Here’s something that has been bugging me. Maybe it will bug you all too.
Quote (Allen&Greenough, Section 298, f. )
“Ipse usually agrees with the subject, even when the real emphasis in English is on a reflexive in the predicate:-
Me ipse consolor (Lael. 10) I console myself. [Not me ipsum as English would lead us to expect.]”
Fine. I’m prepared to accept that.
But what if the verb is an imperative, as in Console yourself?
Is an imperative even thought of as having a subject? I wondered if Console yourself would be translated by Ipse te consolare, (You-yourself console yourself.)
Then I remembered Luke 4.23,
Medice, cura te ipsum.
Jerome has made ipse agree with te. Is he right to do this? Or is he just being vulgar? I would value any thoughts.
it depends wherewith you set your standards. Seneca iunior was the true Latin bastion of ‘te ipsum’ or ‘ipsum te’ being used with the reflexive imperative, especially with the verb consule. Cicero, with whom most Latin prose composition wisely sets its mark, avoided this particular collocation with the imperative, instead inserting the (superfluous) pronoun tu, or its emphatic form tute, along with the necessary reflexive te. tu te is also found so used with imperatives in verse, e.g. in Lucr. and Sil.
at any rate, a shift from Classical standards can be detected in this element of Later Latin, for ‘me ipsum’ etc. became quite common in these reflexive constructions, esp. in Aug. and of course the Vulgate.
~D
Jerome has made ipse agree with te. Is he right to do this? Or is he just being vulgar?
I think “cura te ipsum” is simply a different structure. Here “ipsum” is part of the direct object, while “ipse” is the subject in “ipse me consolor”.
[ego] ipse consolor me [ipsum].
medice, [tu ipse] cura te ipsum.
The first sentence emphasizes the subject, the second emphasizes the object, since there is no need to repeat the subject with an imperative form.
Therefore, I’d translate “console yourself” with “te ipsum consolare”.
Cheers, both. Very helpful. Whiteoctave is an invaluable asset to these forums.
Please, don’t feed his ego.
