Aeneid line 1-10: oris

[Anonymous]

I don't seem to be able to find what Oris means in line 1... I think it's genitive Os... but.... it doesn't fit.
Also I cant find what litora would be in line 3... god I suck....

Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit
litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram;
multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem,
inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum,
Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae.

Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso,
quidve dolens, regina deum tot volvere casus
insignem pietate virum, tot adire labores
impulerit. Tantaene animis caelestibus irae?

also if anyone could direct me to a literal translation of The Aeneid that would be Maximum Res.

 

[Matthaeus]

Re: Aeneid line 1-10 Literal Trans

Hope this helps.

 

[Imber Ranae]

Re: Aeneid line 1-10 Literal Trans

Arma virumque canō, Trōiae quī prīmus ab ōrīs
Ītaliam fātō profugus Lāvīniaque vēnit
lītora...

ōrīs is ablative plural of ōra,-ae (f.) "coast", not of ōs, ōris (n.) "mouth".

lītora is accusative (end of motion) plural of lītus,-oris (n.) "shore, beach". It is modified by the adjective Lāvīnius,-a,-um.

"The first who came from the coasts of Troy, exiled by fate, to Italy and the Lavinian shores."

 

[simplissimus]

Re: Aeneid line 1-10 Literal Trans

You probably understand that no one has time to give you private tutoring, and we certainly don’t want to help you do anything that would be cheating. However, I sympathize and will give you a bit of a start.

One of the hardest parts of reading Latin is the unfettered order. English lost its case endings long ago – some theorize that it happened when Germanic and Scandinavian peasants were living together in England. The words in their languages were similar enough that the two could understand one another – ship/skip, shirt/skirt, etc. – but the grammatical endings were getting in the way of communication, so the common folk stopped using them. Of course, the only people who were literate in those times were writing in Latin or French, so we can’t really know. All we have is the result, an English in which the case endings are gone and everything depends on word order. “The man bit the dog” is not the same as “The dog bit the man.”

Latin had a full set of case endings, so the words could be moved around quite a bit. Some writers exploited that freedom more than others. It is not by chance that students start off with that no-frills, no-nonsense guy, Julius Caesar, and then go on through the mildly-oratorical Cicero before trying to make sense out of the wildly expansive Virgil. But Virgil is what you are faced with, so here is what I am going to do:

Here are those first eleven lines of the Aeneid, arranged in the word order we would find natural in English:

Cano arma (et) virum, qui, profugus fato, primus venit Italiam (et) Lavinia litora ob oris Trojae, ille jactatus multum et terris et alto vi superum ob memorem iram saevae Junonis, quoque passus multa et bello, dum conderet urbem (et) inferret deos Latio, unde genus Latinum (et) Albani patres atque alta moenia Romae. Musa, memora mihi causas quo laeso numine quidve dolens regina deum impulerit virum signem pietate volvere tot casus, adire tot labores. Tantaene irae caelestibus animis?

For further help, check out http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ ... -10-X.html. There you will find a word-by-word translation and grammatical explanation of each word of the Latin text.

 

[Damoetas]

Re: Aeneid line 1-10 Literal Trans

Cano arma (et) virum, qui, profugus fato, primus venit Italiam (et) Lavinia litora ob oris Trojae, ille jactatus multum et terris et alto vi superum ob memorem iram saevae Junonis, quoque passus multa et bello, dum conderet urbem (et) inferret deos Latio, unde genus Latinum (et) Albani patres atque alta moenia Romae. Musa, memora mihi causas quo laeso numine quidve dolens regina deum impulerit virum signem pietate volvere tot casus, adire tot labores. Tantaene irae caelestibus animis?

Ugh, that is horrible No, I'm partly kidding.... I understand the purpose of it, and perhaps it is helpful in some way for beginners. But really, what beginners need to do is train their minds to understand Latin word order, not rearrange Latin word order to conform with English!

 

[simplissimus]

Re: Aeneid line 1-10 Literal Trans

I agree, of course, and I hope that Fugax will continue on in Latin and someday find it diverting to puzzle out the word order of a writer like Virgil. For now, however, I feel that he needs a bit of encouragement, so that he does not throw away his Latin textbook and decide that henceforth he will confine his study of the ancient world to movies like "The 300" and old Steve Reeves' films.

By the way, in a used book sale, I once saw a textbook of Caesar's Gallic Wars, re-written in English-style word order. I didn't buy it though -- in those days I had too little money.

 

[Imber Ranae]

Re: Aeneid line 1-10 Literal Trans

Perhaps you are referring to this (caution: pdf file) book?

 

[simplissimus]

Re: Aeneid line 1-10 Literal Trans

That sure looks like it. I do remember it as being from the 1920’ or 1930’s, something rather surprising in the bin. Where did you find it in electronic form? Is it on the internet somewhere?

 

[Chamaeleo]

Re: Aeneid line 1-10 Literal Trans

Is it on the internet somewhere?

Are we not on the Internet? I hadn’t realised I’d wandered into real life somehow...

 

[Matthaeus]

Re: Aeneid line 1-10 Literal Trans

LOL

 

[Imber Ranae]

Re: Aeneid line 1-10 Literal Trans

That sure looks like it. I do remember it as being from the 1920’ or 1930’s, something rather surprising in the bin. Where did you find it in electronic form? Is it on the internet somewhere?

It was just pure luck that the description you gave of the book sounded like something I had seen somebody link to before in this very forum. That was in this thread.