In Catilinam I: Reading Thread

[Pacifica]

Ok, ok... ( )

 

[Callaina]

But an ablative absolute is hardly ever only an ablative absolute, actually. It's always a bit temporal or causal or conditional or concessive, even instrumental... and sometimes several of these at the same time.

Thinking about this again -- I suppose it's inevitable that would be the case. If an ablative absolute really had nothing at all to do with the action described in the rest of the sentence (either in a temporal or causal or conditional or concessive or instrumental sense) then why would it be in the sentence at all, LOL? Obviously the author felt it was important to mention because it related to the rest of the sentence somehow, even if the precise way it does so is left up to us to glean from context rather than spelled out...

 

[Pacifica]

Indeed.

 

[LVXORD]

Well, while there is no grammatical link between the two clauses, I believe there tends to be some sort of a connection in the overall meaning of the sentences as the absolute construction conveys the circumstances of the action that is in the main clause.

 

[Callaina]

A couple questions in the next bit.

V. Quae cum ita sint, Catilina, perge, quo coepisti, egredere aliquando ex urbe; patent portae; proficiscere. Nimium diu te imperatorem tua illa Manliana castra desiderant. Educ tecum etiam omnes tuos, si minus, quam plurimos; purga urbem. Magno me metu liberabis, dum modo inter me atque te murus intersit. Nobiscum versari iam diutius non potes; non feram, non patiar, non sinam.

1) Educ. What is going on with this odd imperative?

2) si minus, quam plurimos... I've never seen si used together with quam. Perseus gives a translation for the beginning of this sentence of "And lead forth with you all your friends, or at least as many as you can..." but this seems like avery loose translation. Does it mean something (literally) like "if fewer than most" or "if fewer than very many" (i.e. either not all, or even most, of Cataline's "friends" will want to leave Rome with him; or perhaps he just didn't have very many friends to begin with... )

3) non feram, non patiar, non sinam. I understand what Cicero is saying, but I'm trying to figure out what category these subjunctives fall into. It seems odd because he seems to be making a very definite statement here: "I will not suffer, etc. it" (not "I would not" (or "might not" or "wish not to", etc.) "suffer it") -- so I would have expected indicative...

 

[Pacifica]

1) Educ. What is going on with this odd imperative?

It's the normal singular imperative for that verb. There are three verbs that form their singular imperative that way: dico, facio and duco: dic, fac, duc. Their compounds also form it the same way, except the compounds of facio in which it's changed to - ficio, like conficio, perficio, etc.; these form their imperative in the regular way.

2) si minus, quam plurimos... I've never seen si used together with quam. Perseus gives a translation for the beginning of this sentence of "And lead forth with you all your friends, or at least as many as you can..." but this seems like a very loose translation. Does it mean something (literally) like "if fewer than most" or "if fewer than very many" (i.e. either not all, or even most, of Cataline's "friends" will want to leave Rome with him; or perhaps he just didn't have very many friends to begin with... )

The translation isn't particularly loose.

Si minus is literally "if less", but it's used when we'd say "if not".
Quam + superlative = "as ... as possible".

So, Educ tecum etiam omnes tuos, si minus, quam plurimos = more or less literally, "lead forth with you all your friends also; if not, as many as possible".

3) non feram, non patiar, non sinam. I understand what Cicero is saying, but I'm trying to figure out what category these subjunctives fall into. It seems odd because he seems to be making a very definite statement here: "I will not suffer, etc. it" (not "I would not" (or "might not" or "wish not to", etc.) "suffer it") -- so I would have expected indicative...

They're future there, not subjunctive.

 

[Callaina]

It's the normal singular imperative for that verb. There are three verbs that form their singular imperative that way: dico, facio and duco: dic, fac, duc.

Heh, right after posting this I glanced at your translation on the "Demon" thread and figured that something like that must be the explanation.

The translation isn't particularly loose.

Si minus is literally "if less", but it's used when we'd say "if not".
Quam + superlative = "as ... as possible".

So, Educ tecum etiam omnes tuos, si minus, quam plurimos = more or less literally, "lead forth with you all your friends also; if not, as many as possible"..

Oh, ok, so the si and quam don't go together after all; it's rather the quam and superlative. Got it.

They're future there, not subjunctive.

Gah, silly me. Clearly I have subjunctives on the brain

 

[malleolus]

Do you plan on analyzing the figures of speech in the text once you are done translating? It might be worth your while.

There are three verbs that form their singular imperative that way: dico, facio and duco: dic, fac, duc.

Quite practical to keep in mind that there is also fer < ferre.

 

[Callaina]

Do you plan on analyzing the figures of speech in the text once you are done translating? It might be worth your while.

That's a good point -- indeed. Though I've never studied Latin figures of speech, only English (of course some will be similar, but I'm sure there are some unique to Latin as well.) Is there a webpage or other resource on this you can recommend?

(Re: translating, for the last couple paragraphs I actually have just been reading in the Latin -- I find it's clear enough that I don't need to translate. Either the sentence structure got simpler after Cicero finished his introductory remarks, or I'm getting better at this, or both But I think it's a good sign...)

 

[Ignis Umbra]

Quite practical to keep in mind that there is also fer < ferre.

My first Latin teacher taught us a little mnemonic device to remember these irregular imperatives:

Duc, dic, fac, and fer are missing the 'e' that should be there.

Of course, some of us actually got confused by this and would write Duce puellas ad provinciam!

 

[Aurifex]

My first Latin teacher taught us a little mnemonic device to remember these irregular imperatives:

Duc, dic, fac, and fer are missing the 'e' that should be there.

I remember it as a slightly more meaningful Dic['s] fac duc['s] fer.

 

[Ignis Umbra]

..and also slightly more provocative.

 

[Aurifex]

..and also slightly more provocative.

Provocative? In what way?

 

[Callaina]

A couple questions in this paragraph.

[12] Nunc iam aperte rem publicam universam petis, templa deorum inmortalium, tecta urbis, vitam omnium civium, Italiam [denique] totam ad exitium et vastitatem vocas. Quare, quoniam id, quod est primum, et quod huius imperii disciplinaeque maiorum proprium est, facere nondum audeo, faciam id, quod est ad severitatem lenius et ad communem salutem utilius.* Nam si te interfici iussero, residebit in re publica reliqua coniuratorum manus; sin tu, quod te iam dudum hortor**, exieris, exhaurietur ex urbe tuorum comitum magna et perniciosa sentina rei publicae.

* I had translated this as: "I will do the thing, which is more lenient towards severity [i.e. Cataline's severity] and more useful to the communal well-being." Perseus gives the following: "I will do that which is more merciful if we regard its rigour, and more expedient for the state", which is quite similar, except for ad severitatem lenius. I wasn't aware an accusative could be used like this, with or without ad (it seems like it should be an ablative of respect, or maybe a genitive). So I'm still puzzled...
** Perseus translates this as "as I have long been exhorting you..." In general I find Cicero uses iam quite a bit in this oration, in several different ways. I'm trying to get a handle on how it works, especially when it's combined with other words designating time. Any general pointers?

 

[Pacifica]

* I had translated this as: "I will do the thing, which is more lenient towards severity [i.e. Cataline's severity] and more useful to the communal well-being." Perseus gives the following: "I will do that which is more merciful if we regard its rigour, and more expedient for the state", which is quite similar, except for ad severitatem lenius. I wasn't aware an accusative could be used like this, with or without ad (it seems like it should be an ablative of respect, or maybe a genitive). So I'm still puzzled...

Ad means like "with regards to" there. An ablative would have been possible I suppose; an accusative alone wouldn't, nor would a genitive make any sense.

** Perseus translates this as "as I have long been exhorting you..." In general I find Cicero uses iam quite a bit in this oration, in several different ways. I'm trying to get a handle on how it works, especially when it's combined with other words designating time. Any general pointers?

Your question is rather broad... Iam basically means "now" or "already". With dudum it means "since long ago" or "long ago"; literally kind of "now long ago" or "already long ago". With a negative (iam non and such) it means "no longer"; literally "now not".

There's also iam pridem with a similar meaning to iam dudum.

 

[Callaina]

Thanks!

From the next bit:

Quae nota domesticae turpitudinis non inusta vitae tuae est? quod privatarum rerum dedecus non haeret in fama? quae lubido ab oculis, quod facinus a manibus umquam tuis, quod flagitium a toto corpore afuit?

1) These feminine pronouns are really confusing me, since both my textbooks state that there are no separate interrogative feminine pronouns and that quis is used for both masculine and feminine singular. What's going on here?

2) I can't find deducus anywhere, and the Perseus translation doesn't exactly enlighten me: "What disgraceful circumstance is wanting to your infamy in your private affairs?" Help, please

 

[Pacifica]

1) These feminine pronouns are really confusing me, since both my textbooks state that there are no separate interrogative feminine pronouns and that quis is used for both masculine and feminine singular. What's going on here?

These are adjectives; from qui, quae, quod (which can also be used as pronouns, but here they're adjectives). It's quis, quid (who?, what?/"what person?", "what thing?") that has no feminine.

2) I can't find deducus anywhere, and the Perseus translation doesn't exactly enlighten me: "What disgraceful circumstance is wanting to your infamy in your private affairs?" Help, please

"Shame", "disgrace" or something like that. Privatarum rerum modifies dedecus rather than fama. Fama is more largely "reputation" or so rather than "infamy".

 

[Godmy]

(Ruining my post count)

These are adjectives; from qui, quae, quod (which can also be used as pronouns, but here they're adjectives). ...

I would just like to point out that we categorize the individual words to the parts of speech based on the syntactico-semantic combination with an emphasis on the semantic part of the word. And as such qui, quae, quod - no matter what, is always a pronoun. What we mean, when we say things like it is an adjective here is that it syntactically behaves & functions as an adjective, but semantically it is still a pronoun (since adjective needs to have its own lexical meaning and qui, quae, quod has none, but is a pro-form and therefore it never can be properly an adjective no matter how much we wish ).

So just be careful when you categorize But yes, for the purposes of reading and understanding its syntactic behavior and function (in this case adjectival) is usually more important and key to understand it, so that's why it is pointed out in this way.

 

[Callaina]

These are adjectives; from qui, quae, quod (which can also be used as pronouns, but here they're adjectives). It's quis, quid (who?, what?/"what person?", "what thing?") that has no feminine.

Oh, I see -- I was mixing up interrogative adjectives and pronouns (probably because they're identical in English, at least the ones that would be used here). Oops.

But thanks, as always.

(Ruining my post count)

I would just like to point out that we categorize the individual words to the parts of speech based on the syntactico-semantic combination and as such qui, quae, quod - no matter what, is always a pronoun. What we mean, when we say things like it is an adjective here is that it syntactically behaves & functions as an adjective, but semantically it is still a pronoun (since adjective needs to have its own lexical meaning and qui, quae, quod has none, but is a proform and therefore it never can be properly an adjective no matter how much you wish ).

So just be careful when you categorize But yes, for the purposes of reading and understanding its syntactic behavior and function (in this case adjectival) is usually more important and key to understand it, so that's why it is pointed out in this way.

Interesting, thanks for this point!

And LOL -- I'm honored that you'd ruin your perfect post count for my sake

 

[Godmy]