Help with a Translation

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Villanelle
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Help with a Translation

Post by Villanelle »

"Marcus in primis pro patre timebat, quod ille rempublicam defendere temptabat senatoresque in Antonium excitatos dicebat"

I am having trouble with this sentence in a translation and the best I can render is as below:

"Marcus was first of all afraid for his father, because he was trying to defend the republic, and he said that the senators had been stirred up against Antony"

Can anyone advise if this is accurate or if it can be improved/ corrected etc?

Cheers.
Villanelle

Aurēliānus Agricola
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Re: Help with a Translation

Post by Aurēliānus Agricola »

The meaning seems correct. As for the style, I can't help you as I'm not qualified.
Virtūs montēs movet

truks
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Re: Help with a Translation

Post by truks »

Villanelle wrote: Fri Mar 10, 2023 1:19 am "Marcus in primis pro patre timebat, quod ille rempublicam defendere temptabat senatoresque in Antonium excitatos dicebat"

I am having trouble with this sentence in a translation and the best I can render is as below:

"Marcus was first of all afraid for his father, because he was trying to defend the republic, and he said that the senators had been stirred up against Antony"

Can anyone advise if this is accurate or if it can be improved/ corrected etc?

Cheers.
I did a search to double-check that this sentence was correct, as the Latin doesn't look right to me.

The last word should be ducebat, not dicebat. Maybe OP would like to have another go at the translation? :-)

The reason this looks strange is that 'said that …' would require oratio obliqua, but there's no infinitive in the last clause; you need an esse or fuisse for this to make sense in the way OP has translated it, and I would not expect esse to be omitted at this stage in a textbook (which later authors like Pliny and Tacitus frequently do).

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seneca2008
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Re: Help with a Translation

Post by seneca2008 »

I agree with truks, dicebat is clearly wrong.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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Villanelle
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Re: Help with a Translation

Post by Villanelle »

Thank you all for your help. The typo at the end is what threw me and threw off the whole sentence.

Cheers.
Villanelle

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