Latin phrase of the day #13

I found today’s phrase in Lesley Coote’s Prophecy and Public Affairs in Later Medieval England.  It is a fragment of “Sicut rubeum draconem,” a prophecy inspired by and reworked from the Prophecia Merlini.

In ultimis diebus albi drachonis semen ejus trifarium spergetur.[1]

In – prep.; in, on, into, at, among

ultimis – adj.; far, farther, farthest, latest, last, highest, greatest

diebus – noun; day, daylight

In ultimis diebus – In the last days

albi – white

drachonis – noun; dragon

albi drachonis – of the white dragon

semen – noun; seed

ejus – pronoun; his

trifarium – adj.; three-fold

spergetur -> dispergetur (dispergo, dispergere, dispersi, dispersus) – verb; to scatter

In the last days of the white dragon, his seed will be scattered about threefold.

Now…this translation was dicey because of “spergetur,” which doesn’t appear in any of my dictionaries and such.  Dispergetur, however, is a known word meaning “to scatter.”  I actually had to go back into my dictionary in English looking for a word that meant something that would fit into the phrase (in this case, I was looking for “to seed” or “to scatter (seeds).”  And that’s what I found.


1. “Sicut rubeum draconem” in Lesley Coote, Prophecy and Public Affairs in Later Medieval England, (Woodbridge, Suffolk: York Medieval Press, 2000), 61.