Quick question about using the word “dolet.” I came across the following two sentences in LL and I’m not sure I understand them. First, line 14.3-4:
Quintus dormire non potest, quod et caput et pes ei dolet.
Second, line 14.27-8:
“Pes male se habet, nec pes tantum, sed etiam caput et braccium dolet…”
I understand the dolet + dat construction explained in the marginalia, as in “The Queen to me a royal pain doth give.” But, I’m not sure I understand why, in both sentences, multiple body parts causing pain are mentioned yet it’s dolet, not dolent. I don’t believe they’re the objects of dolet, since pes would then be pedem.
Sorry if this is basic, but any explanation would be greatly appreciated.
Yer right about the body parts not being objects of dolere. The body parts are subjects; it’s ‘dolet’ because all the body parts are just particulars under a single concept (i.e., ‘body part’), hence you can keep the verb singular.
You can do this with anything as long as they are all closely related: take for example ‘senatus populusque Romanus [my favourite!] intelleg_it_’, which is really saying ‘Roma intellegit’; the ‘senatus’ and ‘populus’ are just particulars of the general concept ‘Roma’.
Edit: The ei is just to show, as you said, who’s hurting
On the subject, I’d like to emphasize that it is generally improper and definitely uncommon to use a possessive adjective with a body part (e.g. “meum,” “tuum”): “meum caput dolet” sounds very odd; it sounds like my head is causing pain. “Caput mihi dolet” sounds proper to me; the person who possesses the member is understood (Italian, French, Spanish, German all behave similarly). Though if you wish to emphasize the possessor, you may say “meum caput mihi dolet,” et non tuum, et cetera.
It’s definitely odd at first for us Anglophones. But to help, think of an example: you hold up a letter of yours, saying it was written “by hand.” By whose hand? By yours, of course. Yet it wasn’t necessary to be that specific; it was understood.
Lingua Latina, naturally, provides the proper examples, as you have illustrated above.
