Alicia in Terra Mirabili - megathread

[bathtime]

This is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I've heard from Godmy and several others that this is a very well written book. It tends to follow flow and use Latin idioms.

I have the paperback; but, a free Latin version can be found online here, and the original in English can be found here.

I would like to have this thread as a main goto for this book, as I have yet to find other posts on it.


My question, so far, is this sentence:

Non diutius morata, Alicia post eum descendit, ne cogitans quidem quo pacto omnino rursus emergeret.

Alice, no having dallied longer, went down behind it (the White Rabbit), not even thinking at all how, on the other hand, she might escape.

Here is the original in English, and though you may think I have cut the text short, you can check for yourself and see that I have not; apparently the author added some extra Latin text:

In another moment, down went Alice after it!


Does this look right?

 

[Pacifica]

Hm, that's weird. Could it be that there are several English versions and the translator was using another one?

Your back-translation of the Latin isn't quite correct. Omnino, given its placement, modifies emergeret, not cogitans, and rursus means "again". I might also translate emergeret as "get out" rather than "escape".

 

[bathtime]

Hm, that's weird. Could it be that there are several English versions and the translator was using another one?

Found another version with the correct text here.

Your back-translation of the Latin isn't quite correct. Omnino, given its placement, modifies emergeret, not cogitans, and rursus means "again". I might also translate emergeret as "get out" rather than "escape".

Ah, makes sense now, and it matches the above. Thanks.

 

[bathtime]

I could use help with this sentence:

Alicia erat in longo atrio lacunare* not alto, quod lucernae a tecto ordine demissae illustrabant.​

*lacunar, -aris, n., ceiling (found in book's appendix, but abl. not picked up by Perseus or Whitaker's...)


My, very literal, translation (to make sense of the grammar):

Alice was in a long hall with not a high ceiling (with a low ceiling), which oil-lamps <having been> hung down from the ceiling in a series were illuminating (lit up).​

The original book:

Alice found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof.​

While it makes sense, I am just a little uncertain as to my usage of lacunare and ordine.

 

[Pacifica]

with not a high ceiling (with a low ceiling)

That's most probably what was meant. The ablative of lacunar is normally lacunari, I think, but maybe there's a variant. The addition of this word feels a bit superfluous to me, but well.

which oil-lamps <having been> hung down from the ceiling in a series were illuminating

Correct.

 

[bathtime]

I found the text and threw it into a PDF file. This text does not include the macrons. It's just a hasty put-together, but it does the job.

The book can be found here.

This book may be read online or downloaded as a PDF. Text selection is enabled to allow selecting of words.


And so,

down the rabbit hole we go....