When I went looking for something to read at graduation, someone (I forget who) asked me for a translation, but it became one of those things that meanders into the back of my head as something I really ought to do one of these days when I have a free minute…
But tomorrow’s graduation, so it’s now or never. Keep in mind that my Latin is incredibly rusty, and was never all that great to begin with. (As many times as I took beginning Latin, you’d think it would have stuck better.) Here’s the bit I mean to read:
Proficite, fratres mei, discutite vos semper sine dolo, sine adulatione, sine palpatione. Non enim aliquis est intus tecum, cui erubescas, et iactes te. Est ibi, sed cui placet humilitas, ipse te probet. Proba et te ipsum tu ipse. Semper tibi displiceat quod es, si vis pervenire ad id quod nondum es. Nam ubi tibi placuisti, ibi remansisti. Si autem dixeris: Sufficit; et peristi. Semper adde, semper ambula, semper profice; noli in via remanere, noli retro redire, noli deviare.
And, roughly, the translation:
Go forward, my brothers; look at yourselves without self-deceit, without pride, without flattery. There’s really nobody in you to make you blush, nobody you have to brag to. But the person inside who’s humble, let him test you. And test yourself, too. Always be a little unhappy with what you are, if you want to be something you’re not, yet, quite. Because if you get too pleased with yourself, there you’ll stay. If you say “hey, that’s enough,” you’re dead. Always keep growing, keep walking, keep moving forward; don’t stop by the side of the road, don’t retrace your steps, don’t turn aside.
(There’s another translation here if you don’t like mine.)
In memoriam Dr. C. Clifford Flanigan, with my best love… because I want to believe he would be proud of me, even though I did go off the road for a while.
