Re: Perfective or Perfect?

Eugene Oh wrote:
> On 18/03/2008, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
>> "...dead bodies of great-hearted heroes" in fact (defunctaque corpora
>>  vita /magnanimum heroum...)
>>
>>
>
> As well as "...pueri innuptaeque puellae" etc.; gosh, once I saw you
> continue the line I couldn't stop reciting the rest of the poem to
> myself until I reached "...constitit orbis". Clearly that poem has
> staying power!
Yes, indeed.

[snip]
>
> Ooh this gives me another question. I'm not a fluent Latin-speaker,
> having only started in the middle of last year with the Teach Yourself
> book by Gavin Betts, which, incidentally, introduced me to this great
> poem -- can you see I'm in love with it even after nine months? :-) --
> and when I read the poem with only for help a vocabulary gloss, a
> grammar reference and a few tips on unscrambling the confusing (for a
> novice) syntax by Mr. Betts himself, I interpreted those lines as
> (from "umbrae ibant tenues..." to "...ante ora parentum":
Tackling Vergil after only nine months of self-teaching - I'm impressed!

> "the wispy shadows (ghosts) began to move, as did the simulacra ("luce
> carentum" gives me such a strong image so hard to translate I shall
> just leave it as "lacking light"), [which numbered as] many as the
> thousands of birds that hide in the leaves at evenings, or when the
> winter rain chases them from the mountains, [as many as the] mothers
> and men and bodies of great-hearted heroes done with life (literally),
> boys and unarried girls, youths placed upon the funeral pyre before
> their parents' eyes (a little idiomatic here)..."
>
> A slightly long paragraph, but the point I was trying to make was, I
> interpreted the lines a whole lot differently from what you've just
> said! And I'm a little crushed because this means
You have no reason to be. Vergil is not the easiest author for a novice.

OK - I'll just go through the lines - it might be of interest to some
others on the list as well. But I'll begin a line earlier (line 471)
since that's where the sentence starts:

[LINES 471 & 478]
at cantu commotae Erebi de sedibus imis
umbrae ibant tenues simulacraque luce carentum,

But startled by the song, there came from the lowest regions [seats] of
Erebus the insubstantial shadows, phantoms of those lacking light,

The imperfect can have a inchoative meaning, so _ibant_ could be 'began
to  move.' Vergil is obviously using the Latin _eo, ire_ in a similar
manner to its Greek cognate _ienai), i.e. 'to come, to go' (direction of
movement determined by context.

'commotae' must refer to both 'umbrae' (shades) & 'simulacra'
(phantoms). It is quite normal in Latin that if single adjective or
participle agrees with nouns of differing genders it is made to agree
with the nearest noun. Indeed, the 'umbrae tenues' and 'similacra' are
surely the same thing - ghosts. the -que here is not, I think, 'and' but
rather it just explanatory, sort of: 'insubstantial shades, i.e.
phantoms...'

Erebus was the lowest region of underworld (Hades), and Vergil stresses
that these phantoms come from the 'lowest seats' (de sedibus imis), so
they lack light nor merely because they are ghosts and lack the light of
life, of this world; they are also in the very lowest regions of Hades
and thus lack whatever light there might be there. The point is that
Orpheus' singing can rouse even the lowest and darkest regions of the
underworld.

[LINES 473 & 474]
quam multa in foliis avium milia condunt,
vesper ubi aut hibernus agit de montibus imber -

[which numbered] as the many thousands of birds [that] hide (themselves)
in the leaves when evening or a winter storm drives them from the hills -

_quam_ (as) introduces the simile. In English we will need some
antecedent such as 'which numbered' or 'in multitude'.

_multa_ is neuter plural and agrees with _milia_ thus _multa milia
avium_ "many thousands of birds." One of the problems with verse is that
words are often put into strange order.

_vesper_ is nominative singular and, therefore, cannot mean 'at
evenings.' It is a subject of the verb 'agit'. It is quite common for
the connecting word of clause (conjunction, relative pronoun, relative
adverb) to be place as second item in a clause in verse.

It is also not unusual for a verb with two singular nouns as subject to
be kept singular.

'mons/ montis' BTW need not mean more than "hill" in English. One has to
decide from context whether 'hill' or 'mountain' is the better English
equivalent. Vergil was the son of a farmer so I guess he'd often
witnessed birds flocking in their thousands home to roost in the
evenings, or taking shelter from an impending storm.

[LINES 475 - 477]
matres atque viri defunctaque corpora vita
magnanimum heroum, pueri innuptaeque puellae,
impositique rogis iuvenes ante ora parentum;

that the Cl. Ar.
> translation, of course... :-( I thought the nominative cases used for
> the whole long list simply tacked on to "milia avium" as other
> yardsticks for comparison of "quam multa".
No.

> They actually refer to the
> different types of "umbrae" that "ibant"? :-( :-(
Yes, they do. The simile just consists of the two lines, 473 & 474. The
list of nominatives refers, as you say, to the insubstantial, shadowy
phantoms. It's a list of them.

mothers and men; bodies, now done with life, of great-hearted heroes;
boys and unwed girls; youngsters placed upon pyres before their parents'
faces.

matres atque viri - could equally well be "mothers and husbands."

clearly you know, but in case anyone on the list is wondering,
_magnanimum_ is an archaic genitive plural form agreeing with _heroum_.

The last three items in the list are, of course, those who died young,
before their time. It also  reminds us that cremation was the norm in
classical Rome  :)

As you rightly observe, "before their parents' eyes" is somewhat more
idiomatic English than "before their parents' faces."

> This is a very important lesson for any would-be translator out there. Haha.
Don't be discouraged. Latin verse is not so straightforward as prose. I
suggest besides the books you have already, you invest in a good
translation of the Georgics with which you can then compare your own
translation. Very useful are the books in 'The Loeb Classical Library' -
they have the Latin (or Greek) text on one page and the English on the
facing page.

But I do agree it is better to try to do the Cl.Arithide directly from
the Latin if you can. Translations, especially of verse, can never be
100% true; and a translation of a translation invariably loses even more
(and not infrequently adds something not in the original).

I hope the above helps.

--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Frustra fit per plura quod potest
fieri per pauciora.
[William of Ockham]

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