Ovid extract from Orberg Cap XLIV

[pmda]

I'm having a little difficulty with these lines from the excerpt from Ovid's Fasti. (libro VI) in Orberg's LLPSI Cap XLIV

"Quid iuvat esse pares — te nostrae caede sororis,
meque tui fratris — si pia vita placet?
Vivere debuerant et vir meus et tua coniunx,
si nullum ausuri maius eramus opus…"

What use is it to each us, to you by the death of asister
and to me of a brother - if a humble life is pleasing?
They deserved to live both my husband and your wife
if we were to have dared no greater deed.

Is the verb Ausuri eramus - Is there such a thing as the future pluperfect? if so is this it?

[seneca2008]

Is the verg Ausuri eramus - Is there such a thing as the future pluperfect? if so is this it?

No.

This is the periphrastic conjugation, a combination of future participle active with forms of sum. So ausuri eramus is the imperfect, "was about to dare". So "They ought to have lived if we were going to dare no greater deed" (ie not dare any).

Edit this might be helpful http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ythp%3D194

[anphph]

It often helps (and is at times even grammatically significant) to distinguish between the various verbal adjectives in their verbal and in their adjectival force. So the future participle — ausurus — can function as future periphrastic (ausurus sum), or else as an adjective (invenimus ausuros).

The same can be said for the other sorts: gerundive — faciendum est ("verbal") and "respeximus facienda"; past participles, etc.

In most of those the difference is subtle or even nonexistent, the only case where it might be worth paying more than passing attention is the double use of the past participles. These are the form used for the passive perfect — janua aperta est (verbal), "The door was opened" as opposed to "janua aperta est" (adjective), "The door is open [because it was opened in the past]."

This is the sort of grammatical ambiguity that leads to apparently "wrong" constructions like "janua aperta fuit" to mean "The door was opened", which are nevertheless well attested already for Classical Latin, and can easily be found, for instance, in Cicero's letters.

[pmda]

Thanks to you both.