Can anyone translate this Latin phrase?

[kestrell]

Found as an epigraph in a book about the philosophy of Abelard:

Suae specialiter suus singulariter

Comments

[siderea]

Huh. I'm surprised your usual suspects haven't gotten this yet.

That is an allusion.

Heloise's fifth letter to Abelard starts with the salutation either "Suo specialiter, sua singulariter" (the predominant examples) or "Domino specialiter, sua singulariter" (attested in a single source.)

Translating that turns out to be a nontrivial project. Quoth one discussion:

The words specialiter and singulariter are part of the technical language of medieval philosophy and opinions vary as to what exactly the greeting means. It is probably most fully translated along the lines of:

[From Heloise], the Lord's by virtue of belonging to a certain group, his [that is, Abelard's] as an individual*.

The opening is so unusual that it is tempting to speculate that once again Heloise may be using her salutation as a kind of manifesto. Perhaps she is is drawing Abelard's attention to the distinction between the individual Heloise who is Abelard's (and who, we know from her previous letters, is going to remain Abelard's) and Heloise the nun, a member of a group. This seems a very complicated way of saying something relatively simple, and it is. But by using the vocabulary of philosophy about the two most important, but opposing, aspects of her life, Heloise may want to remind Abelard of her need to reconcile them.

* It has also been tendered, significantly differently, as "[To] him who is especially her lord, [from] she who is uniquely his." But this does not seem to fit so well with the context, or with the significance that the words would ahve for the couple as technical terms.

Elsewhere:

Suo specialiter, sua singulariter Heloise is using the terminology of formal dialectic, perhaps responding to Abelard's formal language in the Fourth Letter. The phrase represents difficulties not only because of its clipped form. The word specialiter, "in species," may have a limiting sense when the reference point is the larger category of genus --- compare English "especially" or "specifically" to "generally" or "generically." Here, however, it is opposed to the more limiting singulariter, "as particular," "as individual," "singularly," or "uniquely," and therefore points to species as the universal that applies to particulars or individuals. A single manuscript presents the variant reading Domino specialiter, which should be understood as "To her lord in species."

In Abelard's metaphysics there is no thing except for particulars, which are unique and distinct from all else, and Heloise's use of the terms of dialect here may be an apt way of indicating that, even if Abelard should insist on maintaining an abstract or generic posture towards here, her stance toward him would remain concrete and personal.

There's tons more out there if you google "suo specialiter, sua singulariter."

Upshot: it's seriously inside baseball, in a lover's tiff between two of the most brilliant philosophers of the Middle Ages.

So. The genders of your epigraph are reversed. So I'm guessing it's the dedication -- to an unspecified woman -- from a male author.

BTW, thank you for asking the question. This stuff is fascinating.

[kestrell]

Perilously fascinating, isn't it? You can see why my original simple intention to do "a little background reading" for _Name of the Rose_ has spiraled out of control.

I had tried Googling the phrase, but I kept getting led to various untranslated medieval Latin texts; perhaps it was for want of the comma, which I kept leaving out?

Thank you for all the juicy links!

[siderea]

Ah, the trick to googling it was to leave out the pronouns. I googled specialiter singulariter abelard and once it became clear it was from Heloise, cut to the chase with specialiter singulariter heloise.

The reason, amusingly enough, that I googled without the pronouns was that I thought that they were wrong; I was unfamiliar with the cases used in Latin for epistolary greetings and couldn't figure out what that nominative was doing there. I have learned lots in doing this research! (Note to self: dative for the "to", nominative for the "from".)

[kestrell]

That is amusing, as I remember just enough Latin and have just enough familiarity with medieval philosophy to have enough of a vague sense of the meaning as to consider each word important to the whole. Also, Googlebooks is not accessible, so I don't search there: the pages you linked to are totally lacking any of the actual page content being search for.