Ch. 36 of 38 Latin Stories Translation help

[katierenee]

So here is the latin
"Ego discipulos in scholis stultissimos fieri puto, quod nihil, ex his quae in usu habemus, aut audiunt aut vident, sed homines plenos timoris petentes a piratis ne se in catenas iniciant, sed tyrannos edicta scribentes quibus imperent filiis ut capita patrum suorum praecidant, sed reges oraculis monitos ut virgines tres immolent ne pestilentia gravior fiat."

My translation: (it will be pretty rough)
I think the students become the most foolish in school, because nothing, out of these things we have in experience, or they hear or see, but plenty men seeking of fear from pirates so that they are not thrown into chains, but tyrants writing decrees to which order sons to cut off the heads of their own fathers, but kings warning to prophecies to sacrifice three virgins so that the plague may not be harsher.

I may need help with the rest, but here is all I have down as of now.

 

[Imperfacundus]

Not bad. That's 90% of the way there, actually​

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Notes:​

In this case, usus does mean "use"​

​

Nihil is the object of audiunt and vident. Mentally insert nihil in front of each of the sed's in the passage​

​

Timoris is not the object of petentes; very few Latin verbs take genitive objects. In fact, the entire clause ne se in catenas iniciant is its "object"​

Timoris instead goes with plenos (full of...)​

​

Quibus here means "by which" (abl. of means) and imperent is a subjunctive. Taken together, "by which to order" (literally, by which they might order)​

​

Oraculis doesn't mean prophecies, but rather prophets. It's also in the ablative. To understand reges oraculis monitos, think of pontus fabro factus.​

 

[katierenee]

Not bad. That's 90% of the way there, actually​

​

Notes:​

In this case, usus does mean "use"​

​

Nihil is the object of audiunt and vident. Mentally insert nihil in front of each of the sed's in the passage​

​

Timoris is not the object of petentes; very few Latin verbs take genitive objects. In fact, the entire clause ne se in catenas iniciant is its "object"​

Timoris instead goes with plenos (full of...)​

​

Quibus here means "by which" (abl. of means) and imperent is a subjunctive. Taken together, "by which to order" (literally, by which they might order)​

​

Oraculis doesn't mean prophecies, but rather prophets. It's also in the ablative. To understand reges oraculis monitos, think of pontus fabro factus.​

Sometimes latin just looks like a jumble of words and I have a tough time, but you helped a lot. Thank you so much!

 

[Imperfacundus]

You're welcome!
By the way the nihil sed thing was just to help with translating. "Nothing but" is usually nihil nisi.