Need help with a sentence

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PaulSmecker
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2010 3:18 pm

Need help with a sentence

Post by PaulSmecker »

Hey I'm having trouble with this sentence...
Interim consilium ejus per mercatores ad Britannos perlatum est:
legati ab insulae civitatibus ad eum veniunt:
obsides dare et imperio populi Romani obtemperare volunt.

My translation:
In the meantime the council was carried through by the merchants to the Britons (I couldn't figure out what "ejus" means. I looked it up in Wheelock's Latin and searched the glossary of the book this sentence was found it but came up with nothing):
the ambassadors come to it from the island states:
the hostages wish to give and to obey by the command of the Roman people (I figured that "imperio" could either be in the dative or the ablative but I think it makes more sense as an ablative).

-Paul

rkday
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 36
Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2010 8:23 pm

Re: Need help with a sentence

Post by rkday »

PaulSmecker wrote:Hey I'm having trouble with this sentence...
Interim consilium ejus per mercatores ad Britannos perlatum est:
legati ab insulae civitatibus ad eum veniunt:
obsides dare et imperio populi Romani obtemperare volunt.

My translation:
In the meantime the council was carried through by the merchants to the Britons (I couldn't figure out what "ejus" means. I looked it up in Wheelock's Latin and searched the glossary of the book this sentence was found it but came up with nothing):
the ambassadors come to it from the island states:
the hostages wish to give and to obey by the command of the Roman people (I figured that "imperio" could either be in the dative or the ablative but I think it makes more sense as an ablative).

-Paul
'ejus' = 'eius' (i and j are interchangeable) - so it's likely "his plan" rather than "the council". "eum" presumably refers to the same man - the ambassadors are coming to him, not it. Also, as "insulae" is a singular genitive, I think "kingdoms of the island" might work better, possibly reflecting how Britain wasn't a unified nation then, but it's hard to be sure without context. Otherwise, your first two lines look fine.

You've tripped up a bit on the last line - I think 'legati' is still the subject of 'volunt', meaning 'obsides' is an accusative and the object of 'dare'. 'imperio', too, is actually dative, the object of obtemperare (if you want to remember that, translating it as 'be submissive to' gets you the 'to' meaning of the dative).

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