Why two accusatives?

[Feles in silva]

In the first story of "38 Latin Stories", on line 1:

Iapetus duos filios, Prometheum et Epimetheum habet.

Prometheus and Epimetheus are the direct objects of "habet", so are in the accusative. The fragment duos filios are also in the accusative plural.

So my question is, can you have two direct objects? Or is the entire combination of "two sons" and "Prometheus and Epimetheus" just one direct object?

Similarly on line 3, ending on line 4:

Iuppiter Epimetheo bellam feminam, Pandoram, dat

Both beautiful woman and Pandora are in accusative (direct object of "dat").

I may have been working with very simple setences for too long, so please forgive me if I am stating the obvious.

Paul

[cweb255]

I'm still not understanding what the question is, as it seems just a matter of names, but it doesn't matter if you call duos filios Prometheum et Epimetheum one whole DO or two. Latin is great because it doesn't have to worry about the DO, all you know is that it is to take the accusative, quibbles be damned.

As for bellam feminam, Pandoram, that is one accusative phrase, as Pandora is the beautiful woman.

[Feles in silva]

I'm still not understanding what the question is, as it seems just a matter of names, but it doesn't matter if you call duos filios Prometheum et Epimetheum one whole DO or two. Latin is great because it doesn't have to worry about the DO, all you know is that it is to take the accusative, quibbles be damned.

As for bellam feminam, Pandoram, that is one accusative phrase, as Pandora is the beautiful woman.

Thanks for your reply. Perhaps I am over-analysing this. I think I what I am doing is trying to make sentences fit what I've been looking at in my introductory grammars instead of just letting the langauge flow and enjoy the story.

[FiliusLunae]

Iapetus duos filios, Prometheum et Epimetheum habet.

Iuppiter Epimetheo bellam feminam, Pandoram, dat

I believe this is "apposition". The apposive noun (or nouns) gives more information about another noun, and both are put in the same case.
So that you would have something like:
Iapetus has two sons, Prometheus and Epimetheus.
Iuppiter is giving a beautiful woman, [who is] Pandora, to Epimetheus.

can you have two direct objects?

If I understand your question correctly, yes, with some verbs, like appello, voco, and others, but for which is usually the same in English.
One example I can think of is one from Genesis 1:

"[Deus] appellavitque lucem diem et tenebras noctem..."

Here, "lucem" and "tenebras" are the direct object, but "lucem" and "noctem" are also in the accussative case; by looking in my grammar, I can tell you they are called objective complements or predicate accussatives.
So that it would translate to:
"And [God] called the light 'day' and the darkness 'night'..."

Well, hope this helps.

[klewlis]

Filius is correct that it is apposition, in both cases.

filios and feminam are the direct objects. The names are in apposition to the direct objects (ie, they name/explain the DO more fully) and are not really DOs themselves.