Re: Perfective or Perfect?

Eugene Oh wrote:
> I was rereading through my translation of Vergil's Georgics
> (admittedly, only the Orpheus & Eurydice parts) into Classical
> Arithide, and I came upon a spot I thought I had closed and done with
> a long time ago. It has to do with the translation of a certain Latin
> past participle, and which aspect I should put it in -- perfective or
> perfect, which explains the subject of this mail.
>
> The Latin original goes,
>
> "quam multa ... /
> ... /
> matres atque viri defunctaque corpora vita /"
>
> , which the Latin-readers will know translates roughly as "many as ...
> mothers and men and bodies done with life".
"...dead bodies of great-hearted heroes" in fact (defunctaque corpora
vita /magnanimum heroum...)

> The problem I have lies with "defuncta".
>
> The word I chose to translate it by the last time round in Cl.
> Arithide was "korrākāt", which is the perfect aspect participle of the
> verb meaning "to experience, to go through", and the indecision I'm
> facing stems from whether that is an accurate translation of
> "defuncta", because I couldn't decide whether Vergil intended the word
> to be read as "have finished with being alive and are now in a sort of
> repose" (which calls for the perfect aspect)
Well, they are because at this point phantoms of men, women,
great-hearted heroes, boys, unmwed maidens etc flock out like birds
which hide in the leaves as evening approaches. so they are clearly in
some sort of afterlife - and that would be consistent with what Vergil
says in other places (and, indeed, with the general Roman assumption
that there was some sort of afterlife).

> or as "went through and
> have nothing more to do with being alive" (which calls for the
> perfective).
Yes, they have been through life and now have nothing more to do with
life *here*, so it could be Cl.Arithide perfective.

> Comments/suggestions, anyone? :-) Many thanks.
To be honest, I do not think you can have a definitive answer to this
without asking Vergil himself - and that poses a problem or two  ;)

I think you can make out a reasonable case for either aspect. In Book VI
of the Aeneid it does appear that Vergil believes reincarnation is
possible (at least for some), so one could argue that the Cl.Arithide
perfect is more appropriate as the dead must be in some sort of repose
if they can be incarnate again.

There is an interesting note in T.E Page's edition regarding _corpora
... heroum_ :"Not a mere periphrasis = _heroes_, but recalling attention
to their heroic build."

Umm - as _defuncta_ agrees with _corpora_ perhaps the Cl. Arithide
perfective is more appropriate as, though their souls may be incarnate
again, their heroic bodies presumably have finished with the life *here8
and exist only in phantom form.

> (This is a really moving piece, by the way, and anyone who can read
> Latin but has not read this summary of Orpheus & Eurydice should
> probably give the passage a try.)
Vergil is always worth reading IMO   :)

--
Ray
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Frustra fit per plura quod potest
fieri per pauciora.
[William of Ockham]

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