[PW] ? "Inter Faeces..." Quote (Quotation Query #640)

[Reed C Bowman]

Nichael Cramer wrote:

>Fred Shapiro wrote:
>  
>
>>Someone has asked me for the source of the saying "Inter faeces et urinam
>>nascimur."  I see that it is widely attributed to Augustine, but without a
>>precise source.  I would welcome any help on this.
>>    
>>
>
>This is a little circuitous, but Ernest Becker gives the quote --in 
>English translation--
>in _Denial of Death_  p. 33 and his citation (Ch 3, n10)  is "Freud 
>_Civilization and its
>Discontents_, 1930 (London: The Hogarth Press, 1969 edtion), p. 43".
>
>No idea if this is intended to be a primary source, though.
>  
>
This is in Freud's ch. 4, note 7 (the last note of the chapter, and a 
very long one). Though I am also looking at a translation (Strachey, W. 
W. Norton, 1961), it is clear that Freud is quoting someone else, though 
he does not say who. In this version, the original Latin is quoted, and 
translated in brackets. Probably Freud didn't bother to translate it for 
his readers.

"All neurotics, and many others besides, take exception to the fact that 
'inter urinas et faeces nascimur' [we are born between urine and faeces]'."

hth

RCB