In Catilinam I: Reading Thread

[Imber Ranae]

Yeah, it's a kind of elliptical consecutive clause (perhaps 'could it happen that...' or something along those lines is implied), but it's easiest to just take it as an idiom. You saw it in the previous passage as well: te ut ulla res frangat, tu ut umquam te corrigas, tu ut ullam fugam meditere, tu ut ullum exilium cogites?

 

[Callaina]

Yeah, it's a kind of elliptical consecutive clause (perhaps 'could it happen that...' or something along those lines is implied), but it's easiest to just take it as an idiom. You saw it in the previous passage as well: te ut ulla res frangat, tu ut umquam te corrigas, tu ut ullam fugam meditere, tu ut ullum exilium cogites?

I did, but I took it as denoting purpose there: "However, why do I speak? With the purpose that anything might dissuade you, that you should ever reform yourself...[etc]?"

 

[malleolus]

Mind you, Cataline (by all accounts) sounds like a thoroughly vile individual, no matter what way you look at it.

For all it's worth, Cicero got his point across (to you).

Catiline was certainly not the epitome of Roman virtus in his unsuccessful endeavour to overthrow the republic in his second conspiracy, and had acquired an unsavoury reputation as a zealous participant in Sulla’s proscriptions before that, but he was still old nobility, still popular and well-connected in the Senate when Cicero attacked him in his first oration.

His proposals for the cancellation of debt and and his general championship of the poor and oppressed appealed to various layers of Roman society.

I'm not entirely sure if many of the accusations thrown at Catiline by Cicero were not indeed fabricated and the man himself framed.There is, for example, no solid evidence for the First Catiline conspiracy.

What one tends to forget when reading Cicero's speech is that Catiline was a real person who suffered personal tragedies and eventually died young in a battle which he couldn't possibly win.

Of course, reading both Cicero's and Sallustius' accounts makes Catiline look all the more despicable.

 

[Callaina]

Incredibly confused by this bit (second sentence; I've just given the first for context.)

Hic tu qua laetitia perfruere, quibus gaudiis exultabis, quanta in voluptate bacchabere, cum in tanto numero tuorum neque audies virum bonum quemquam neque videbis!

"Then what pleasure you will delight in, with what joys you will exult, in how great a pleasure you shall revel, when in the entire number of your people you neither hear nor see any good man!"

Ad huius vitae studium meditati illi sunt, qui feruntur, labores tui, iacere humi non solum ad obsidendum stuprum, verum etiam ad facinus obeundum, vigilare non solum insidiantem somno maritorum, verum etiam bonis otiosorum.

Frankly I couldn't make head or tail of this (mostly due to unfamiliarity with vocab) and ended up going to Perseus, which only left me more confused...

"All the toils you have gone through have always pointed to this sort of life; your lying on the ground not merely to lie in wait to gratify your unclean desires, but even to accomplish crimes; your vigilance, not only when plotting against the sleep of husbands, but also against the goods of your murdered victims, have all been preparations for this."

Meditati illi sunt: meditati is the past participle of meditor and so it should, logically, be referring to the people from the previous sentence: "They have meditated upon/contemplated/intended devotion/zeal for this life" or something similar. This doesn't seem to be reflected in the Perseus translation at all. What's going on here?

I have more questions, but they might resolve themselves once I get this first bit, so let's just tackle this for the moment

 

[Aurifex]

Meditati illi sunt: meditati is the past participle of meditor and so it should, logically, be referring to the people from the previous sentence: "They have meditated upon/contemplated/intended devotion/zeal for this life" or something similar. This doesn't seem to be reflected in the Perseus translation at all. What's going on here?

At a glance it looks like the subject of meditati sunt is illi labores tui.

 

[Callaina]

So, "Those labours/toils of yours have contemplated/intended..."...?

I guess, it just seems a bit odd to think of such an abstract noun "contemplating" anything. I agree, though, that this makes more sense than how I was trying to read it.

That clears up most of my questions in the remainder of the sentence, but I'm still unsure what qui feruntur means here. "Which are said?" It doesn't seem to fit... "Which are borne/carried/endured [by you]"? Maybe...

 

[Pablo222]

So, "Those labours/toils of yours have contemplated/intended..."...?

I guess, it just seems a bit odd to think of such an abstract noun "contemplating" anything. I agree, though, that this makes more sense than how I was trying to read it.

That clears up most of my questions in the remainder of the sentence, but I'm still unsure what qui feruntur means here. "Which are said?" It doesn't seem to fit... "Which are borne/carried/endured [by you]"? Maybe...

which are "given" by you?

I don't know...I just saw this word being commonly translated this way in a couple readings I recently had to do, so I just wanted to blindly throw that out there on the table.

 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

'Were designed/intended for...': the particular skills that he's acquired can be used for plundering peaceable citizens as well as for committing adultery. I take qui feruntur as meaning 'which are talked about', because he's so notorious, you see.

 

[malleolus]

meditor usually is a deponent verb which is used passively here.

Not quite literally

Your so-called labour(labores qui feruntur) have been conceived in order to pursue this kind of life - to lie on the ground not only to lie in wait for debauchery, but even .......

 

[Callaina]

meditor usually is a deponent verb which is used passively here.

I'm kind of puzzled by this -- how can a deponent verb be used passively? I thought this never happened?

 

[Pacifica]

They sometimes are used passively; when it happens, it's most often in the past participle.

 

[Callaina]

They sometimes are used passively; when it happens, it's most often in the past participle.

How confusing. Just when I thought I'd gotten this pinned down...