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Ecce eī in somnō appāruit maestissimus Hector, fīlius Priamī mortuus — sed quālis erat, quantum mūtātus ab illō Hectore quī ex tot proeliīs victor redierat!
Sordidam barbam crīnēsque cruentōs gerēbat et vulnera illa quae plūrima circum mūrōs Trōiae accēperat.

—— Lingua Latina per se Illustrata: Roma Aeterna, Ch. 37, L. 92

  • What is the accurate meaning of the quālis... quantum part? ("...but how much it was varied from ...!"?)
  • Where is the verb for the quae-clause? (I think accēperat is parallel to gerēbat and takes vulnera illa as its object.) What does "most around the walls of Troy" mean?

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"Behold, to him appeared in a dream most grieving Hector, the dead son of Priam—but what he was, how much he had changed from that Hector who had returned the victor from so many battles! He bore a dirty beard and bloody hair and those many wounds that he had taken around the walls of Troy."

  1. I understand sed quālis erat to mean, liberally translated, "But oh, what he had become!" or "But what a state he was in!"

  2. The verb of the quae-clause is accēperat. Unlike gerēbat, accēperat is in a subordinate clause.

    Plūrima agrees with quae, which stands for vulnera. Perhaps a better translation, but less parallel with the Latin, would be "…those wounds, most of which he had taken around the walls of Troy." The adjective plūrima appears in the subordinate clause but describes vulnera from the main clause (via quae), because plūrima further restricts vulnera.

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