In media urbe...

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pmda
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In media urbe...

Post by pmda »

In Cap 39 of LLPSI Orberg has:

In media urbe Dido regina magnificum templum Iunoni aedificabat. Hic primum, nova re oblata, Aeneas salutem sperare ausus est et rebus suis melius confidere: nam reginam opperiens, dum in ingenti templo singula opera lustrat, vidit imagines belli Troiani ordine pictas.

Two questions:

1) Aeneas salutem spearare ausus est. ? Aeneas dared to hope (for) a greeting ? did he hope to greet or be greeted...?

2) '....singula opera lustrat'.


'opera' is plural of opus, operis and it means he looked at / inspected each work

In english 'each' would take a singular noun: he looked at each work.. In Latin singula seems qualify a plural noun.... is this right?

Shenoute
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Re: In media urbe...

Post by Shenoute »

1) salus has his original meaning here, "well-being/health", what I don't know is if it applies to Aeneas himself (i. e. physical well being) or metaphorically to his situation.

Aeneas salutem sperare ausus est., litt. "Aeneas dared to hope for the (=his) well-being".

2) You're right.


The original text (Aen. 455-456):
hic primum Aeneas sperare salutem
Ausus, et afflictis melius confidere rebus.


The paraphrase from the Delphin edition :
hic Aeneas primo ausus est sibi promittere salutem, et melius sperare de rebus male affectis.

Qimmik
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Re: In media urbe...

Post by Qimmik »

Salutem here means something more than health or well-being. Aeneas is at the bottom of his fortunes. He's just been driven off-course by a fierce storm; he has been wandering around the Mediterranean without a clear sense of where he's going, enduring various vicissitudes after living through the destruction of Troy and the loss of his homeland and his wife and many of those to whom he was closest. Now he sees some hope that his travails might come to an end. If the word can be divorced from theological connotations, "salvation" isn't too strong a translation for salutem.

If you want to preserve the plural, you could translate singula opera lustrat as "he looked at the works one by one."

Shenoute
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Re: In media urbe...

Post by Shenoute »

Thanks for your detailed comment, Qimmik.

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