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I was trying to translate this sentence:"The favorable opinion of the hunting games makes it necessary for the earth to have been searched to find many wild beasts which are to be killed and shown at public celebrations."

This was my attempt: "Venationum favorabilis sententia facit necesse esse mundo ad reperiendum multae feras bestiae quas in celebrationibus publicis interficiendas ac ostendendas quaesitum esse."

Can anybody affirm my translation or can somebody give me some recommendations of syntax or semantics to improve my translation. Any help is appreciated!

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  • What do you mean by "the favorable opinion of the hunting games". What is a "hunting game"? By "favorable opinon" do you mean popularity or esteem?
    – Tyler Durden
    Commented Jul 4 at 21:17
  • Is this some kind of assignment because "hunting" as a spectator sport is more of a Roman activity, not a modern one.
    – Tyler Durden
    Commented Jul 4 at 21:20

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Not sure I understand the sentence, but few things could be said already:

  1. sententia facit necesse esse mundo ... quaesitum esse: Not sure it works grammatically. It is certainly not the best idiomatic choice to have mundo in the dative and the adj in accusative/nominative. It is preferred, I believe, to use other formulae with necesse est (there are other options not with dative). Also I am not a fan of facit necesse esse... here. Consider using simple verbs like cogit (i.e., cogit mundum ...) that spare the usage of necesse est. Or other perhaps easier to follow with ut something like efficit ut ... (c.f., efficis [, Venus,] ut cupide generatim saecla propagent). Another approach is to use the gerundive to express the obligation: facit/reddit mundum quaerendum

  2. ad reperiendum multae feras bestiae. First, feras should be ferae or rather mulas bestias. Second, according to A&G "The gerund with a direct object is practically limited to the genitive and the ablative" so perhaps it should be ad reperiendas multas feras bestias.

  3. quas ... ac ostendendas. It looks like something is missing in this clause which is a verb.

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  • #3: I think there's a confusion between a participle and a relative clause, and the result is a mixture between the two and doesn't work.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta ♦
    Commented Jul 5 at 11:58
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I would change the main structure from

Sententia facit necesse esse bestia[s] quaesitum esse.

to

Sententiae causa bestiae quaerendae sunt.

as that would make the syntax sound grammatical and more idiomatic.

When composing a complex sentence like yours, my very strong recommendation is to start simple and build up step by step. It may sound like a detour but saves time and makes it far easier to spot mistakes. I leave it as an exercise to you to add decorations to this core sentence. If you are stuck at some point, write a new question containing both the last version that makes perfect sense to you and the new one that you are unsure about.

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