Hi Everyone,
I’m checking this dubious online flashcard solution:
1a. Diū in istā nave fuī …
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1a. I have been in this (horrible) ship for a long time …
I think that must be a bad translation because 1) istā means “that one over there”, not “this one here” and 2) all the Latin-based/romance languages I know use the simple present (sum = soy/suis/sono, etc.) for the Englsh present perfect construction “I have been”, never the simple past (fuī).
Anyway, that got me thinking, how do you express the idea of since/for + present perfect in Latin? Multo temporis in hac nave horribili sum?
Iste is often used as a pejorative term of reference rather than simply referring to something over there. Perhaps interpreting it in this way in this context might be stretching this use somewhat.
Fui is regularly and properly translated as I have been. Romance languages developed later and so the syntax has changed.
I looked up the context in Perseus’(Terences Hecyra Hec. 3.4.421–422).
Wheelock, Frederic M.; LaFleur, Richard A.. Wheelock’s Latin, 7th Edition (The Wheelock’s Latin Series) (p. 1026). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. ) and I think it favors my interpretation (for once) regarding the tense (simple past, not present perfect) and " deictic" (that, not this):
Source text for sententia antiqua “Diū in istā nāve fuī et propter tempestātem nūbēsque semper mortem exspectābam” :
Dies triginta aut plus eo in navi fui,
Cum interea semper mortem exspectabam miser;
Ita usque adversa tempestate usi sumus.
= thirty days or more 1 was I on board that ship, and every moment, to my horror, was in continual expectation of death: such unfavorable weather did we always meet with.