Latin for "Beautiful daughter, more beautiful mother"

[LoungeLizard]

Please could someone give me the correct Latin expression for the above?

It is a highly complimentary thing to say to an older woman if you've already met her daughter.

It is something like 'Pulcher puella, Pulcherior mater" (Please don't mock my rubbish Latin; over 20 years since I passed the O-level).

[Peter Pedant]

The latin's OK -I passed mine in 1966.

Not very zippy tho' - perhaps a passing Latinist will chuck in a decent quote by a poet.

[Hgrove]

I think it should be pulchra puella (feminine).

[marmaduke]

http://www.slownik-online.pl/kopalinski/34DE46E1CA1ADC99C1256638003F5D64.php

It's a Polish website which has the quote you're looking for, I think. It says it's from Horace, and the Polish translation in English is "Oh you, more beautiful daughter of a beautiful mother" - so not quite what you were saying. But then my Polish might be wrong!

[marmaduke]

Sorry in my haste I translated the Polish wrongly. The Polish says:

o ty, pięknej matki piękniejsza (jeszcze) c�rko;

Oh you, (even) more beautiful daughter of a beautiful mother.

[marmaduke]

So your version in Latin would be:

puella pulchra, mater pulchrior (beautiful daughter, more beautiful mother)

[Hgrove]

Above sounds good to me.

[Peter Pedant]

Horace - Odes 1 sixteenth ode line 1

o matre pulchra filia pulchrior

switching the words sort of wrecks the scanning....

[LoungeLizard]

Thanks for the erudition, I enjoyed reading all these answers.  This rather trivial question had been bugging me for ages.

So the answer is:

O matre pulchra filia pulch pulchrior.

I am particularly amused to note that not only did I get the Latin wrong; I got the (English) meaning wrong!

It's one thing to give a compliment to the mother of a daughter; quite another thing to start chatting up the daughter of a mother.  Oh dear, dangerous territory; I'm not going there!

Thanks, I've had a good smile reading this thread!  

[LoungeLizard]

Sorry, got an extra 'pulch' in there, sorry.