Verum esto aliis alios rebus studiisque teneri

[Ospringe]

Please could you help with this phrase from Horace (Epistles I,1,80-1)? The commentaries I've consulted pass over the syntax in silence.

My utterly literal translation would be: "But let it be that different people are gripped by different things and desires".

What I'm not sure of is why an accusative and infinitive construction would follow the imperative of esse. Is it counted as indirect speech? Or have I got the whole thing wrong?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Manus Correctrix]

I suppose that’s what it means. The AcI covers a wide variety of subordinate clauses.

 

[Nikolaos]

What a scary line to parse.

 

[Godmy]

Yeah... something like: Verum esto(3rd.p. sit = id sit) alios teneri aliis rebus studiisque = verum [id] sit, ut alii teneantur aliis rebus studiisque

"(But) let it be that... " What is wrong with acc+inf? "Necesse est eos dormire" -> "Necesse [id] est eos dormire" - [id] esse + acc-inf ... surely not the thing you would see everyday, but it exists.
(I'm putting "id" to [] to denote the "impersonal" subject... like in "it rains")

And impersonal "id" normally takes acc+inf.

Btw... I would translate "teneri" here as "being interested" (haec res me tenet = hac re teneor ).

 

[Ospringe]

Thank you for your replies. I found three stumbling blocks with the phrase: 1) the idiomatic use of "alii alios" which always throws me; 2) the use of "esto" (rather than "sit ut", say) and 3) the acc+inf construction with the infinitive of esse. (Is there a reference to this construction in any grammar that anyone knows of, btw?).

I wonder if Horace's original audience extracted the full meaning first time around.

 

[Ospringe]

Oops, I mean imperative of esse, not infinitive.

 

[Godmy]

As I say: technically the acc-inf is not connected to that "esse" but to the impersonal "id" (esto = id esto = id sit) - which we normally don't mention

It happens often that demonstrative/semi-demonstrative pronouns refer also to acc-inf construction:

Seneca:
"Non circa Numantiam multum diuque sedit et hunc suum publicumque dolorem aequo animo tulit, diutius Numantiam quam Carthaginem vinci ?" (De Ira, 1.11)

hunc dolorem here refers further to acc-inf "diutius Numantiam quam Carthaginem vinci".
(what kind of pain? That Numantia was being conquered in a longer time than Carthage <- which was probably kind of funny)

Same in construction "necesse est" + acc inf as we know, that "necesse" etymologically comes from nominative singular, neuter adjective of some declension. So you can take it as "id necesse est".

 

[Ospringe]

Gratias vobis ago.

 

[Nikolaos]

the idiomatic use of "alii alios" which always throws me

Note here that aliis here doesn't really have anything to do with alios, but with rebus, so it isn't really that deep grammatically. What really makes it confusing is the word order and imperative.

I wonder if Horace's original audience extracted the full meaning first time around.

The educated probably did - English poems sometimes use perplexing word orders, but we don't have much trouble figuring them out.