His verbis puero monito

[ThomasXX]

I am not sure of my translation of these passages from Lingua Latina:

First Passage:
His verbis puero monito, Syra tandem narrandi finem facit.

My translation:
With these words of warning to the boy, Syra at length finished the narration. (made a finish of the narration)

Second Passage:
Neque Quintus eam abeuntem revocat

My translation:
Quintus did not call her back, who was going.


Is these correct?

Any comments will be welcome. Thanks.

 

[Godmy]

Hi,

First Passage:
His verbis puero monito, Syra tandem narrandi finem facit.

My translation:
With these words of warning to the boy, Syra at length finished the narration. (made a finish of the narration)

I need to be sure you understand the grammar here, so what is monitō grammatically? (Say all the details you can about this verb form. You can use some morphological analyzer as Whitaker's Words, if you wish.) Or what kind of construction puerō monitō is?

What tense is facit? Otherwise the second part of the sentence is alright.

Second Passage:
Neque Quintus eam abeuntem revocat

My translation:
Quintus did not call her back, who was going.

Just to make sure, who in your interpretation was "going"? Also what does the prefix ab- in abeuntem mean? And what tense is revocat?

I would probable phrase this differently in English, but I suppose that after you deal with some of my points I've made in the preceding sentences, this one should be alright.

 

[Imber Ranae]

Participles in Latin are often best translated with a temporal clause rather than a relative one. Here I'd recommend using 'as she...'

 

[ThomasXX]

Hi,


I need to be sure you understand the grammar here, so what is monītō grammatically? (Say all the details you can about this verb form. You can use some morphological analyzer as Whitaker's Words, if you wish.) Or what kind of construction puerō monītō is?

What tense is facit? Otherwise the second part of the sentence is alright.


Just to make sure, who in your interpretation was "going"? Also what does the prefix ab- in abeuntem mean? And what tense is revocat?

I would probable phrase this differently in English, but I suppose that after you deal with my some of the points I've made in the preceding sentences, this one should be alright.

I see some of my blunders of tense:

His verbis puero monito, Syra tandem narrandi finem facit.
With these words of warning to the boy, Syra at length finishes the narration. (makes a finish of the narration)

Neque Quintus eam abeuntem revocat
Quintus does not call her back, as she is leaving.

As for monito, I cannot find it anywhere. I made a wild stab at it thinking it was monitus made into an ablative to agree with puero.

Thanks

 

[Pacifica]

I made a wild stab at it thinking it was monitus made into an ablative to agree with puero.

That's right. It's the ablative singular of the perfect passive participle of moneo, in agreement with puero in an ablative absolute. Literally, "The boy having been warned with these words, Syra..."

 

[Godmy]

I see some of my blunders of tense:

His verbis puero monito, Syra tandem narrandi finem facit.
With these words of warning to the boy, Syra at length finishes the narration. (makes a finish of the narration)

Neque Quintus eam abeuntem revocat
Quintus does not call her back, as she is leaving.

As for monito, I cannot find it anywhere. I made a wild stab at it thinking it was monitus made into an ablative to agree with puero.

Thanks

Ok, the tenses are alright now (and your rephrasing).

For monitō you can look by typing it here to the Latin-English part (and you will see this - if you can read the abbreviations). At least you should see now what part of the verb moneō is monitō made of (as you know, in dictionaries the verbs usually are written in 4 parts, as for example laudō, laudāre, laudāvī, laudātum ) <- maybe this might help & in realizing what construction it is?

Also through this link you will learn what all grammatical cases this form can be (maybe it can be more forms than you have considered: you have considered a dative, right?).

P.S.: Ah, I missed your line when you said it might be an ablative.

 

[ThomasXX]

Ok, the tenses are alright now (and your rephrasing).

For monītō you can look by typing it here to the Latin-English part (and you will see this - if you can read the abbreviations). At least you should see now what part of the verb moneō is monītō made of (as you know, in dictionaries the verbs usually are written in 4 parts, as for example laudō, laudāre, laudāvī, laudātum ) <- maybe this might help & in realizing what construction it is?

Also through this link you will learn what all grammatical cases this form can be (maybe it can be more forms than you have considered: you have considered a dative, right?).

I think I have it now. I was using Verbix which does not show all the participles. I used Cactus and found that monito is the perfect passive participle. Thus the translation should be:

His verbis puero monito, Syra tandem narrandi finem facit.
The boy having been warned by these words Syra, at length, finishes the narration.
(By these words to the warned boy) (makes an end)

 

[Imber Ranae]

The i in monitō is actually short.

I think I have it now. I was using Verbix which does not show all the participles. I used Cactus and found that monito is the perfect passive participle.

I would advise against using Verbix: it isn't always reliable. I'm not familiar with Cactus, but though it's correct in this case I'd be wary of it too.

Thus the translation should be:

His verbis puero monito, Syra tandem narrandi finem facit.
The boy having been warned by these words Syra, at length, finishes the narration.
(By these words to the warned boy) (makes an end)

For the first part, what you have written above is closer to a literal translation than what you put in the parentheses.

 

[Godmy]

The i in monitō is actually short.

I just realized monitō is short after having a bad feeling about the ī and checking a dictionary. And then right after editing them all, I read your comment (But I thought for a little while it was a bit weird you hadn't noticed it : P)



I tried to push Thomas towards some kind of literal translation because I wasn't sure he'd understood really the grammar (being it an ablative absolute construction - and now he also knows monitō is in fact a participle). Anyway, otherwise I don't necessarily recommend word by word translation.

Also it seem(s/ed) to me that Thomas thought for some while that they were datives. Actually I think he still does.

 

[ThomasXX]

Thanks Godmy. I looked up the usage of the ablative absolute. Here is my translation in that light. I also made it less literal.

The boy warned by these words, Syra finally brings the recounting of the fable to a close.

Thomas

 

[cinefactus]

In English we would normally change it to an active construction. After warning the boy with these words, having warned the boy, when he had warned the boy.

 

[Pacifica]

"She", though.

Thomas's first relatively free translation, "with these words of warning to the boy", looked good to me as well. It's just that we had to make sure he understood the literal construction of the Latin and wasn't just guessing.

 

[ThomasXX]

I was guessing. Thanks for smoking me out. I had arrived at a good translation by bad means. LL is not heavy on the grammar side of Latin but after you guys busted me, I took a closer look at the indices and found that I could look up examples, in the text, of the ablative absolute usage. I also checked Wheelock which has a good treatment of the subject.

Thanks again,

Thomas