Liber Primus 1.1

Magnus es, Domine, et laudabilis valde: magna virtus tua, et sapientiæ tuæ non est numerus. Et laudare te vult homo, aliqua portio creaturæ tuæ; et homo circumferens mortalitatem suam, circumferens testimonium peccati sui, et testimonium quia superbis resistis: et tamen laudare te vult homo, aliqua portio creaturæ tuæ.

So we begin…

‘Great are you, Lord, and very praiseable’

So I struggled from the start - Laudabilis. What even is that? I’m hunting for a verb and this is not it. ‘-bilis’, it turns out, is something like the English ‘-able’, so ‘greatly praiseable’, though that sounds awful.

‘Your virtue is great’ - pretty straightforward latin. (Rare)

This next bit threw me - do we have multiple wisdoms? Est says we do not. Of your wisdom, then, There is no measurement…no number. Hmmm…

And man wants to praise you (Again, straightforward. But hang on because we are about to spiral - literally.) who is only a part of your creation, and man, circling (circumferens is a participle, so we are circling) with mortality? (The implication is that he bears it in a circle, grows weary with the endless weight of it, I think. I think. I don’t know.) And also bears the testimony of his sin in a circle. Also the testimony that you resist the proud, or maybe arrogant? But even still, man wants to praise you (We love a tamen and an enim), though only a portion of your creation.

DEEP BREATH.

So, Finally:

“Great are you, Lord, and greatly to be praised. Your virtue is great and your wisdom immeasurable. Yet man, who is only a portion of your creation, wants to praise you, though he spirals beneath the weight of his mortality, beneath the weight of his sins, and the weight of your opposition to his pride. Still he wants to praise you, though he is merely a portion of your creation.”

Is it correct? Is it close? Discuss.