliis caecus, mementote, nihil est verum. Ubi homines sunt a moribus neque lege est solum, mementote, omnia licent.

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    Welcome to the site, Gabriel! I took the liberty to edit your question a little. Feel free to undo (rollback) my edits or edit further. While waiting for someone to answer, I suggest taking a look at our tour. After earning 15 reputation points you will be able to vote up, so you should soon be able to go and vote questions and answers you like. I look forward to seeing more questions from you!
    – Joonas Ilmavirta ♦
    Commented May 7, 2018 at 16:24
  • Could you tell me how this differs from what I had translated?
    – Gabriel A.
    Commented May 7, 2018 at 16:57

1 Answer 1

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Let me offer a commentary on your translation. First, a translation from your first Latin sentence with small emendations (in bold) text back to English:

Ubi vero sequitur alios caecus, mementote, nihil est verum.

When a blind man follows others, remember, nothing is true.

I left vero untranslated. It is a tricky word, and I cannot judge whether it is good here, but I have nothing against it based on first impressions.

The word ubi can indeed refer to time in addition to space, and it sounds like an appropriate word here.

The deponent verb sequi takes an accusative object, so I replaced aliis with alios.

In this sentence mementote is a side remark, not a governing verb. If it is promoted to a higher status, then nihil est verum should be replaced by an accusativus cum infinitivo as Jasper May does: nihil esse verum. Either choice is fine, but the tone is different.

The start of the sentence does not seem to be what you wanted. I would suggest this modification:

Ubi alii caeci veritatem sequuntur, memento, nihil est verum.

When others follow blindly (literally: "as blind") the truth, remember, nothing is true.

I have trouble parsing your second sentence. The part sunt a moribus neque lege est solum does not seem to make sense, but it could be just my being slow. The ending works well. You can have either omnia licent ("all is possible") or omne licet ("anything is possible").

There are many possible verbs for limiting. I suggest restringere, "to constrain" or "to bind". With this, I would suggeset the following:

Ubi homines a moribus legibusque restringuntur, mementote, omnia licent.

When people are bound (or held back or constrained) by customs (or moral) and laws, remember, all things are possible.

If you are addressing a single person, the imperative mementote should be replaced with the singular form memento.

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  • Could you break each word into parts to further explain their meaning as well as there pronunciations? Could you also give me the way that you would translate the phrase?
    – Gabriel A.
    Commented May 12, 2018 at 3:03
  • @GabrielA. My suggested Latin translations of the two sentences are in the last two block quotes together with more literal translations back to English. Going through all the details would make this answer too long. If you want a part of it carefully grammatically explained, I recommend asking a new question (give a link to this one if you do). Pronunciation depends on era and location. Would it help if I added macrons? You can also add a follow-up question on pronunciation if you want.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta ♦
    Commented May 12, 2018 at 10:51

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