Slightly confused…
Ceteris pontem a tergo ferro et igni delere iussis, periculum impetus cum his primo ferebat.
With the rest having been ordered to destroy from behind the bridge with iron and fire, the attack was made by these men at first danger
and this pls… sorry for double posting!
parva pars pontis maneret, comites in locum tutum abire coegit. Horatius, qui antea
Then, although a small part were staying on the bridge, he forced the comrades to leave into the safe place.
With the following sentence:
nemo praeter duos comites, viros audaces, cum Horatio nunc manebat. Ceteris pontem a
No one except the two companions, bold men, was now staying with Horatio.
why is the subject plural but the verb is 3rd person singular?
Salve awlright
The subject “no one” is singular in both English and Latin.
Subjectum “nemo” et anglicè et latinè singularis numeri est.
There is no way ferebat could mean “was made,” it’s active. Impetus is probably genitive, that should help. Cum his, not ab his.
There are two ways to write Horatius in English, either the nominative or the English version (Horace). It is never correct to put a declined form of a name into English.
even in the genitive…
the attack of danger? it doesn’t make sense to me…
when these men at first inflicted an attack of danger// a
and is the iron and fire right?
or should it be swords and fire?
Thanks for the feedback guys!
sorry… danger of attack, but how does it fit in…
Igne (igni) et ferro is an idiom that means by warfare (you know the literal meaning). From the meaning of “endure” you might translate ferebat as “faced” (somewhat loosely)
but surely “these men” needs to be semi passive for the sentence to make sense…
or does the ferebat link to the by fire and warfare
He bore the danger with (just) these men, as opposed to all his men since he sent some off to destroy the bridge.
Cheers dude!
but what about - primo - at first
and impetus - attack
That was just a paraphrase, not a full translation. You can figure it out from there I think.
Vale bene!
Okay, i think i got it:
At first attack by iron and fire, he bore the danger with these men
No, you can’t just move words from one clause to another willy-nilly. It should be “[abl. absol. clause]…he at first bore the danger of the attack with these men.”
Primo is correlated with deinde in the next line.
I may have misled you when I suggested you translate cum as “although” in the other thread. I believe he is just making his comrades cross over to safety on the Roman side by way of the little bit of remaining bridge. Now that I understand the narrative better I would translate it simply as “when”.
Pontis is genitive: “a small part of the bridge.”