Line 9 reads: “quare monendum est te mihi, bone Egnati.”
I do not understand how the gerundive construction can take an object. I looked up Merrill’s comments, and he says that “te” is the object of the verb but does not provide a translation. Since the obligation is passive, How can it have an object?
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To answer the question about translation, monendum est te mihi would be something like: “I must warn you” (more literally, if a literal rendition into English is in any way possible, “there must be a warning you by me” or “it must be warned you by me”).
One suspects - and the textual evidence backs it up - that Catullus would probably have said monendus es mihi (or monenda es? I’m not sure if it’s a man or woman) in normal conversation.
David