Horace, Odes I, no. 23, grammar query

[hlawson38]

Context: the singer is courting Chloe, a young girl:

lines 9-10

atqui non ego te tigris ut aspera
Gaetulusve leo frangere persequor:

translation: And I don't chase you to hurt you, as the fierce tiger or Gaetulian lion (would do)

Please evaluate the following interpretations.

1. frangere is infinitive complement of persequor.

2. tigris and leo are both nominative; hence the reader is expected to supply a verb in the present subjunctive to mean something like "might do" or "would do", for example "faciant".

[Qimmik]

You're basically right.

tigris ut aspera Gaetulusve leo -- ut here is simply "like". You can supply a verb, maybe persequeretur or persequatur, but there's really no need to. What's confusing (but didn't seem to confuse you) is that ut follows tigris.

frangere is an infinitive of purpose and complements persequor. It's not common in classical prose, but it sometimes shows up in poetry.

Allen & Greenough 460c:

c. The poets and early writers often use the infinitive to express purpose when there is no analogy with any prose construction:—

“fīlius intrō iit vidēre quid agat ” (Ter. Hec. 345) , your son has gone in to see what he is doing. [In prose: the supine vīsum .]
“nōn ferrō Libycōs populāre Penātīs vēnimus ” (Aen. 1.527) , we have not come to lay waste with the sword the Libyan homes.
lōrīcam dōnat habēre virō; (id. 5.262), he gives the hero a breastplate to wear. [In prose: habendam .]
[*] Note.--So rarely in prose writers of the classic period.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 99.04.0001

[hlawson38]

You're basically right.

tigris ut aspera Gaetulusve leo -- ut here is simply "like". You can supply a verb, maybe persequeretur or persequatur, but there's really no need to. What's confusing (but didn't seem to confuse you) is that ut follows tigris.

frangere is an infinitive of purpose and complements persequor. It's not common in classical prose, but it sometimes shows up in poetry.

The things that confused me were more basic, Qimmik: half-remembered English grammar rules about "like" and "as" invaded the mental space where Latin should rule; still-shaky knowledge of verb forms threw me into a swivit about "frangere"; finally, I was not accustomed to free-standing nominatives ("tigris" and "leo"), which at first I tried to make the subject of "frangere"; after a while I gave up on that. I'm traveling now, with just a laptop and limited reference works. At home I have a 24 " monitor that lets me see dictionary, text, translation, and commentary almost all at the same time.

So I struggled until I worked up my hypotheses.

Again thanks Qimmik. You are a great help.

Incidentally, I started over on Horace at Odes, book 1, no. 1.

[Qimmik]

You might want to equip yourself with the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics edition with commentary of H. Odes 1.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/052167 ... 1_8&sr=8-8

This will provide some help with the grammar, but more importantly a lot of illuminating background and interpretive information that will enhance your reading experience, and it represents up-to-date scholarship.

[hlawson38]

Thanks for the suggestion. Also helpful to me is an ebook by Claude Pavur, _Easy on the Odes: A Latin Phrase-Book for the Odes of Horace_. This book Englishes adjectival phrases in the Odes. One learns the phrases as phrases, which is helpful in a first reading of the poem.