Irish Translation Forum

Whoever appeals to the law against his fellow man is either a fool or a coward. Whoever cannot take care of himself without that law is both. For a wounded man shall say to his assailant, "If I Live, I will kill you. If I Die, You are forgiven." Such is the Rule of Honor...

Anyone up to the task?

It'd be greatly appreciated

Or how about just from here on... maybe that'd make it more simple _A wounded man shall say to his assailant, "If I Live, I will kill you. If I Die, You are forgiven." Such is the Rule of Honor

A wounded man shall say to his assailant, "If I Live, I will kill you. If I Die, You are forgiven." Such is the Rule of Honor

Déarfaidh fear gortaithe lena namhaid -
"Má mhaireann mé maróidh mé thú, Má chailltear mé beidh tú máite."
Sin riail na honóra.

EDITED grma Bob.

3 confirmations is recommended as forum policy.

Typo a Bhríd..na honóra?

Any confirmations or corrections? And when translated back to english, what does this directly translate to?

Bríd is a native speaker, so not surprisingly her translations are normally spot on. It's pretty literal, except that Irish syntax is very different from English.

Déarfaidh fear gortaithe lena namhaid
A wounded man shall say to his enemy

Just so that you see what I mean about Irish syntax, the first one "literally" says:
"Shall say man wounded with his enemy"
That's just the way a sentence such as this is structured in Irish. Verbs normally come first, there is no indefintie article ("man" = "a man"), adjectives normally follow nouns, and it has its own rules for which preposition to use (in Irish, you say "with someone", instead of saying "to someone").

There is a specific word for "assailant", ionsaitheoir, so if you really want that you could make the first clause:
Déarfaidh fear gortaithe lena hionsaitheoir
[ionsaitheoir becomes hionsaitheoir for grammatical reasons here]

Má mhaireann mé maróidh mé thú,
If I live I will kill you

Má chailltear mé beidh tú máite
If I am lost [euphemism for "if I die"], you will be killed

Sin riail na honóra
That's the rule of honor

FYI: In the standard, Má mhaireann mé would be Má mhairim.

A couple more thoughts:
- máite is a form of mámh. maite is a form of maitheamh.
- I think caill is mostly used when people die through some sort of accident (e.g., lost at sea), not when they are killed.
- After reading FGB, de Baldy, and even ABN, I think only the things that people have done can be maite, not the people themselves.

So would this be better?

Má mhairim, maróidh mé tú. Má fhaighim bás, maithfear tú.

The preposition 'do' is needed with the verb 'maith'.
Tá sé maithe duit (Lit. It is forgiven (to) you/You're forgiven it), or Tá maithiúnas tugtha duit (Lit. Forgiveness is given (to) you/You're given forgiveness)
EDIT: Or, in the future tense: Maithfear duit é/Tugfar maithiúnas duit

mhwombat wrote:FYI: In the standard, Má mhaireann mé would be Má mhairim.

But "maireann mé" is still perfect right?