mwh, that is the way I’m reading this – “at the moment” would be the moment when he made the promise.
But Randy may still be right.
In direct speech–
(1) if A. was thinking of the present moment when he made the promise, he would have used the present indicative: commemorabimus quaecumque et quantacumque satis uidentur.
(2) if A. was thinking of the future moment when he would come to gather his thoughts and memorialize the disasters, I think he would have used future indicative, not the present: commemorabimus quaecumque et quantacumque satis uidebuntur. (This is in contrast to English, where we can use the so-called “present” tense to refer to the future in a subordinate clause.)
But this is a subordinate clause in indirect speech, in secondary sequence. The present indicative of direct speech, uidentur, is represented by the imperfect subjunctive, according to the rules in A&G 483, which is what A. uses here: promiseramus . . . nos commemoraturos quaecumque et quantacumque satis uiderentur. In other words, the imperfect subjunctive here would seem to stand for a present indicative and relate back to the moment when he made the promise, not the moment when he would come to memorialize the disasters.
But if he were thinking of the moment when he came to memorialize the disasters, how could he have expressed the idea? The problem is that there is no way to form a periphrastic passive verb form for the future with the imperfect subjunctive to follow the rules for sequence of tenses in Latin. A periphrastic form for this situation exists in the active: A&G’s example is rogaueram quid facturus esses. But I’m not aware of any way to do this with a passive verb. Videnda essent would imply obligation or necessity, which is not appropriate in this context.
Maybe Randy is right after all: perhaps A. just fell back on the simple imperfect subjunctive passive to stand for a simple future indicative passive in direct speech, for want of a periphrastic passive form that would be dictated by the usual sequence of tenses rules. I would say it’s at least ambiguous here what he meant.
Of course, A. did not necessarily have his copy of A&G open before him as he was writing . . .
To answer Michael’s question, yes, I think his summation of his reading is satisfactory, but looking at his reading, I think it’s clear for him “at the moment” was referring to the moment in the future when Aug. would be writing, not at the moment he made the promise.
It’s kind of amusing when we get tangled up to the point that, in trying to interpret what Augustine said, we find ourselves trying to interpret what we are saying .
Hylander, with respect to the point in time of reference for potuissent and viderentur, how would you say Dyson understood it in his translation?
“I undertook to say something against those who attribute to our religion the disasters lately sustained by the Roman commonwealth. I promised also that I should recall the evils - as many of them and as great as I could remember, or as might seem sufficient - which the city of Rome, or the provinces belonging to her empire, suffered even before it was forbidden to sacrifice to demons.”
I think “might” speaks to your point, viz., that while according to the grammar books the imperfect in secondary sequence represents the present of the direct discourse (and an incomplete action), it can have a future-ish feel to it.
It looks like we’ve been tying ourselves up in knots here. But anyway, here’s how I would perform the artificial exercise of “reconstructing” the second half of his promise: commeminerimus quaecumque et quantacumque occurrere potuerint vel satis videantur mala.
Here potuerint is perf.subj., faute de mieux representing potuerint fut.perf. (fortuitously the same form!); videantur represents videntur (I’m discounting future). I’m thinking subjunctive would be more likely than Hylander’s indicative in the relative clauses. (Cf. Dyson’s “might seem”, not “seem” or “seemed”?)
In secondary sequence (promiseramus), the potuerint perf.subj. of course becomes potuissent, and videantur viderentur.
So I said in my post, “I read potuissent as representing direct-speech future perf.: all that he could (would have been able to) think of, sc. by the time he came (would come) to write.”
As to my “He’s going to record all the mala he can think of (when he comes to recount them) or at any rate those that he thinks (at the moment) enough to make his point”, by “at the moment” I meant at this present moment, as he’s writing.
Such are the paradoxicalities of Latin syntax that pluperfect potuissent refers to a point in time later than imperfect viderentur! I think I’ll stick to Greek. It’s so much more sensible.
The Dyson translation understandably doesn’t attempt to capture the tense difference. It’s too fine a distinction for English, and as I suggested it doesn’t have a great deal of significance.
While looking for more light on this problem, I discovered at the end of Book I this passage, which I had read but forgotten. If I had recalled it, it would have provided helpful context. In this earlier passage, Augustine states the promise that he recalls later in the passage under study in this thread.
Sed adhuc mihi quaedam dicenda sunt aduersus eos, qui Romanae rei publicae clades in religionem nostram referunt, qua diis suis sacrificare prohibentur. Commemoranda sunt enim quae et quanta occurrere poterunt uel satis esse uidebuntur mala, quae illa ciuitas pertulit uel ad eius imperium prouinciae pertinentes, antequam eorum sacrificia prohibita fuissent. . . . ( From ch. 36 of book 1).
(With chagrin I note that Augustine refers to this Book 1 passage just a few lines above the quotation under study.)
Trial translation:
I must yet say some things against those who blame the late disasters suffered by the Roman commonwealth on our religion, by whom [by whose principles ?] it has been forbidden to perform sacrifices to their gods. There must be put on record what catastrophes, and what great catastrophes, will come [note the simple future tense] to mind, or at least enough of them, which Rome endured, and that the provinces subject to Rome’s rule endured, before their sacrifices were prohibited. . . .
Both poterunt and videbuntur are simple future tense, which indicates that Augustine expected to identify more disasters for his subsequent writing.
I think I have missed some grammatical principle about the pluperfect subjunctive in subordinate clauses in indirect discourse.
But it’s interesting that the Latin not only has gerundives rather than futures but more to the point that it has poterunt and videbuntur both in the same tense, unlike the later recapitulation.
Your translation isn’t quite right, Hugh, but no doubt others will correct it, as well as explaining use of pluperf.subj. Thanks for coming up with the original passage!
I think I was right, actually. At the close of Book I, he’s looking ahead to the definitive list of mala he will come up with (future) and then the editing process that will determine (future) which of those will seem sufficient as he writes. This is just recalled (promiseramus), almost verbatim, in Book IV, so these future verbs are now recast per the sequence of tense rules. That by the time he got to the fourth book occurrere poterunt became potuerunt (fut. perf., potuissent in the indirect discourse) is a perfectly normal and trivial difference. The slight technical but as Michael says untranslatable difference is that coming up with the definitive list is now represented as what will be a completed action by the time he sits down to write.
I think I have missed some grammatical principle about the pluperfect subjunctive in subordinate clauses in indirect discourse.
Hugh, all I can say is that I still have permanent bumps on my head from the many times I hit it on the wall studying Latin indirect discourse. But it’s not “some grammatical principle”, it’s right there in the A&G citation I gave you. You should probably carefully review the entire section on sequence of tenses, as I do from time to time.
I wanted to mention this yesterday but didn’t have access to my library. As fyi, the Arthur Tappan Walker 1907 Caesar’s Gallic War has an appendix that converts all the indirect discourse in Books 1 and 2 into their direct form. As an exercise some years ago, I attempted my own conversion of each of these and then compared it to Walker’s. I found this very valuable.
Very interesting. When I stumbled through Caesar some years ago, my grasp of indirect discourse was even more primitive than now. I had rushed through grammar study thinking that reading would quickly sort things out. I haven’t read a line of Latin in company with another person since the early 1950s, and that is a big disadvantage.
I haven’t read a line of Latin in company with another person since the early 1950s, and that is a big disadvantage.
Very true. In July at the invitation of a friend I attended a 5-day Latin workshop led by Chris Francese at Dickinson College ¶. It is an annual workshop intended mostly for Latin teachers who want to turbocharge their own Latin during their summer break, but Chris welcomes a few outliers (non-teachers) like my friend and myself. I went in part because I was very enthusiastic about reading the chosen author, a Jesuit historian (Giovanni Pietro Maffei) who wrote a fascinating history (published in 1588) of the age of Portuguese exploration, in excellent Latin. We read together for four hours each morning. Some us had a study group after dinner to prepare for the next day’s reading, with the help of a bottle of whiskey, a bottle of wine, and some bags of pretzels. There are no translations of Maffei*, which made it especially interesting. We debated many a sentence! Yes, reading with a group of fellow enthusiasts is fun, beneficial, and occasionally humbling.
Technically that’s not true; there is an old Italian translation I found on Google Books. Chris and his fellow teacher at this workshop, a Latin professor from Brazil (Maffei tells how the Portuguese, trying to get around the Cape of Good Hope and drifting too far west, accidentally discovered Brazil. We read a fascinating description of native Brazilian flora and fauna), are working on a digital edition and eventually a critical edition of Maffei. When it’s ready, this will be a terrific entry in the category of Renaissance Latin.
A parallel exercise to converting indirect speech in Caesar into direct speech—even more instructive, and more challenging—is to do the same with Plato’s Symposium, Apollodorus’ account of Aristodemus’ account of the drinking party, where what was said is reported at second hand. E.g. 175c μετὰ ταῦτα ἔφη σφᾶς μὲν δειπνεῖν, τὸν δὲ Σωκράτη οὐκ εἰσιέναι. τὸν οὖν Ἀγάθωνα πολλάκις κελεύειν μεταπέμψασθαι τὸν Σωκράτη, ἓ δὲ οὐκ ἐᾶν. ἥκειν οὖν αὐτὸν οὐ πολὺν χρόνον ὡς εἰώθει διατρίψαντα, ἀλλὰ μάλιστα σφᾶς μεσοῦν δειπνοῦντας. τὸν οὖν Ἀγάθωνα—τυγχάνειν γὰρ ἔσχατον κατακείμενον μόνον—δεῦρ᾽, ἔφη φάναι, Σώκρατες. It can be quite tricky. In this little bit we have εφη twice, but often that is dispensed with. It would be fun to turn this into Latin too. Of course, there are better things to do with the Symposium.
Back for a moment to the Augustine passage, which I proposed represented an “original” commeminerimus quaecumque et quantacumque occurrere potuerint vel satis videantur mala. This turned out to be wrong. But it could have been right. The result would have been the same.
Michael, if there were a student edition or commentary, equivalent to Walker’s for Caesar, converting Apollodorus’ account of Aristodemus’ account into direct speech, I assume you would have mentioned it? I’d love to have it, otherwise the next time I read the Symposium, and I dearly hope that will happen, I’m going to turn to YOU .
The high school textbook Latin for Americans 2 includes large portions of Caesar, and regularly converts the longer sections of indirect statement to direct, one reason I stopped using it for Caesar.
Barry, Yes it’s usually more valuable to convert direct speech (not only statement) to indirect than vice versa, though either way is instructive. But try converting that Plato from a 2nd-hand to a 1st-hand account!
Randy, I don’t know if there’s any such student edition, but I doubt it. I think this is something we have to do for ourselves as we read the dialogue (or rather monologue—It’s an extraordinary form for Plato to have chosen). I sometimes use it as a test or exercise for grad students. I don’t think any have ever done it with complete success.
I’d be interested to know if you concede my point about the Augustine.
Barry - Just to be clear, for Hugh and others’ benefit, the Walker Caesar is the genuine, undoctored text of Caesar. The conversion of the indirect discourses in the first two books to their direct discourse equivalents is in an appendix.
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