Placetne

From Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.  Page 500.  

“Tell me one thing, Peter. Will it make you desperately unhappy if I say No?”

“Desperately?… My dear, I will not insult either you or myself with a word like that. I can only tell you that if you will marry me it will give me very great happiness.”

They passed beneath the arch of the bridge and out into the pale fight once more.

“Peter!”

She stood still; and he stopped perforce and turned towards her. She laid both hands upon the fronts of his gown, looking into his face while she searched for the word that should carry her over the last difficult breach.

It was he who found it for her. With a gesture of submission he bared his head and stood gravely, the square cap dangling in his hand.

“Placetne, magistra?”

“Placet.”

The literal Latin translation is "Does it please thee, Mistress?" and "It pleases."

A greyedgirl elaborates.

But of course, it is not simple, and this is what simple Latin is for.

Whereas we use impersonal verb forms like “It’s raining” or “it’s hot” for boring things like the weather (while Germans, more correctly, say “it’s hot to me,”) Latin has a maddening habit of expressing opinions and even feelings with impersonal verbs like placet, “it pleases,” a verb which is always impersonal in form while talking about personal feelings. Peter and Harriet, who have been carrying on an extended conversation about the reconciliation of heart and mind through this entire book, find a Latin word to do the job for them.

Magistra is “Mistress” in the sense of Master of Arts, respecting Harriet as a scholar and writer; it is also an honorific for “Lady,” subtly emphasizing her choice and agency in the matter.

The -ne at the end of Peter’s question is the sweet part, and the most significant part, and the part that just cannot be translated. Remember that odd Latin word num used to prefix questions when you expect a “no” answer? -ne is its opposite number, a question which confidently expects the answer will be “yes.” That tiny shift from num to -ne sums up a five-year courtship in five letters.