I am translating the Acts of the Apostles for my Latin Readings class translation for tonight and I am having difficulty with verse 16:28. “Clamavit autumn Paulus voce magna, dicens: 'Nihil tibi mali feceris: universi enim hic sumus.”
I translated it as “But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying: 'Let you do nothing of evil for you: for we are all here.” I am taking feceris as the jussive subjunctive.
Can feceris be the jussive subjunctive in the second person due to the presence of a negative nihil? Or would it have to be a future perfect, how would you translate it as a future perfect? Would it be “you will have nothing of evil done to you?”
I am hoping that it can be translated as a Jussive subjunctive, but it probably can’t be without nē?
The use of the subjunctive for the imperative is a feature of colloquial, and especially later, Latin. Instead of writing nē quid, the translator combined it into nihil, which is actually the direct object of fēceris and is followed by a partitive genitive, lit. “do nothing of evil to yourself.”
Oh, and I would suggest gratiās omnibus… . Libenter!
. Libenter!