Ecloga I

Latin Learning Latin
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That’s a good thought for the future. Right now I’ve just finished the third Catilinarian oration and I need to get back to the fourth; I’ll probably do so after the second eclogue. Meanwhile, I have De Senectute and De Amicitia to get to, and I’m wanting to put a little Livy in there, too, perhaps with poetry between each of these major works. I’d definitely like to read more verse, now that I’ve gotten a small taste of it, and I’ll consider Horace in the future (though I wouldn’t presume to take Qimmik for granted). I’d kind of like to get through all of the eclogues before going to other works, though I guess short poems can be read without regard to order or completion as they’re not major commitments.

Thanks for the kind words! “Rugged perseverance”. I’m getting there…

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Smyth’s Greek Grammar, secs. 1600-1:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Smyth+grammar+1600&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0007

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0007%3Asmythp%3D1601

  1. To verbs denoting a state, and to adjectives, an accusative may be added to denote a thing in respect to which the verb or adjective is limited.

a. The accusative usually expresses a local relation or the instrument. The word restricted by the accusative usually denotes like or similar to, good or better, bad or worse, a physical or a mental quality, or an emotion.

  1. The accusative of respect is employed

a. Of the parts of the body: ““ὁ ἄνθρωπος τὸν δάκτυλον ἀλγεῖ” the man has a pain in his finger” P. R. 462d, ““τυφλὸς τά τ᾽ ὦτα τόν τε νοῦν τά τ᾽ ὄμματ᾽ εἶ” blind art thou in ears, and mind, and eyes” S. O. T. 371, πόδας ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεύς Hom.

N.—The accusative of the part in apposition to the whole (985) belongs here, as is seen by the passive. Cp. ““τὸν πλῆξ᾽ αὐχένα” him he smote on the neck” Λ 240 (βάλε θοῦρον Ἄρηα κατ᾽ αὐχένα Φ 406) with βέβληαι κενεῶνα thou art smitten in the abdomen E 284.

b. Of qualities and attributes (nature, form, size, name, birth, number, etc.): ““διαφέρει γυνὴ ἀνδρὸς τὴν φύσιν” woman differs from man in nature” P. R. 453b, ““οὐδὲ ἔοικεν θνητὰ_ς ἀ_θανάτῃσι δέμας καὶ εἶδος ἐρίζειν” nor is it seemly that mortal women should rival the immortals in form and appearance” ε 213, ποταμός, Κύδνος ὄνομα, εὖρος δύο πλέθρων a river, Cydnus by name, two plethra in width X. A. 1.2.23 (so with ὕψος, βάθος, μέγεθος), πλῆθος ὡς δισχί_λιοι about two thousand in number 4. 2. 2, ““λέξον ὅστις εἶ γένος” tell me of what race thou art” E. Bacch. 460.

c. Of the sphere in general: ““δεινοὶ μάχην” terrible in battle” A. Pers. 27, ““γένεσθε τὴν διάνοιαν” transfer yourselves in thought” Aes. 3.153, ““τὸ μὲν ἐπ᾽ ἐμοὶ οἴχομαι, τὸ δ᾽ ἐπὶ σοὶ σέσωσμαι” so far as I myself was concerned I was lost, but through you am saved” X. C. 5.4.11. Often of indefinite relations: ““πάντα κακός” base in all things” S. O. T. 1421, ““ταῦτα ἀγαθὸς ἕκαστος ἡμῶν, ἅπερ σοφός, ἃ δὲ ἀμαθής, ταῦτα δὲ κακός” each one of us is good in matters in which he is skilled, but bad in those in which he is ignorant” P. Lach. 194d.

In Latin, Allen & Greenough, sec. 397b:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=AG+397&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001

b. The so-called synecdochical or Greek Accusative, found in poetry and later Latin, is used to denote the part affected:—

  1. caput nectentur (Aen. 5.309) , their heads shall be bound (they shall be bound about the head).

  2. ārdentīs oculōs suffectī sanguine et īgnī; (id. 2.210), their glaring eyes bloodshot and blazing with fire (suffused as to their eyes with blood and fire).

  3. nūda genū (id. 1.320), with her knee bare (bare as to the knee).

  4. femur trāgulā ictus (Liv. 21.7.10) , wounded in the thigh by a dart.

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A common example would also be homines hoc genus, people of this sort (== people in relation to this sort).

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swtwentyman: You’ll get there!

Qimmik: Just what the doctor ordered! Thanks. Now it’s up to me to invent my own ‘everyday’ examples (not to use in any particular situation, but rather to cement the concept and make it easier for me to recognize when reading prose and poetry).

MiguelM:

‘homines hoc genu’

feels odd. I miss a verb (typically past participle?) or adjective. Perhaps a little more context would help. When I googled, all I got were things like Vicipaedia’s “‘homines /hoc genus vehiculi/ non habent”. Not the same thing at all. :smiley:

Vale/te
Int

45

Interaxe,

I meant this. 231 Rem5.

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MiguelM:

‘homines hoc genu’

True, Andrews & Stoddard say (§ 231, Remark 5) that sometimes the accusative is used instead of the genitive, eg Aulus Gellius has “Nullas hoc genus vigilias vigilarunt”. But when they come to the Greek accusative in §234, Remark 2, they still seem to require an adjective, verb or participle for that particular construction. At least, that’s how I read it.

Thanks for sending me there.

Here are some silly made-up examples, done purely for purposes of practice:

percussus CAPUT magno saxo – (male person) knocked on the head with a big rock

puella picta UNGULES pigmento atro – girl with fingernails painted black

urbs repleta VIAS autoraedis fremitis – a city whose streets are filled with noisy cars

Aside from the absurdity of the content, is this by any stretch of the imagination a correct usage of the Greek accusative in Latin?

Vale/te
Int

47

I had a lot to do yesterday morning so I didn’t get around to reading 73-83 until today. I think I basically understand it but:

Ite meae, felix quondam pecus, ite capellae.

(“Go, my goats, as some happy cattle.” Is “felix quondam pecus” like “mea regna” above? That is, “as some happy cattle to me”?)

Non ego uos posthac uiridi proiectus in antro
dumosa pendere procul de rupe videbo.

(“I, being thrown out, shall not hereafter see you in the green (with vegetation?) hollow, hanging from the thorny rock in the distance.” “Vos” is the object with goats as its antecedent? The commentary gives: “pendere: i.e. they seem to be attached to the steep slope without any support under their feet.” Makes sense to me.)

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Ite meae, felix quondam pecus, ite capellae.

quondam – “once,” “previously”

This is an appositive. I wouldn’t translate it using “as”, just separately, even though in Latin it’s embedded in the noun phrase.

“Go, my goats, my once happy flock.”

Non ego uos posthac uiridi proiectus in antro
dumosa pendere procul de rupe videbo.

You have this mostly right. The image is of goats seeming to hang onto the bramble-covered cliff.

proiectus in antro – “stretched out in a grotto”: he would be lying comfortably in a cool spot, watching his goats from afar, just as Tityrus is lying in the shade of the beech tree. Instead, he’s going to the sitientis Afros. Grottos are pleasant places where herdsmen recline, escaping the heat of the Mediterranean. The contrast cool/hot runs through this poem. Tityrus’ location and posture evoke the beginning of Plato’s Phaedrus.

“Hereafter I won’t lie stretched out in a verdant grotto and watch you from afar hanging on a bramble-covered cliff.”

Tityrus is an Epicurean philosopher, calmly but not unsympathetically watching the distress of Meliboeus (like the person watching the shipwreck from the safety of the shore in Lucretius), having attained ataraxia himself, taking pleasure in lying in the shade and meditating his muse, and living simply but contentedly on his meager farm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ataraxia

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Go, go, my goats, once (but no longer) happy flock.

They liked to stretch out, those ancient Romans, not only at mealtimes. First we had Tityrus ‘recubans’ under his shady beech tree, now Meliboeus ‘projectus’ in his ‘verdant (mossy?) cave’. From his grotto, Meliboeus sees (in his mind’s eye) his sheep in the distance ‘pendere de rupe dumosâ’. Clearly the ancients also liked the shade (‘frigus opacum’). Only mad dogs, goats and exiled surfs went out in the midday sun in those days, unlike some later empire builders.

Having written which, I noticed, not unsurprisingly, that Qimmik had got there before me.

I agree with Qimmik. The poem is full of contrasts: rest versus movement, cultivation versus wilderness, good fortune versus misfortune, order versus chaos. It swings between extremes of place and of time. Even between fact and fantasy.

I find myself object-spotting as I skim through the landscape of the poem:

(trees) fagus, cupressus, quercus, pinus, mâlus
(other plants) corylus, viburnum, dumus
(animals) boves, capellae, apes, palumbes, turtures
(food) caseus, lac, mâla, vitis
and all those rocks, etc.

Then the sounds (water, bees, Caruso, the wind, 2 types of birdsong) crammed into:

Fortunate senex, hic, inter FLUMINA nota
et FONTIS sacros, frigus captabis opacum!
hinc tibi, quae semper, vicino ab limite, saepes
HYBLAEIS APIBUS florem depasta salicti
saepe LEVI somnum suadebit inire SUSURRO;
hinc alta sub rupe CANET FRONDATOR ad AURAS;
nec tamen interea RAUCAE, tua cura, PALUMBES,
nec GEMERE aëria cessabit TURTUR ab ulmo.

Next best thing to Keats’s Ode to Autumn or the retreating song of the bird in the last stanza of Ode to a Nightingale. IMHO.

Bene vale/te
Int

50

Thanks to both of you! I plan to read the complete poem through tonight or tomorrow morning. Going through it few-lines-by-few-lines obscures the whole and I’d like to feel it as a whole.

I’ll start on the second either tomorrow or the day after, depending on if I feel like it tomorrow (then I’ll go back to Catiline after that). Maybe I’ll read the preliminary first few lines of the second eclogue and read the first through.

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To illustrate the interlocking patterns of assonance and alliteration with m, s, u, nt and b in the last line:

maioreSque cadV_nt_ altiS de mo_nt_i_b_VS V**m**_b_rae

And perhaps libertas has a deeper meaning than just freedom from slavery–Epicurean freedom from anxiety, ataraxia.

Again, I would urge you to read the beginning of the Phaedrus in English. Anumber of the elements are present here: reclining in the cool shade of a tree, a babbling brook, insects buzzing . . . A perfect setting for philosophical dialogue.

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I read the first part of Phaedrus (until Socrates starts talking for paragraphs at a time, at which point I surmise the dialogue proper commences). Very bucolic.

I read through the first eclogue this morning. It definitely works better as a whole – how can it not? – than it does broken into pieces. It gives lines 44-58 much more poignancy when it’s framed by Tityrus going on about his own fortunes and how Meliboeus plays off his “till the Germans drink from the Tigris” with his bit about the Afros. Also I discovered several more places with obvious alliteration and assonance that I had missed during the artificial exercise of translation. Very nice. (Something else I noticed that prpbably was unintentional is that he uses the words “saepe”, “saeptis”, and “saepes”)

I read the first five lines of the second eclogue without incident. When I have a problem I’ll make a new thread for it.

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Something else I noticed that probably was unintentional is that he uses the words “saepe”, “saeptis”, and “saepes”

Nothing in Vergil is unintentional.

It’s not just that the setting of the Phaedrus is bucolic: Vergil has–deliberately, I think–taken a number of elements from Phaedrus to create the setting for the First Eclogue.

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Here are some more examples of the Greek accusative, copied from A&G, #397b:

b. The so-called synecdochical or Greek Accusative, found in poetry and later Latin, is used to denote the part affected:—

caput nectentur (Aen. 5.309), their heads shall be bound (they shall be bound about the head).

ārdentīs oculōs suffectī sanguine et īgnī (id. 2.210), their glaring eyes bloodshot and blazing with fire (suffused as to their eyes with blood and fire).

nūda genū (id. 1.320), with her knee bare (bare as to the knee).

femur trāgulā ictus (Liv. 21.7.10), wounded in the thigh by a dart.

Note— This construction is also called the Accusative of Specification.

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hlawson38:

Gratias tibi ago!

Heads, eyes,
knees, thighs.

I’ll try to remember that (together with the examples).

These examples provide further confirmation that this construction is mainly restricted to body parts (even when the body is a hedge and its parts are flowers).

Bene vale!
Int