I am becoming self-conscious, having opened several of the most recent threads in "Latin Beginners." But here goes: I'm having difficulty translating the following lines from Seneca (Natural Questions 3.Praef):
Here are my questions:
Here's my translation:qui a divinorum conversatione, quotiens ad humana recideris, non aliter caligabis, quam quorum oculi in densam umbram ex claro sole redierunt.... sibi servire gravissima est servitus: quam discutere facile est, si desieris multa te posceris, si desieris tibi referre mercedem, ...
Whenever you fall back from the way of the gods to human ways, you will be blinded [non aliter caligabis], like [quam] those [qui] whose [quorum] eyes return from brilliant light to dense shade.... to serve yourself is the heaviest servitude: it [quam] is easy to overcome, if you cease to demand [posceris] much of yourself, if you cease to gain [referre] wages for yourself, ...
Here are my questions:
- I have omitted non aliter -- what is its meaning here? Is it a kind of double negative?
- Did I correctly translate qui as "those", moving it quite far from the beginning of the sentence?
- Why is posceris in the second-person subjunctive, while referre is an infinitive, despite that they occur in the same situation. Can the second-person subjunctive sometimes replace the infinitive?