C.N., Pausanias "quo magis Pausanias perturbatus"

Latin Learning Latin
1

Context: Pausanias, having learned that an junior associate is about to turn informer, pleads with him.

quo magis Pausanias perturbatus orare coepit, ne enuntiaret neu se meritum de illo optime proderet: quodsi eam veniam sibi dedisset tantisque implicatum rebus sublevasset, magno ei praemio futurum.

Translation: All the more disturbed, Pausanias began to plead that he [Argilius] should not inform, and he should not forsake one to whom he [Argilius] owed so much; and if he would grant this favor, and take away the difficulties entangling him [ Pausanias], there would be a big reward for him [Argilius].


orare coepit: I take orare coepit together as perfect tense. The time of the entreaty is in the past, and hence, enuntiaret and proderet are in the imperfect subjunctive. The action is for the future, that Argilius will not inform.

The clause beginning quodsi: is this a conditional sentence wrapped inside indirect discourse? Assuming futurum to be a future infinitive, that fulfills the rule for indirect discourse the infinitive is in the tense relative the time of the saying.

But I need help on the two pluperfect subjunctive verbs dedisset and sublevasset. I can’t cite a grammar rule for this tense choice. I’m having a lot of trouble finding a clear rule for this point.

2

Your understanding is right so far as it goes: conditional clause in indirect discourse. But it’s in secondary sequence, so what would have been fut.perf. in direct discourse and perf.subj. in indirect discourse in primary sequence becomes pluperf. subj.

See Hylander’s last post in your Xerxes thread.
quodsi eam veniam sibi dedisset tantisque implicatum rebus sublevasset, magno ei praemio futurum is like si perfecerit, nullius rei a se repulsam laturum except that it’s in secondary sequence.
It’s exactly like id si fecissent, incepta prospera futura.

Perf.subj. in primary sequence > pluperf. subj. in secondary, just as pres.subj. in primary > imperf.subj. in secondary—consistently one step further back. It’s quite simple once you get the hang of it.

P.S. As to orare coepit, coepit is perfect in form but present in meaning, “begins” (cf. odi “I hate”), and here works as a historic present (“began”), throwing what follows into secondary sequence. It’s the secondary tenses of the dependent verbs that tell us it’s being used as a historic tense.

3

I think proderet is betray, so ne enuntiaret neu …proderet is “neither inform (against) nor betray”.

se meritum de illo optime one who had deserved well (from) (of) him. I think Se must refer to Pausanias.

sublevasset is literally “to lift up from beneath, to raise up, hold up, support” so perhaps aid him in the great difficulties in which he was enmeshed.

Quodsi is “but if”. I think we just have a conditional here in indirect discourse.

No doubt Hylander will give chapter and verse.

EDIT as mwh says he already has!

4

Thank you mwh and Seneca, especially for affirming that the tense issue is the same as the one Hylander commented on. Now I can review both my posts, and the comments on them, to see for myself how they are the same. This general area is exactly what I am focusing on in my reading of Cornelius Nepos.

5

To supplement mwh’s post:

1. Direct discourse:

quodsi eam veniam mihi dederis tantisque implicatum rebus subleva[ve]ris, magno tibi praemio erit.

dederis and sublevaris are future perfect because Argilius will have to do the favor for Pausanias before he gets his reward.

2. Indirect discourse introduced by present tense verb (primary sequence):

Pausanias . . . orare incipit: . . . quodsi eam veniam sibi dederit tantisque implicatum rebus subleva[ve]rit, magno ei praemio futurum.

dederit and sublevarit are perfect subjunctive, replacing the future perfect in indirect discourse in primary sequence.

Note: Except in the first person singular, the form of the perfect subjunctive is exactly the same as that of the future perfect. Don’t let that confuse you.

3. Indirect discourse introduced by past tense verb (imperfect, perfect, etc.; (secondary sequence):

Pausanias . . . orare coepit: . . . quodsi eam veniam sibi dedisset tantisque implicatum rebus subleva[vi]sset, magno ei praemio futurum.

i]dedisset[/i] and sublevasset are pluperfect subjunctive, replacing the future perfect in indirect discourse in secondary sequence.

6

Thank you Hylander. It’s very kind of you to write so carefully for just one person.

To borrow a line from U.S. Grant, “I mean to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.”

7

Try to work through the examples. I think it would be helpful.

8

You can be sure I will work through the examples.

9

I think everyone appreciates hylander’s posts. And it’s also useful that you ask these questions so we can revise these topics !

10

If I’d been aware of the subsequent posts, I’d have made my PS a separate post! But Hylander’s schematic post (fleshing out the second sentence of mine) suggests that coepit regularly functions as a past tense introducing secondary sequence. If that’s right, my PS (which evidently crossed with Hylander’s post) is partly wrong.

When learning how Latin syntax works, it may be helpful to think of the pluperfect subjunctives here as “replacing” the future perfect, as Hylander has it. But in ordinary reading we don’t need to go as far as to reconstruct the hypothetical original form of the implied utterance. By the time we get to these pluperfect subjunctives we already know we’re in indirect discourse, and in secondary sequence. The pluperfect subjunctives represent what in primary sequence would be perfect. That’s in accordance with regular sequence rules.

11

Apparently there’s a very rare present, coepio, but I think coepi is usually perfect, unlike odi, which is perfect in form but present in meaning. If I’m not mistaken, incipio is used as the present tense corresponding to perfect coepi.

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.2:2967.lewisandshort

12

Is there really this difference between coepi and odi? Aren’t they both “perfect in form but present in meaning”? (Properly they’re perfect as distinct from aorist: to have reached a starting point and hence to begin, to have conceived a hatred and hence to hate.) incipio has a perfect of its own, so it’s not as if coepi supplies the perfect of incipio.

I use the Oxford Latin Dictionary in preference to the antiquated Lewis and Short. I think it’s a better dictionary, and clearer. I can’t reproduce its coepi entry here, but it distinguishes four uses, each of them glossed “to begin.”

Either way it doesn’t affect the meaning of the passage, since if I’m right it’s a “historic” present anyway, introducing secondary (aka historic) sequence as it does. So hlawson38 can safely ignore this.

13

With all due respect–and I realize that in disagreeing with mwh I’m treading on thin ice–I think there is a difference between coepi and odi: coepi is a perfect stem, with perfect meaning, for which the present stem has for the most part dropped out of classical Latin; odi is a perfect stem with present meaning.

For coepi, the OLD (2d ed.) notes: “pf. stem only normally used;”.

For odi: “(pf. with pres. force)”. The annotation for memini is similar.

I haven’t looked at all the examples in the OLD under coepi, but I think if one were to do so, one would find that many can’t be explained away as historical presents or are embedded in a string of past-tense (perf., imperf., etc.) verbs. The fact that the meaning given is “to begin” isn’t conclusive. The verb does have this meaning–it’s just that it isn’t used in the present/imperfect tenses.

Though I hesitate to cite clunky, old (but still often useful) Allen & Greenough for this point, in discussing the “defective” coepi, odi and memini, they translate odi as “I hate” and memini as “I remember,” but coepi as “I began.”

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=AG+205&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001

When learning how Latin syntax works, it may be helpful to think of the pluperfect subjunctives here as “replacing” the future perfect, as Hylander has it. But in ordinary reading we don’t need to go as far as to reconstruct the hypothetical original form of the implied utterance. By the time we get to these pluperfect subjunctives we already know we’re in indirect discourse, and in secondary sequence.

I agree that in reading there’s no need to reverse-engineer the indirect discourse to direct discourse, and we shouldn’t normally do so. But in this instance, it struck me that it would be a particularly useful exercise because, in addition to the issue of primary vs. secondary sequence, there’s another syntactic issue that might be obscured in indirect discourse: namely, the necessity in Latin to use the future perfect in the protasis of future conditions in direct discourse where the action of the protasis will occur before the action of the apodosis. And that’s why in indirect discourse the verbs of the protasis are perfect subjunctive (primary sequence) or pluperfect (secondary sequence), which might otherwise be puzzling. That’s what I was trying to bring out, in addition to the differences between primary and secondary sequence, in running through the examples.

14

I suspect it’s only because of the erstwhile existence of coepio that dictionaries and grammars don’t treat coepi and odi quite identically. That may explain why A&G—unlike the OLD—translate coepi as “I began” rather than “I begin." The way I see it, coepi simply replaced coepio in the evolution of the language, functioning in just the same way as odi or memini.

Of course you’re right that future perfect in a protasis often causes puzzlement, all the more so since most of its forms coincide with the perfect subjunctive. We’ve both explained it many times on this board, you only the day before yesterday in the post to which I referred, where things had initially gotten a bit confused. I replied to hlawson38 this time in order to spare you the need. I could have spared myself that. :slight_smile:

Incidentally, hlawson38, did we miss your 77th? and did you ever get through the Aeneid? What’s next on the agenda? We all value Hylander.

15

Hylander is correct here: one has to keep separated ōdisse and meminisse on the one side, coepisse on the other. Ōdisse and meminisse work like Greek εἰδέναι, perfect in form but praesens in sense. I can only think of one more example: nōscere means ‘to learn’ but nōuisse ‘to know’.

These are to be contrasted with coepisse (< co-ēp-, from the stem ap-), which is just a supplemented perfect to incipere (< in-capere).

16

Hylander has been a very great help to me.

I was 77 last December. I’ve managed to work superficially through the Aeneid, other poems of Virgil, Lucretius, several of Cicero’s works, Consolation of Philosophy, and a little of Seneca, ; i.e. I didn’t try to make a rationale for the construction of every word. Lately I started Cornelius Nepos, just for some easier reading, and since it was easier, I decided to work on the problems I’ve been raising recently on the subjunctive.

Although I had studied them before, I had not gained adequate command. So, when I began to want a grammatical rationale for each subjunctive verb, I saw how much work I needed. I want to carry on with Cornelius Nepos for a while, focusing on these subjunctives.

I want to get back to Seneca, de Ira, because its message seems apt, when (at least in the US) so many seem to feel that their anger validates their political choices. Seneca dislikes such thinking.

17

I don’t see the force of this. Hylander and I both know that coepi is perfect in form, and we both know that “Ōdisse and meminisse work like Greek εἰδέναι, perfect in form but praesens in sense.” I was suggesting that coepisse works likewise. I don’t see how the fact that in form it’s a supplemented perfect to incipere proves that wrong. incipere has a perfectly good perfect of its own (incepi), and anyway we’re talking function not form. Still, I could well be wrong. I’m not much good at Latin.

18

All the dictionaries and grammars that I have consulted take coepisse as past in its meaning as well as form, but the very fact that you see it in other light, Michael, does make me uncomfortable and unsure. I value your opinions and views immensely.

19

Caesar uses various forms of coepi quite frequently. In many instances it could be explained as a historical present, but there are some instances where that explanation is difficult if not impossible. Here are some examples from de bello Gallico:

1.20 Diviciacus multis cum lacrimis Caesarem complexus obsecrare coepit ne quid gravius in fratrem statueret. Secondary sequence.

1.25. Caesar primum suo, deinde omnium ex conspectu remotis equis, ut aequato omnium periculo spem fugae tolleret, cohortatus suos proelium commisit. [2] Milites loco superiore pilis missis facile hostium phalangem perfregerunt. Ea disiecta gladiis destrictis in eos impetum fecerunt. [3] Gallis magno ad pugnam erat impedimento quod pluribus eorum scutis uno ictu pilorum transfixis et conligatis, cum ferrum se inflexisset, neque evellere neque sinistra impedita satis commode pugnare poterant, [4] multi ut diu iactato bracchio praeoptarent scutum manu emittere et nudo corpore pugnare. [5] Tandem vulneribus defessi et pedem referre et, quod mons suberit circiter mille passuum spatio, eo se recipere coeperunt. [6] Capto monte et succedentibus nostris, Boi et Tulingi, qui hominum milibus circiter XV agmen hostium claudebant et novissimis praesidio erant, ex itinere nostros ab latere aperto adgressi circumvenire, et id conspicati Helvetii, qui in montem sese receperant, rursus instare et proelium redintegrare coeperunt. [7] Romani [conversa] signa bipertito intulerunt: prima et secunda acies, ut victis ac submotis resisteret, tertia, ut venientes sustineret. – An entire passage of past-tense verbs–with just two historical presents?

3.13 Accedebat ut, cum saevire ventus coepisset et se vento dedissent, et tempestatem ferrent facilius et in vadis consisterent tutius et ab aestu relictae nihil saxa et cotes timerent; quarum rerum omnium nostris navibus casus erat extimescendus. – coepisset is parallel to dedidissent, and all other verbs are past-tense verbs.

I’ll continue with this when I have time, which may be never. But in the meantime, one might take a look at the result of my crude search for all forms of coepi on the Perseus website.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/searchresults?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0002&inContent=true&target=la&all_words=coepi&all_words_expand=on&phrase=&any_words=&exclude_words=&search=Search

20

I was quite wrong, as I realized before Hylander’s latest. Deep apologies all round. It was an idiotic aberration, for which I have no excuse. I really don’t know what got into me this weekend. I seem to be totally losing it.

And extra apologies to hlawson38 for posting my last piece of stupidity before seeing his own intervening post. For which many thanks, and I’m sure I join others in cheering you on.

Again, I’m sincerely sorry to have wasted everyone’s time.

Michael