I had a bit of difficulty translating the opening lines of The Aeneid. Here is the text along with my attempt at translating it:
Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam fato profugus Laviniaque venit
litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
vi superum, saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram,
multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem
inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum
Albanique patres atque altae moenia Romae.
Of arms and a man I sing, who first came to Italy and
the Lavinian shores from the shores of Troy exiled
by fate, that man who was tossed about much on both
the lands and the sea by the force of the gods above,
mindful of fierce Juno on account of her wrath,
and he also endured many things by war, until he
could found a city and bring the gods of Latium into
it, from which the Latin race and the fathers of Alba
Longa and the high city walls of Rome.
My Questions
In line 3 is there an ellipsis of the verb ‘est’? (i.e. Is ‘iactatus’ really meant to be ‘iactatus est’?)
In line 7 does ‘altae’ modify ‘moenia’? (I translated as if it did, but ‘moenia’ is neuter nom. pl. and altae is feminine nom. pl. right?)
In line 2 why is ‘to Italy’ ‘Italiam’ and not ‘ad Italiam’?
yes, you will have to expect a lot of that if you are going to read more Latin poetry.
In line 7 does ‘altae’ modify ‘moenia’? (I translated as if it did, but ‘moenia’ is neuter nom. pl. and altae is feminine nom. pl. right?)
no, how could it? it modifies Romae. I forget what this device is called whereby an adjective by its meaning obviously alludes to some noun in the sentence but does not agree with it, but I am sure there is a name for it.
In line 2 why is ‘to Italy’ ‘Italiam’ and not ‘ad Italiam’?
prepositions meaning “from”, “towards”, and “in” are often omitted in poetry, the cases they govern (ablative, accusative, and ablative, respectively) being used alone.
Are there any mistakes in the trans.?
ln 3: there is no relative pronoun in line 3, so “who was tossed” is a liberality.
ln 4: how could accusative memorem be modifiying ille? memorem goes with iram, the only accusative in sight.
ln 5: bello is probably ablative showing place, not manner (which sounds off).
ln 6: “bring the gods of Latium into it” seems odd to me. if you regard Latio as a dative with the compound verb, you may translate it “and bring (his) gods into Latium”.