Carmina Burana: "Manus ferens munera..." stanza 6

Callaina

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I've been taking a look at some of the Carmina Burana. I'm a bit puzzled by the last stanza of the poem beginning "Manus ferens munera" -- most of the poem is quite straightforward, about how money corrupts judges and perverts justice, beggars get ignored while rich people get the judgments they want, etc. Then we have this rather curious stanza:

Hec est causa curie,
quam daturus perficit;

"This is the cause/condition of the court, which the one who will give carries out/sees through."

defectu pecunie
causa Codri deficit.

"By a lack of money/wealth the cause of Codrus [the legendary last king of Athens, who sacrificed himself so the enemy would withdraw] fails." (Confusing, since the cause of Codrus did not fail -- or perhaps the poet simply means "even an exemplary and supremely righteous cause will fail"?)

tale fedus hodie
defedat et inficit

"This compact/agreement today defiles and infects..."

nostros ablativos,
qui absorbent vivos,
moti per dativos
movent genitivos.

...And I'm not at all sure what's going on here: obviously a series of grammatical puns of some sort (probably centered around "dativos" = "given" and "ablativos" = "taken away").

Any insights?
 

Callaina

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Oh, yes, should give a link to the rest of the poem: it's here, first poem on the page.
 

Pacifica

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I'm confused too.

Maybe ablativi are judges who auferunt munera and dativi are those who corrupt judges dando munera?

I don't have much of an idea about genitivos.
 

Callaina

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I'm confused too.

Maybe ablativi are judges who auferunt munera and dativi are those who corrupt judges dando munera?

That makes sense.
 

Callaina

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It's a bit strange, too, that the poet didn't make any sort of legal pun on accusativos.
 

Callaina

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I found this reference in Google Books, but I don't see how the translator possibly can come up with what's given there.
 

Pacifica

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I don't see how either.

Since when is the ablative a tense?
 

Callaina

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LOL, somehow I missed that. :shakehead:
 
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defectu pecunie
causa Codri deficit.

"By a lack of money/wealth the cause of Codrus [the legendary last king of Athens, who sacrificed himself so the enemy would withdraw] fails." (Confusing, since the cause of Codrus did not fail -- or perhaps the poet simply means "even an exemplary and supremely righteous cause will fail"?)

This reference might be wrong.

There was a poet in Augustean times who went by the name of Codrus, too. He was appreciated, but at the same time he was extremely poor.

That reference would make a bit more sense as the point of the first four lines is that those who give (or bribe) a lot (= have a lot of money) win their legal arguments that way, while those who have nothing also don't stand a chance in court.
 

Callaina

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This reference might be wrong.

There was a poet in Augustean times who went by the name of Codrus, too. He was appreciated, but at the same time he was extremely poor.

That reference would make a bit more sense as the point of the first four lines is that those who give (or bribe) a lot (= have a lot of money) win their legal arguments that way, while those who have nothing also don't stand a chance in court.

Oh, that makes a lot more sense! Thanks. :)
 
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It's a bit of a stretch, but with Pacifica's hint that ablativi are probably the judges, I would understand (interpret) it as

Such an alliance [between the rich and the judges] ((or possibly on an even wider scale: such circumstances))
infects and corrupts
the ones who take away (the judges),
who absorb the living (as in, they lead to their downfall): (<- colon)
(the judges,) moved by the ones who give (by the rich)
they torment* the ones who are possessed (the thralls of the feudal system, i.e. the poor)

* understanding movent in the sense of agitant

(open for discussion of course)
 
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Haha, you mean he just made it up? ;)

No ... the translation is from another book, which is not available online, unfortunately (at least I can't find an accessible version).
He just mindlessly copied the translation without giving it a single thought and then went on to analyse the translated, English text, which he couldn't make any sense of, either. However, he had to fill a paragraph somehow, so in order to pay the text back for not making any sense to him, he also just compiled a lot of sentences that don't make any sense either.
I mean ... how can you write such bullshit?
 

Callaina

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No ... the translation is from another book, which is not available online, unfortunately (at least I can't find an accessible version).
He just mindlessly copied the translation without giving it a single thought and then went on to analyse the translated, English text, which he couldn't make any sense of, either. However, he had to fill a paragraph somehow, so in order to pay the text back for not making any sense to him, he also just compiled a lot of sentences that don't make any sense either.
I mean ... how can you write such bullshit?

Right, but I meant the original translator, not the commentator (who obviously didn't understand what he was talking about, since he thought "ablative" was a tense... ;) )
 

Callaina

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It's a bit of a stretch, but with Pacifica's hint that ablativi are probably the judges, I would understand (interpret) it as

Such an alliance [between the rich and the judges] ((or possibly on an even wider scale: such circumstances))
infects and corrupts
the ones who take away (the judges),
who absorb the living (as in, they lead to their downfall): (<- colon)
(the judges,) moved by the ones who give (by the rich)
they torment* the ones who are possessed (the thralls of the feudal system, i.e. the poor)

* understanding movent in the sense of agitant

(open for discussion of course)

Makes better sense than anything I came up with.
 
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Right, but I meant the original translator
I don't know, either ... I can understand how you can justify the first three lines as some wider stretch of an interpretation, but in the last 3 lines, it's not only that they sound weird somehow, it's also that the Latin grammar does not lend itself to any such translation.

[/quote]not the commentator (who obviously didn't understand what he was talking about, since he thought "ablative" was a tense... ;) )[/quote]


It's not just the ablative "tense" ... the whole paragraph is an act of revenge on the poor old ablative case, performed by someone who, it seems, had to learn Latin at some point in his life and never lost his confusion about the ablative case. How does the ablative "reduce everything (linguistic) to a common, unstable nominator". The translation of those lines is, "I found the ablative so confusing that there's no chance the writer of that poem cannot have been blown off as well". Also, what is a "virtual gift economy of grammar" that is linguistically disrupted?? (...or: what else is it than a poor attempt to sound smart while expressing absolutely nothing)
 

Callaina

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It's not just the ablative "tense" ... the whole paragraph is an act of revenge on the poor old ablative case, performed by someone who, it seems, had to learn Latin at some point in his life and never lost his confusion about the ablative case.
:hysteric:

(...or: what else is it than a poor attempt to sound smart while expressing absolutely nothing)
Haha, exactly that. I mean, what else does one need to be successful in academia, as Pacifica has found (well, that and citing lots of random authors)? ;)
 

Callaina

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Here's a couple interesting stanzas from poem #3, on the same page, on the evils of greed.

Multum habet oneris
do das dedi dare;
verbum hoc pre ceteris
norunt ignorare
divites, quos poteris
mari comparare.

The last couple lines are rather weak in my opinion (why is the ocean suddenly getting tossed in?) but that "do das dedi dare" is funny -- sounds like a reference to some Latin studies that the author found particularly tedious. :D

Another bit:

Cunctis est equaliter
insita cupido;
perit fides turpiter,
nullus fidus fido,
nec Iunoni Iupiter
nec Enee Dido.

Err, I wouldn't exactly describe Aeneas as "fido"...after all, he was the one who walked out on Dido...
 
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oneris
(...)
ceteris

dare
(...)
ignorare
Those medieval rhymes
:brickwall2: :brickwall2: :brickwall2:

Another bit:

Cunctis est equaliter
insita cupido;
perit fides turpiter,
nullus fidus fido,
nec Iunoni Iupiter
nec Enee Dido.

Err, I wouldn't exactly describe Aeneas as "fido"...after all, he was the one who walked out on Dido...
I think that's what the writer was trying to say, but the cases had to be switched around to make the rhyme work :>
 
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