a few questions: P. Vergilii Maronis Ecloga III

Latin Learning Latin
1

I’ve been reading through Virgil’s eclogues recently and, this morning, just completed the third. Most of it wasn’t too hard, especially with the help of Page’s notes, but there’s one couplet whose grammar is a bit perplexing to me.

The context is a sort of poetry slam between Menalcas and Damoetas, who get a bit nasty when they see each at the beginning of the poem. So here’s one of the exchanges: the idea is for the first poet to make some sort of claim and the second poet to show up the former, if possible.

Damoetas (64-65):
malo me Galatea petit, lasciua puella,
et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante uideri
Menalcas (66-67):
at mihi sese offert ultro meus ignis Amyntas,
notior ut iam sit canibus non Delia nostris

Translation:
Galatea pelts me with apples, that playful girl,
and then she hightails it to the willows…but hopes I see her before she gets there.

Yeah? Amyntas, my hot mama, tells me I can have her without my asking:
my pets already know her better than they know Delia!

When I first read the couplet, I thought “notior ut iam non sit” means “to famous for Delia to already be to my dogs,” which didn’t make a lick of sense. The notes in the back, though, suggest that Delia is a close friend, so the shepherd’s dogs know her well. The point being that Amyntas is even closer than Delia.

So is the whole ut clause a result triggered by “offert,” that is, literally, she offers herself to me, with the result that Delia is already no more familiar to our dogs"? In which case the normal syntax would be “ut Delia iam notior nostris canibus non sit.” It seems more natural to read notior with Amyntas, but that way lies the land of nonsense.

Cheers,

David

PS - and do lines 7-9 (parcius ista uiris tamen obicienda memento.
nouimus, et qui te, transuersa tuentibus hircis,
et quo–sed faciles Nymphae risere–sacello) really mean “Remember, you should be more careful when you insult men. I know who you were with, with the goats eyeing you sideways, and the chapel where it happened–with the Nymphs laughing slyly.” Page’s note is determinedly obscure, vague, and prudish.

2

Salve BPQ,

perhaps I’m way off here, but could the nostris canibus be an ablative of comparison? (if that’s the correct terminology).

Delia is around so often that I know her better than I know my dogs. (keeping in mind that a shepherd will spend a fair bit of time with his dogs)



Just my two cents worth…

3

Care BP&,

Spoiler warning! Here’s a cheatsheet from an ‘ancient’ Interlinear version (you know, the type that re-assembles the original words into English word order, putting an English translation directly under each Latin word - and producing often enough an almost equally obscure English version):

DAMAETAS:
Galatea, lasciva puella, petit me malo, et fugit ad salices, et cupit se videri antè.
= Galatea, a wanton maid, strikes me with an apple, and flies to the willows, and desires that she be seen first.

MENALCAS:
At meus ignis Amyntas offert sese mihi ultro; ut non Delia sit notior nostris canibus.
= But my flame Amyntas offers himself to me willingly; so that not (even) Delia is more known to our dogs.

As for those lines nearer the beginning …

DAMAETAS:
Tamen memento ista objicienda viris parcius. Et novimus qui te, hircis tuentibus transversa et quo sacello, sed faciles nymphae risere.
= Yet remember these things are to be charged to men more cautiously. And we have known who (betrayed) you, the goats gazing obliquely and in what chapel, but the gentle nymphs laughed.

Did Page omit to mention that Amyntas was a boy?

Hmmm … ‘tuentibus’. Interesting (deponent) verb, ‘tueor’. I recently met it in a passage from Livy (death of Flaminius at Battle of Lake Trasimene) where it meant ‘protect’. ‘Eum … tuebantur cives’ = his fellow-citizens defended him. Look at, gaze at, look after, take care of, guard, protect … fun to see the step-wise colonization of our minds by words. :slight_smile:

Cheers,
Int

4

Dear Interaxus,

Thanks for graciously providing the interlinear version of these lines. I guess they mostly confirmed my reading - except for the “who (betrayed) you” in the last cited couplet. Surely it’s not “betrayed”! How did they infer that? The whole point of Damoetas’ rejoinder is that he knows something naughty about Menalcas. I’m pretty sure the implied verb is omitted for a reason - it was probably something sexual.

Did Page omit to mention that Amyntas was a boy?

Er, yes. I forgot about that. I wasn’t sure whether Amyntas was a boy or girl when working through the poem, and I couldn’t find a good indication of it at first glance. I think Ecloga II reveals his gender. (This confusion betrays something about my own expectations and prejudices, I’m sure.)

Hmmm … ‘tuentibus’. Interesting (deponent) verb, ‘tueor’. I recently met it in a passage from Livy (death of Flaminius at Battle of Lake Trasimene) where it meant ‘protect’. ‘Eum … tuebantur cives’ = his fellow-citizens defended him. Look at, gaze at, look after, take care of, guard, protect … fun to see the step-wise colonization of our minds by words.

Yeah, it’s a fun verb, isn’t it? Don’t forget the 4th principal part: tutus - having watched; and then converted to a passive meaning, safe. I think I remember first encountering tueor in Vergil somewhere (possibly Aeneid Book II). I actually remember looking it up in my Cassell’s dictionary while seated in the English Faculty Library in Oxford (!) last fall. It was a bit dark, the days ending early and the lights staying off until it’s nearly dusk. (dictionarium tuens “tueor” inueni ac eius memoriam iam tueor…)

Kasper said:

perhaps I’m way off here, but could the nostris canibus be an ablative of comparison? (if that’s the correct terminology).

Delia is around so often that I know her better than I know my dogs. (keeping in mind that a shepherd will spend a fair bit of time with his dogs)

Grammatically, it could be ablative of comparison, but in that case there is no connection of thought. Also, notior lacks the dative that explains it and becomes something like “infamous,” again with no connection to the previous sentence. That is, “Galatea offers herself to me without my asking, so that Delia is not more known than our dogs.” Clearly, the ablative of comparison, if anything, is the implied Galatea from the previous clause.

Check the interlinear translation that Interaxus provided for a rendering that backs up my guess. Thanks for the suggestion, Kasper!

-David

5

Care BP&,

Your keen nostalgia puts me in mind of 18th century park ruins and also of ‘Forsam et haec olim meminisse juvabit’ (which I first met fairly recently in an old film, Goodbye Mr Chips) – though I realize the Latin is from Book 1 and that you are in fact recalling circumstances that were obviously already pleasurable at the time. (By the way, thanks for rooting ‘tueor’ even more firmly in my mind. You’re a cunning magister, BP&!).

Now for a non sequitur occasioned by my researching ‘meminisse juvabit’ on the Web. I accidentally came across the following, which I feel I just HAVE to share (bearing in mind Horace’s ‘quadrimum merum’, etc, and the ‘irreality’ of Vergil’s Eclogues):

‘Reality is a state induced by lack of alcohol.’ (Berlin waiter)

It has the epigrammatic conciseness and wit of Latin. But what would the Latin equivalent have been, had the thought been thought by H or V? :unamused:

Cheers,
Int

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You’re a cunning magister, BP&!

tibi benignius quam uere loquenti gratias ago!

‘Reality is a state induced by lack of alcohol.’ (Berlin waiter)

Perhaps I’ve heard this before, but it still made me laugh out loud when I read. Fortunately, I wasn’t in a public place!

Thanks!

David

PS - solus res ipsas uidet qui uino caret - ? maybe not

7

Put another way:

In vino veritas.

Talk about concision… :slight_smile:

8

In vino veritas.

Indeed, but doesn’t this suggest the opposite meaning? Perhaps sine uino ueritas? :slight_smile:

David

9

Mea culpa est, you’re right of course.

Back to the bottle…

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Cantator: You mean (in ‘unzipped’ Victorian) :

One Glimpse of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright …?

But that was rather the viewpoint of the the customer than the Berlin waiter in question. :slight_smile:

BP&: Thanks for reminding me that the Ablative is a very important part of the Reality of Latin (‘qui uino caret’). Interesting to reflect that ‘vere’ (veraciter?) ancestored ‘very’ and ‘reality’ derives from ‘res’.

Unnecessary footnote: So ‘reality’ = ‘thinginess’. But Kant’s ’the-Ding-in-Itself’ is beyond the reach of our cognitive faculties (certainly beyond mine) so distinctions between the various states of apprehension are blurred to say the least. (Oh well. Another and another Cup to drown / The Memory of this Impertinence! Or, “et vinum quatuor (sic!) annorum liberaliter exhibe vase Sabino?, as it says in this curious link that I just this second came across: http://www.mgilleland.com/horprose.htm).

Cheers,
Int

11

Care BP&,

Just saw your ‘sine vino veritas’. How about ‘in vino non veritas’? What does that famous judge, Latinity, have to say about the relative virtues of either solution?

Also, it strikes me that a modern English version might be ‘No wine, no truth’. Definitely not a candidate for a first prize in Latinity, huh? Or … ?

Cheers,
Int

Int

12

What does that famous judge, Latinity, have to say about the relative virtues of either solution?

I’m afraid I may not be the best person to ask about Latinity, since mine is still, as they say in the web design business, “under construction” (necdum confectum).

But in English, maybe “there are no secrets among drinkers.” Not having spent much time in the drinking set, I’m afraid I haven’t mastered their proverbs!

-David

PS - I really like your Fitzgerald Rubaiyat quotes, if that’s indeed what they are,