dare verba, ignotum, possible word play

Latin Learning Latin
1

The text is from Horace, Satires, I, no.3, beginning about line 20

The poet examines the tendency to magnify the faults of others, while overlooking one’s own faults, by presenting a little dialogue about Novius, who is absent, involving Maenius and an unnamed respondent to Maenius. I judge that we should read this as if there others listening, besides the two speakers.


Maenius absentem Novium cum carperet, ‘heus tu’
quidam ait ‘ignoras te an ut ignotum dare nobis
verba putas?’ ‘egomet mi ignosco’ Maenius inquit.

I found this a tough passage, for several reasons. The lines represent multiple points of view: the poem voice itself, the voice of Manlius quoted, and the voice of the unnamed critic of Manlius, who questions both Manlius’s self-understanding, and the social position of Manlius with respect to the imagined audience. Besides this, there seems to be some word-play, involving the ambiguity of ignotum, but I couldn’t find the English to represent that.

When Manlius was reviling Novius, not present,
a certain one said, "Do you know yourself, or do you imagine
that you, whom we don’t even know, can fool us.
“I overlook my faults,” Manlius said.

Note on some choices I made:
carperet: figuratively, to find fault with, to rail against
cum: the meaning is not purely a matter of identifying time, hence the subjunctive carperet
ignotum: read as modifying the implied accusative subject of dare, i.e. Manlius.
nobis: read as dative complement to both ignotum and dare . . . verba

ambiguity of ignotum: the same spelling is shared by the adjective ignotus, and the perfect participle of ignosco

2

“ut ignotum dare nobis / verba putas” means something like “or do you think you fool us as if you are not known?”, not “one who is not known”. The interlocutor knows Maenius and his faults and accuses him of speaking as if he did not. The key word you mistranslated is “ut”.

The pun is as you say, of course. If you want to read deeper into it connecting “mihi ignosco” with “ignotus” emphasizes the etymological meaning of the word, so “mihi ignosco” means “I forgive myself” and “I am unknown to myself”. I think would have been a subtler effect than it sounds written out like that, though.

3

Oh, horus92, I like that interpretation of “ut”. I did not consider “ut” enough, for I was struggling so much with the other calls. I must look harder for a good meaning for every single word.