The devil is in the detail

[Interaxus]

I can’t say I'm kept awake at night by them but I’m mildly puzzled by some of the things I come across now and again. For instance:

1. I was listening to Metrodorus’ podcast for Adler Lesson 39 (page 202 in the pdf file) when I heard/read:

Est profecto deus, qui, quae (= ea quae) nos gerimus, auditQUE ET videt.
There is certainly a God, who sees AND hears whatever we are doing.

I have long been under the impression that –QUE and ET are mutually exclusive (you choose one or the other). In any case, surely one of them is redundant in this sentence? Is this merely an Adlerism or is it a stylistic device traceable to classical authors? Anyone?

2. In ‘High School Course in Latin Composition’ by Baker and Inglis (p. 21) I came across:

In summô colle – on the top of the hill.
Extrêmâ hieme … mediâ aestâte – at the end of the winter … in the middle of summer.
Prîma nocte – during the first part of the night.

Why prîma and not prîmâ …??? Mere printer’s error...

Cheers,
Int

[Gonzalo]

Hi,

I came across some time ago a sentence in which the usage of "et" was duplicated. Therefore, I suppose that in your sentence the sense of "et" is:
"[...]who sees and also hears whatever we are doing".

Regards,
Gonzalo

[edonnelly]

Est profecto deus, qui, quae (= ea quae) nos gerimus, auditQUE ET videt.
There is certainly a God, who sees AND hears whatever we are doing.

I have long been under the impression that –QUE and ET are mutually exclusive (you choose one or the other). In any case, surely one of them is redundant in this sentence? Is this merely an Adlerism or is it a stylistic device traceable to classical authors? Anyone?

Check out the L&S entry for que, it gives some examples of que et in use, including the quote you have above. The relevant portion is here:

Followed by other conjunctions.
Que ... et (not in Cic., Cæs., Suet., or Nep.): peregrique et domi, Plaut. Am. prol. 5: deus, qui quae nos gerimus auditque et videt, id. Capt. 2, 2, 63: seque et oppidum tradat, Sall. J. 26, 1: illosque et Sullam, id. ib. 104, 1: signaque et ordines, Liv. 2, 59; 1, 43, 2 Weissenb. ad loc.: legatique et tribuni, id. 29, 22: in formulam jurisque et dicionis, id. 26, 24: omnes gentesque et terrae, id. 21, 30, 2 (v. Fabri ad loc.): Arpinique et Romani, id. 24, 47: seque et arma, Curt. 8, 4, 15: seque et delatores, Tac. Agr. 42.—
Que ... et ... et: Romanique et Macedones et socii, Liv. 44, 29: seque et arma et equos, Tac. Agr. 18: seque et domum et pacem, id. A. 1, 4; 12, 37. —
Que ... ac (rare, not earlier than Verg.): satisque ac super, Ov. M. 4, 429: minusque ac minus, Liv. 26, 17: oculisque ac mente turbatus, id. 7, 26: posuitque domos atque horrea fecit, Verg. G. 1, 182: seque ac liberos suos, Tac. H. 3, 63: opibusque atque honoribus, id. ib. 4, 34. —
Que ... ac ... et: in quos seque ac conjuges et liberos condunt, Curt. 5, 6, 17. —
Que ... et ... ac, Liv. 35, 41. —

[adrianus]

salvete
"et audit et videt" = "auditque et videt" = nonne anglicè "both hears and sees" (as I remember from the textbooks, to give it that little emphasis --proinde aliqua emphasis detur, illis de libris scholaribus quos recordor), ut dicit Gonzalo ("also"), et Ed.

[Gonzalo]

salvete
"et audit et videt" = "auditque et videt" = nonne anglicè "both hears and sees" (as I remember from the textbooks, to give it that little emphasis --proinde aliqua emphasis detur, illis de libris scholaribus quos recordor), ut dicit Gonzalo ("also"), et Ed.

Clarissime Adriane,
Forsitan ob meum errorem in anglicê sermone, non plane mea verba intellexisti.

Verba nunc tibi muto:
"[...]who sees and hears also whatever we are doing."

Scio non esse sensum dictionis "et...et" idem quam in etiam ac quoque sed doctus fuit idem verbum "et" significare posse ista alia verba.

Non fortior ad hanc rem defendendam sed de multiplicibus significationibus verbi "et" clarior fieri potest subsequentem exemplum. Mementô nunc:
Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. (Vergilii Æneis II.49)

[metrodorus]

I "google booked" the quote. It is from Plautus.
Est profecto deus, qui, quae nos gerimus, auditQUE ET videt.
A good translation is "There is surely some god who both hears and sees".

Metro.

[adrianus]

Why prîma and not prîmâ …??? Mere printer’s error...

Surely. Ita, Interaxe,-- erratum typographicum est.
Addendum:

[Et...] With a subordinate que or atque: nam et semper me coluit diligentissimeque observavit et a studiis nostris non abhorret, Cic. Fam. 13, 22 ; with atque, id. de Or. 1, 21, 95 .--Et ... que are sometimes used for et ... et (rarely in Cic.; freq. in Liv. and post-Aug. writers): quis est quin intellegat et eos inmemores fuisse, nosque honestate duci?

I thought that was interesting about the order and the suggestion of one idea being subordinate to the other (and affecting the emphasis, perhaps). Just to add to Ed's extract from L&S above: "que...et" is (perhaps) preferable to "et...que", if meant in the sense of "both" or "not only but also" or "as well as".

[Interaxus]

Thanks everybody! I had no idea there were so many options.

Edonnelly: Funnily enough, one of the L&S leads (Georgics Bk 1.182) led me to a group of lines in Georgics Book 1 very close to another group of lines I had marked in my hardcopy Loeb a year ago when a guy called Bellum PaxQUE (!) – long since vanished from Textkit – analyzed lines 203-207.

Lines 181-182 round off Vergil’s strong recommendation to farmers to seal their barn floor. If not …

…variae inludant pestes: saepe exiguus mus
sub terris posuitque domos atque horrea fecit,

“… lest … divers plagues make mock of you. Often under the ground the tiny mouse sets up a home and builds his storehouses …â€￾

Vergil goes on to list other threats from below: talpae (moles), bufo (Toad), curculio (Weevil) and formica (Ant).

I actually begin to find this stuff entertaining. Is it because I grew up in the country? Or am I thinking Disney? Or is it that Vergilian charm/charisma beginning to work its magic?

Here’s that old thread for what it’s worth:

http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-foru ... cs++204207

Adrianus: Thanks for confirming my suspicions about the printer.

Metrodorus: Re translation of ‘Est profecto deus’. To my ear, the ‘surely’ in "There is surely some god who both hears and sees" is tinged with the possibility of doubt/hope-against-hope – as in ‘Surely the price of flats will peak soon‘- (or perhaps you mean it in the 23rd psalm sense) whereas the ‘certainly’ in 'There is certainly a God' expresses total conviction. I really wonder which is best here. I must check out the Plautus source.

Here's a further translation variation (from the Third Oration against Cataline):

Nam profecto memoria tenetis, Cotta et Torquato consulibus, …
“For you recollect, I suppose, when Cotta and Torquatus were consuls, …â€￾

Cheers,
Int