Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 90514

This is a repost with errors corrected. My apologies to anyone who has
read the first version already and wondered what kind of idiot can see
the obviously nominative "draco" and think it's in the genitive form
("draconis"). A tired idiot? :-0

"armadillof" wrote:

Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus can be interpreted as a 'rough' 
latin.  (Few exceptions such as nunquam=numquam; slight spelling 
modifications et al).  I interpret it generally as meaning "the 
snake never sleep peacefully". 
draco=snake
nunquam=never
dormiens=sleep
titillandus=peacefully
 
 
Wouldn't "snake" be "serpens"? We have all sorts of references to
snakes in the HP books, most of them in some way associated with
Salazar Skytherin, from the basilisk and the carved snakes in the
Chamber of Secrets to LV (the Heir of Slytherin) speaking Parseltongue
and keeping Nagini as a pet--not to mention the Slytherin coat of arms
and the Dark Mark (which is too much like the statue in the CoS to be
coincidence. I think that if JKR meant the motto to be associated with
these omnipresent snake motifs, she would have used a more unambiguous
noun for "snake."
 
I also suspect that"draco" suggests "dragon" rather than
"snake" to most readers who have some acquaintance with Latin. It
also, of course, suggests Draco Malfoy, who as I said in another post,
is almost certainly named after the constellation Draco, which is
always translated "dragon," not "snake."
 
As I said, I don't think that the sleeping dragon is Draco. I'm only
mentioning his name with regard to the translation. As to who or what
the sleeping dragon might be, I rather suspect that it's Hogwarts, as
someone in this thread suggested. In any case, I don't think it has
anything to do with the serpent/Slytherin motif, as all the serpents
(the basilisk, Nagini, the carved serpents, and those in the Dark
Mark) are already either awake or dead, as are the serpent-associated
people (Salazar Slytherin, the Blacks, LV, and Harry). Not one of
these serpents is sleeping or even dormant. (LV, however powerless in
his "vapor" form, has been wide awake throughout the series.)

The question for me now is, who or what in the book is large and
dangerous, but not yet roused to action. It could be Hogwarts, as I
mentioned above, or it could be the as yet untapped power of the WW
itself.

Carol, who hopes she's fixed all her errors (except "inclusive" for
"inconclusive" in another post)