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I would like to inscribe this on my gravestone, in Latin: "in love and friendship forever." Could someone help me translate it?

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2 Answers 2

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There are other phrases for 'forever', but I would choose that used by the poet Catullus in his beautiful and touching farewell poem at his brother's grave

I suggest amor et amicitia in perpetuum. Literally, this means 'love and frienship unceasing'.

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  • I think semper or sempiternus sounds more positive than perpetuum, which reminds me of cadena perpetua (in Spanish; it seems this word did not make it into English).
    – luchonacho
    Oct 26, 2018 at 18:09
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    @luchonacho We have in English perpetual, perpetuate etc.(also, even, sempiternal).
    – Tom Cotton
    Oct 27, 2018 at 6:20
  • sempiternal isn't related to perpetuus.
    – NRitH
    Oct 27, 2018 at 13:47
  • @NRitH Of course it isn't — and it's English, not Latin. Did you not notice that luchonacho referred to the Latin in his comment?
    – Tom Cotton
    Oct 27, 2018 at 15:32
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I was originally going to suggest the same-ish answer as @TomCotton. However, since he has provided it already I am going to simply provide some suggestions concerning orthography, rather than translation, given that the phrase you requested is going to be displayed.

Classical Latin, at least when it was carved into stone (you indicated in your question that this was going to be engraved on a gravestone), typically carried the following characteristics.

  • Written in all-caps.
  • The letter U was written with V.
  • Dipthongs ae and oe were often written as single characters.
  • Instead of simply spacing words, they were often marked with an interpunct character, or the spaces were simply left out.
  • Long vowels could be marked with apices.

With all that said, the wonderful suggestion from @TomCotton could be rendered as such

AMORETAMICITIAINPERPETVVM
AMORETAMÍCITIAINPERPETVVM

AMOR·ET·AMICITIA·IN·PERPETVVM
AMOR·ET·AMÍCITIA·IN·PERPETVVM

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  • I would definitely use interpuncts rather than just omitting the spaces for this purpose, but omit the apices. Otherwise, it looks good to me.
    – varro
    Oct 26, 2018 at 20:33
  • @varro I would generally agree; I am simply offering all options.
    – Ethan Bierlein
    Oct 26, 2018 at 20:34
  • Accent marks are rare in inscriptions.
    – NRitH
    Oct 27, 2018 at 13:47
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    @NRitH I am aware of that. Again, I’m simply offering a set of options from which to choose.
    – Ethan Bierlein
    Oct 27, 2018 at 15:12
  • Understood and upvoted.
    – NRitH
    Oct 27, 2018 at 15:29

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