11
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How to translate these few lines? Met. 1.94–96
Let me offer a translation attempt piece by piece.
My translations are not perfectly literal, but the way I build it up should clarify what it each Latin word does.
I reordered the words to make the ...
- 110k
11
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Accepted
What does the phrase "nec non" mean? (Metamorphoses I.612-614)
Necnon can be written as two words, "and not not"; it has a positive meaning because of the double negative. It can be translated as and with an appropriate adverb, such as and yet, and in fact.
The ...
- 19.8k
9
votes
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Canonical version of Metamorphoses
Yes, you can define verses precisely. The Metamorphoses are written in dactylic hexameter, and so each line is constructed with the same rules.
You can check the line numbers for yourself on PHI or ...
cmw♦
- 50.8k
8
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Is a relative pronoun commonly used as a third person pronoun? (Metamorphoses I.583-587)
Quam here is being used as a normal relative, and could not be replaced with illam, since the relative clause quam non invenit umquam is the accusative subject of the verb esse in the accusative and ...
- 30.6k
8
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How to understand 'quae prosum sola nocendo'?
Nocendo is a gerund (noun) here, not a gerundive (adjective). Therefore, it's active in meaning. It's ablative to show the means by which Juno does good. Quae is f. nom. sing. and refers to Iunonem, ...
- 19.2k
8
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"Nam vos mutastis et illas" (Ovid)
The form of mutastis is called a "syncopated perfect." From Gildersleeve, section 131:
The perfects in āvī, ēvī, īvī, often drop the v before s or r, and contract the vowels throughout, ...
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8
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Is "victa serpente" an ablative absolute?
It's possible, but unlikely. First, the closeness of the words suggests a connection between them, and the commas mean the editors agreed.
More importantly, though, superbus governs an ablative. See e....
cmw♦
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7
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How to scan "nempe tenens, quod amo, gremioque in Iasonis haerens"
As often with tricky verses, the key is in the name.
The only way I can scan that right is reading the name as Ĭ-ā-sŏ-nĭs.
The initial I/J of a name can easily vary between vowel and consonant in ...
- 110k
6
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How to translate these few lines? Met. 1.94–96
Here's a rewording solutis versibus by Daniel Crespin:
Nondum abies ex montibus suis desecta descenderat in aquas fluidas, ut terras alienas adiret : et nulla littora nisi sua hominibus perspecta.
...
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6
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How to scan "nempe tenens, quod amo, gremioque in Iasonis haerens"
Just to make it clear what Joonas said explained in his post, here is the line scanned out:
nempĕ tĕ/nens, quŏd ă/mo || grĕmĭ/oqu' in ĭ/asŏnĭ/s haerens
The reason the initial letter of ...
cmw♦
- 50.8k
6
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Is "victa serpente" an ablative absolute?
It seems most natural to me to translate that as a causal ablative.
The Delian is arrogant due to the victory over the serpent.
Compare this for example with dono laetus, "happy due to the gift", and ...
- 110k
6
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How to make sense of this standalone infinitive? (Metamorphoses 1.601—603)
To expand on Joonas's answer, I think he is 100% correct that mirata is elliptical; est is left out but must be assumed in order to translate the sentence. The structure is as follows:
Iuno despexit ...
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6
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'Subiecit' meaning in Ovid Metamorphoses III 167?
The subject is altera [nympha]:
another [nymph] threw her arms under the cast-off robe
The verb subicio is normally used with a nominative (the thrower), an accusative (the thing thrown), and a ...
- 19.8k
5
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What's the best translation of "vindice" in Met. 1.89?
I think protector is fine and understandable. Normally a good thing needs to be protected in order to prosper, and vindex is not seldom so translated.
The word comes from vim "force" and dico "say, ...
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5
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How to make sense of this standalone infinitive? (Metamorphoses 1.601—603)
(Edited drastically from previous version after several rereadings of the passage.)
Mirata means mirata est.
It is not a plain participle, but a perfect form of a deponent verb.
It governs an ACI, ...
- 110k
5
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Peneus River (Metamorphoses 1.567–572)
Ad 1: I would not be surprised if it were a genitive: Tempe as a grove of Thessaly sound unremarkable enough. However, there are two other options. The first is a locative: there is a grove in ...
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5
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Pyramus et Thisbe: did their parents forbid what they could not? Ovid, Metamorphoses IV.61
Hmm. I find your analysis elegant and alluring, but I wonder whether it's simpler than that—could it be working from two slightly different senses of vetāre? You're far more versed in the lexicon here ...
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5
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Principal caesura in unus erat toto line I.6 of Ovid's Metamorphoses
The line should be scanned:
– u u | – – | – – | – – | – u u | – x ||
The 2nd u of unus is short, as is the e of erat. All three syllables of naturae are long.
The principal caesura is after the first ...
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4
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Does 'concrescere' take dative?
It appears that concrescere, meaning "thicken" or "condense", is an intransitive verb, meaning that it will not take an accusative direct object. Most intransitive verbs take dative indirect objects, ...
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4
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What's the best translation of "vindice" in Met. 1.89?
A number of 19th-century textbooks suggest "avenger". For example, Thomas Swinburne Carr writes:
Vindice, avenger. So the minister of justice was termed.
Writing in Latin, the 17th-century ...
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4
votes
Is "victa serpente" an ablative absolute?
Victa serpente is not to be interpreted/analyzed here as an "Ablative Absolute" but rather as a dominant participle construction (see below for a definition) depending on an adjective superbus, which ...
- 7,511
4
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Corrupted Line in Daphne and Apollo
What you quote are lines as they appear at http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/ovid/ovid.met1.shtml .
My own copy is the 1909 Teubner edition "cum emendationis summario", and, for what it's worth, it ...
- 18k
4
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Pyramus et Thisbe: did their parents forbid what they could not? Ovid, Metamorphoses IV.61
Prosody suggests punctuation before the quod. The line scanned looks like this:
sēd vĕtŭ|ērĕ pă|trēs quōd | nōn pǒtŭ|ērĕ vĕ|tārē
Clearly the principal caesura is between patres and quod, and that ...
cmw♦
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4
votes
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Why is "formas" used for bodies and "corpora" for forms? (Metamorphoses 1.1.1)
You're parsing the line correctly -- a more literal translation would be "...to speak of forms changed into new bodies". Doesn't it come to the same thing? Io's form was changed into the new body of a ...
- 30.6k
3
votes
Is a relative pronoun commonly used as a third person pronoun? (Metamorphoses I.583-587)
In this case, it is a normal relative use of qui, but with the antecedent (like [eam] quam) included in the relative pronoun. You could translate it literally as "but he thinks [her] whom he does not ...
- 19.8k
3
votes
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Dative of Personal Interest?
Yes, that sounds correct. It could be argued that the dativus commodi is the most common use of the dative, and it can be translated in various ways. In this sentence, in honour of their brother is ...
- 19.8k
3
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Pyramus et Thisbe: did their parents forbid what they could not? Ovid, Metamorphoses IV.61
It seems to me that there's a strong reason to take quod non potuere vetare with the following line, namely, that their parents could and did forbid it! The whole point of the story is that their ...
- 30.6k
3
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How was the original Ovid Metamorphoses formatted/punctuated most likely?
I suspect you're more interested in the punctuation in Classical Latin rather than Ovid's mss per se and their transmission.
With Ovid, we don’t have anything extant really until the High Middle Ages ...
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3
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Ovid, Metamorphoses IV
Rogati goes with estote: 'Be asked.' (I myself might translate as something like 'Consider yourselves asked.') The so-called 'future imperative' lends an air of solemnity to Thisbe's request.
Hoc ...
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3
votes
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An edition of the whole Metamorphoses for easy reading?
I have never used this specific text myself, but Loeb Classical Library has some really great texts with side by side translation and some helpful notes. I personally have some of these texts for some ...
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