This text seems to use the genitive of penalty and also has two possible translations. The genitive of penalty is confusing me as to the correct translation, and I am consequently not sure if mine are correct.
Nisi feminae nautas sententiarum de incolis damnabunt (damnaverint), incolae in provincia non laborabunt.
Translation 1:
Unless the women condemn the sailor’s opinions about the inhabitants, the inhabitants in the province shall not work.
I’m a little confused about how the literal meaning of the sailor’s opinions is in Latin. By itself, wouldn’t “sailor’s opinions” be “sententiae nautarum” [lit. opinions of the sailors]?
Translation 2:
Unless the women condemn the sailor’s opinions about the inhabitants, the inhabitants in the province shall not work.
Here unless is in italics, since the future perfect is used in the protasis and in English (according to my book) the only way to emphasise this is to use italics. Is this the general rule, or is there another possible translation?
yes, the words would have to switch cases which each other to be translated as you have. it should be “unless the women condemn the sailors (and here is where the genitive of penalty comes in) for their beliefs”.
the causes of this mistake, the first two of which you realized but were struggling to amend, were 1) that you were translating nautas as though it were genitive (of the sailors), 2) that you were translating sententiarum as though it were accusative (the opinions), and 3) that you were translating the genitive as a possessive (of) when it was a genitive of penalty (for, because of, etc.).
Translation 2:
Unless > the women condemn the sailor’s opinions about the inhabitants, the inhabitants in the province shall not work.
Here unless is in italics, since the future perfect is used in the protasis and in English (according to my book) the only way to emphasise this is to use italics. Is this the general rule, or is there another possible translation?
frankly I don’t see the difference with or without italics.
Thanks, this helps quite a bit. Just one other question: would ‘their’ need to be explicity stated in the Latin, or is it omitted since it is clear from context (as the Romans were notorious for doing, as bellum paxque mentioned)? Since the book has not covered this topic yet (their), I wasn’t sure if this was just an incomplete example for the purposes of the exercise or if this was proper Latin.
It seems to me proper latin. I’ve been through some of Cicero’s works, and also Livy and I don’t recall actually running into “their” (eorum or earum) very often, or even at all.
It’s been awhile since I’ve looked at De Amicitia though…