What does “matrona Julii auguria video et spem non habet” mean?

Question

matrona Julii auguria video et spem non habet

I thought it might mean “I see the augures thanks to Julius‘ wife and he/she has no hope” or “Oh wife of Julius! I see the augures and he has no hope” or even something else, but I don't know which one is the most likely.

Edit. This sentence was given to me as an exercise, as far as I know it's not an excerpt from a longer text.

Answer 1

It's strange without context but not impossible to say:

I, the wife of Julius, see the omens and he [presumably Julius] has no hope.

Makes sense for a translation exercise, I suppose.

It is also possible that matrona Iulii is vocative, and so it would indeed be translated as you have it ("[Oh] wife of Julius!, I see..."). But without punctuation or context, it's impossible to say which is meant.

Answer 2

If you move the word order around, it makes more sense:

Auguria video et matrona Julii spem non habet

Let's break down each word:

• Auguria - "omens, signs", acc., plural and object of the first verb, video.
• Video - "see", 1st person, singular.

Your first clause then is "I see the omens".

• Matrona - "wife", nom., subject of second clause.
• Julii - gen., husband of the wife previously mentioned.
• spem - "hope", acc., plural, object of the second verb, habet.
• non - "not".
• habet - "have", 3rd person, singular.

The second clause is then, "The wife of Julius does not have hope". This and the previous clause are then joined with the conjunction, et (and), so you get:

I see the omens and the wife of Julius does not have hope.

If by chance your instructor made a mistake and video was supposed to be videt, then it would be:

The wife of Julius sees the omens and does not have hope.