Hey all! Welcome to the new Eunuchus topic. I’m reading this work for an online free course with a l_eading European latinist and philologist_. That’s not my characterization but I do know that noster magister is very well thought of in GLL where he was once a member. The course, of course, is being given in latin.
Anyhoos, I’m glad to have found textkit because it is someplace that I can bring translation problems to. In the prologue to the work the playwrite is addressing the audience directly. Apparently he’s been bickering with a rival playwrite whom he reprehends with these words:
Atque in Thesauro scripsit causam dicere
Prius unde petitur aurum quare sit suum
Quam ille qui petit unde is sit thesaurus sibi,
Aut unde in patrium monumentum pervenerit.
I know the substance but I can’t quite unpack the grammar: Terentius is accusing the rival of having written Thesaurus in such as way that the defendant (ille ab quo aurum petitur) says his case before the plaintiff (ille qui id petit). Can someone explain this sentence by reordering, latin paraphrase or otherwise? I will, as always, be grateful for any help. ~K
In my last post there is one egregius orthography error, namely “playwrite” for “playwright”, and another less offensive error. The nasty one is particularly offensive because playwright etymologically has nothing to do with writing. Rather, a playwright is a worker or maker of plays. As I wrote, I knew all this, or rather had learned it several times previously, and even felt unsettled as I rushed to submit. Although it’s easy for me to blame my severe ADD for such ugly lapses, I am quite embarrassed nevertheless.
I’m still hoping that I can get some help with the passage, perhaps from someone trained in textual analysis. If the passage were appearing in an edition intended for persons just emerging from their primers, how would it be glossed? Kynetus
Terentius in hac praefatione, ut plane scis, Kynete care, illum inimicum, Luscium Lanuui, offendere frustra petiit. uerba nunc scrutemur:
atque in Thesauro (i.e. in illa fabula quam Menander aliique comici scripsere, e qua Plautus Trinummum suum finxit) [sc. Luscius Lauini] scripsit [sc. illum senem unde aurum petitur, qui fundum (atque igitur thesaurum in patris sepulcro conditum) emit e iuuene temerario] causam dicere quare [sc. aurum] sit suum priusquam ille (i.e. iuuenis prodigus, qui petit aurum) [sc. dicat] unde is sit thesaurus sibi, aut [sc. it. dicat] unde in patrium monumentum peruenerit.
Terentius igitur, noster subductisupercilicarptor, queritur Luscium mores fori nescire, quia petitores (hic iuuenis) non rei (hic senex, qui primum dixisse in Thesauro Lusci uidetur) causam dicere primum debent.
~D
(non ad hoc forum haud paucos dies rediturus)