Interesting (non-)use of interrogative enclitic '-ne' in Cano

[gscho]

The proemium to Melchior Cano's De locis theologicis begins with this paragraph:

Saepe mecum cogitavi, lector optime, boni ne plus is attulerit hominibus, qui multarum rerum copiam in disciplinas invexit, an qui rationem paravit et viam, qua disciplinae ipsae facilius et commodius ordine traderentur.

My rough translation:

I have often thought to myself, dear reader, who has brought more good to men, whether he who has brought an abundance of many things into the disciplines, or he who has provided a reason and way by which those very disciplines are more easily and more advantageously handed down by order.

For the longest time I thought that here ne was the negative adverb, but I realized that it is the interrogative enclitic which in this same, for some reason, has not been attached to the previous word (maybe because bonine would look funny, or maybe because by the time this work was written in the 16th century it became common use). Has anyone seen anything similar?

 

[Pacifica]

It could just be a typo, or it could be that at a certain period there was a fashion, which I'm not aware of, of writing -ne as a separate word. If it occurs repeatedly in your source, it could be the latter; otherwise I'd bet on the former. Or, possibly as well, someone who was in charge of transcribing the text at some point misunderstood the ne as the negative and thus wrongly wrote it as a separate word.

I've seen a very few people nowadays join -ne with a hyphen (e.g. boni-ne) rather than fuse it with the word. I don't know if they've any "authority" for doing this or if they just invented it.

Concerning your translation, rationem probably means something like "method" rather than "reason" here, and the last clause qua... traderentur expresses a purpose in the past (mark the imperfect subjunctive), so more like "by which those very disciplines might be... handed down".

 

[gscho]

Thanks Pacifica. You are right about traderentur (I suppose the clause is a relative result clause). With respect to ratio (and ordine), since they can be translated so many ways, I just chose a general translation.

 

[Dantius]

I've seen a very few people nowadays join -ne with a hyphen (e.g. boni-ne) rather than fuse it with the word. I don't know if they've any "authority" for doing this or if they just invented it.

I think it's sometimes done just to make things less confusing for students.. I know I've sometimes been confused by -ne added to the end of a word when I'm not expecting it.