Breakdown of In silentio noctis filia in mente sua dicit: "Veritas matrem laetam facit, mendacium autem matrem tristem facit; iterum veritatem dicam."
Questions & Answers about In silentio noctis filia in mente sua dicit: "Veritas matrem laetam facit, mendacium autem matrem tristem facit; iterum veritatem dicam."
silentio is ablative singular (from silentium, “silence”).
With in meaning “in / within,” Latin uses the ablative: in silentio = “in (the) silence.”noctis is genitive singular (from nox, “night”), so noctis = “of night / of the night.”
Together: in silentio noctis = “in the silence of the night.”
Grammatically it’s “in (the) silence (abl.), of night (gen.),” a common Latin pattern: a head noun in one case (silentio) limited or described by a genitive (noctis).
Both are possible, but they say slightly different things:
- in nocte (ablative) = “in the night,” focusing on time (“during the night”).
- in silentio noctis (genitive noctis) = “in the silence of the night,” where silence is the main idea, and night is just specifying which silence.
So the author wants to emphasize “silence” and then qualify it: not just any silence, but the silence that belongs to / characterizes the night.
Latin has no articles (the, a, an) at all.
The bare noun filia can be translated as:
- “the daughter”
- “a daughter”
- or just “daughter”
depending on context. Here, English naturally uses the daughter or possibly the girl, so we add the in translation even though Latin doesn’t have a separate word for it.
In Latin, subject and object are identified mainly by case endings, not word order:
- filia is nominative singular of filia (“daughter”) → typical subject form.
- dicit is 3rd person singular (“she/he says”).
- There is no other nominative noun that could be the subject.
So filia matches the verb dicit (3rd singular) and functions as the subject: “the daughter says…”, regardless of where it appears in the sentence.
- mente is ablative singular of mens (“mind”).
- in with the ablative = “in, within, on.”
- sua is a feminine ablative singular possessive adjective (“her own”).
So in mente sua = “in her (own) mind.”
Literally: “in (her own) mind (abl.).”
Latin distinguishes between:
- sua, suus, suum = “his/her/its/their own” referring back to the subject of the clause (the reflexive possessive).
- eius, eorum, earum = “his/her/their” referring to someone else, not the subject.
Here the subject is filia, and the mind is her own mind, not someone else’s.
So Latin uses the reflexive sua: in mente sua = “in her own mind (i.e. the daughter’s mind).”
If it said in mente eius, it would mean “in her mind” where “her” refers to a different woman, not the subject filia.
autem is a post‑positive conjunction: it almost never stands first in its clause. Latin style places it after the first word or phrase. So:
- Literal Latin order: mendacium autem matrem tristem facit
- Natural English order: “But a lie makes mother sad.”
Meaning-wise, autem ≈ “but, however,” but position-wise it prefers slot #2 in its clause.
This is a classic “double accusative” with a verb of “making / calling / considering”:
- veritas = nominative, subject (“truth”).
- matrem = accusative, direct object (“(the) mother”).
- laetam = accusative, object complement or predicate accusative describing the object (“happy”).
So the structure is:
- Subject: veritas
- Verb: facit (“makes”)
- Object: matrem (“mother”)
- Object complement: laetam (“happy”)
Meaning: “The truth makes (the) mother happy.”
English does the same thing, though we don’t call it “double accusative” in English grammar: “make someone happy.” Latin simply marks both matrem and laetam as accusative to show that laetam belongs to matrem.
Adjectives in Latin must agree with the nouns they modify in:
- gender (here: feminine)
- number (here: singular)
- case (here: accusative)
So:
- mater (nom.) → matrem (acc. sg. fem.)
- laetus, -a, -um (“happy”) → laetam (acc. sg. fem.) to match matrem
Because laetam is describing matrem, it takes the same endings: matrem laetam = “the mother (as) happy.”
Latin often omits possessive pronouns when the possessor is obvious from context. Here:
- The speaker is the daughter (filia), thinking about “mother.”
- It’s naturally understood that this is her mother.
So Latin just says matrem (“mother”) without suam or eius.
In English, if we just say “makes mother happy,” it sounds incomplete or strange, so we supply her in translation: “makes her mother happy.”
dicam is:
- 1st person singular (“I”)
- from dico, dicere (“to say, tell”)
- and its form can be either:
- future indicative: “I will say / tell”
- present subjunctive: “that I may say / that I should say”
Here, in direct speech after a semi-colon, the natural reading is future indicative:
- iterum veritatem dicam = “I will tell the truth again.”
A present subjunctive would usually be signaled by some trigger (a command, purpose clause, etc.), which we don’t have here, so the future meaning fits best.
iterum means “again.” Latin adverbs like iterum are fairly flexible in position; they often come before the word or phrase they most closely relate to, but they don’t have a hard fixed slot.
- iterum veritatem dicam = “I will tell the truth again.”
- You might also see veritatem iterum dicam with almost the same meaning.
Putting iterum first gives a slight emphasis to the repetition: “Again, I will tell the truth.” But practically, it still means “I will tell the truth again.”
This is mostly modern punctuation convention applied to Latin:
- filia in mente sua dicit: introduces direct speech—what the daughter is actually “saying in her mind.”
- The colon and quotation marks visually mark the start of her inner monologue:
“Veritas matrem laetam facit, mendacium autem matrem tristem facit; iterum veritatem dicam.”
Classical Latin manuscripts didn’t use punctuation the way we do, but modern editors (and textbook authors) adopt familiar punctuation marks to make reading easier, just as in modern languages.