Thursday, April 22, 2010

House episode, "Lockdown"

Finally watched it on Hulu - which by the way, appears on track to go paid subscription route next month - and of course, in the last 30 seconds of the show, they pan up to an inscription on the concrete partially covered with ivy, reading, "OMNES TE MORITURUM AMANT".

Of course, being curious, I Googled the term, and was not very satisfied with the interpretations that people seemed to have settled on. I spend the better part of over an hour trying to figure out the grammar and the vocabulary, to see if I could piece together a better translation than either:

"Everyone loves you on your deathbed" or "Everyone loves you when you are about to die."

Instead, I got, "All love you who are about to die." To break it down, I believe people are incorrectly interpreting "omnes" as "everyone", when they should probably use the straight interpretation of "all", as "omnis" would better fit "everyone". This seems clearer when taking "amant" as a third-person plural present active, when you say, "they love you" as opposed to "everyone loves you" (or maybe I'm just going crazy). "Deathbed" seems like a colloquial application of "moriturum" and turns a verb into a noun, so I applied a stricter interpretation of, "about to die". By applying stricter interpretations, I think the meaning comes out clearer.

That is to say, that in relation to the episode and that the inscription is above the entrance to the hospital, it makes no sense to say, "everyone loves you when you're about to die", as it infers cynicism. As we all know, Greg House is becoming less cynical and more understanding, especially as witnessed in this episode. To that end, I think it makes much more sense to say, "All love you who are about to die" as words of comfort to the inevitable which House was confronted with, in this episode.

Whatever.

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