Felix Felicis

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 127925


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" <justcarol67 at y...> 
wrote:

Carol:
> (My Latin is extremely rusty--high school was decades ago when I was a
> different person altogether--so I may have some details wrong. Or
> perhaps someone else who took Latin more recently can explain it more
> clearly. My point is that the words "felix, felicis" belong together
> in somewhat the same way that "good, better, best" belong together,
> except that "felicis" is the genitive rather than the comparative and
> superlative like "better" and "best." Oh. Yeah. That cleared *that* 
up!
> 

Geoff:
A better description might be that a genitive is the possessive form. 
For example, the genitive in english of "boy" is "boy's" and in 
German "the house" is "das Haus" and the genitive "des Hauses".

So "felix felicis" could be translated as a name as "Lucky of the 
Lucky" or something similar, remembering that there is no definite or 
indefinite pronoun (ie "a" or "the") in Latin.

Keep your Latin well polished and clear of rust! I haven't studied it 
seriously for more years than I dare admit but it is a marvellous 
language because it gives you such a great insight into grammar 
structure and also the meaning of so many words in other languages.

What got me as a sixteen year old was having, as a set book for GCE O 
Level, "De Bello Gallico" which was the account of the Gallic wars 
written by Julius Caesar himself. Wow!