# Help with some Latin Please?



## Don Kistler (Jan 20, 2011)

Can anyone help me translate this phrase:

Trahit sua quemque voluptas.

Thanks in advance!


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## CharlieJ (Jan 20, 2011)

Basically, each man is drawn by his own lusts. I think it's from Vergil.


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## fredtgreco (Jan 20, 2011)

It is Virgil. It is _Eclogue _2.65. I don't think it needs to be translated "lusts," in the (Biblical) sense that we would take that. The Loeb translation of T.E. Page is "Each on is led by his own liking." The context refers to animals. Here is the section:

The grim-eyed lioness pursues the wolf,
the wolf the she-goat, the she-goat herself
in wanton sport the flowering cytisus,
and Corydon Alexis, *each led on
by their own longing.* See, the ox comes home
with plough up-tilted, and the shadows grow
to twice their length with the departing sun,
yet me love burns, for who can limit love?


A footnote from the English translation of Terence's _Phormio _is: Ver. 454. "Quot homines, tot sententiae." This is a famous adage. One similar to the succeeding one is found in the Second Eclogue of Virgil, 1. 65: "*Trahit* *sua* *quemque* *voluptas*," exactly equivalent to our saying, "Every man to his taste."


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## NaphtaliPress (Jan 20, 2011)

I have found in my forays into editing the Puritans if the phrase is not attributed it is more times than not from Classical literature.


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## Don Kistler (Jan 20, 2011)

Thank you, men. That fits the context perfectly. Oftentimes if a Puritan author uses a Latin phrase, he translates it himself right in the text. But not so this time. I appreciate the help.


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