“ob id Pandoram nominarunt. Ea data in coniugium Epimetheo fratri; inde nata est Pyrrha, quae mortalis dicitur prima esse creata.”
“Because of this, they named her Pandora. This given(?) in union to the brother Epimetheus; Then was born Pyrha, which was said by mortals to be the first created”
Is it correct to translate the “Ea” as a demonstrative adjective to the participle? And because there is no proper verb in the sentence, it confused me.
Thanks!!
Ea is “she,” here a pronoun not an adjective. It’s needed because she’s now the subject.
data stands for data est, “she was given.” est is often dispensed with in main clauses.
And welcome to Textkit!
Hello,
Mortalis is nominative singular, “by mortals” would be a mortalibus.
And dicitur is present tense, “who is said.”
“who is said to have been the first mortal created” (lit. “who is said to have been created the first mortal”). Since “mortal” is the most important word it’s up front, directly after the relative.
Thanks everyone! Which noun is mortalis describing, since it is an adjective and there’s no masculine noun in the phrase. Or there is something that I’m not grasping?
An adjective may be used substantively, as a noun, and that’s the best way to take it here. It functions as a predicate to Pyrrha, and it may be best to understand “femina” or “mulier” with it, the first mortal woman to be created.
Edit: I forgot to add that the mortalis is a third declension, which means the -is ending here may be either masculine or feminine, which must be determined from context, and here the context shows clearly that it’s feminine.
No it doesn’t mean she was the first mortal woman, it means she was the first mortal.
But since she is a woman, she is also the first mortal woman, prima…creata.
It would mean that Eve comes first in this mythology, not Adam, if Pandora is the first mortal.
I recently came across this, attributed to Menander, which put a new spin (for me) on Prometheus being punished for creating human beings. It seems in context here, at the risk of intruding on the Latin board.
εἶτ’ οὐ δικαίως προσπεπατταλευμένον
γράφουσι τὸν Προμηθέα πρὸς ταῖς πέτραις,
καὶ γίνετ’ αὐτῷ λαμπάς, ἄλλο δ’ οὐδὲ ἓν
ἀγαθόν; ὃ μισεῖν οἶμ’ ἅπαντας τοὺς θεούς,
γυναῖκας ἔπλασεν, ὦ πολυτίμητοι θεοί,
ἔθνος μιαρόν. γαμεῖ τις ἀνθρώπων, γαμεῖ;
λάθριοι τὸ λοιπὸν ἄρ’ ἐπιθυμίαι κακαί,
γαμηλίῳ λέχει τε μοιχὸς ἐντρυφῶν,
καὶ φαρμακεῖαι, καὶ νόσων χαλεπώτατος
φθόνος, μεθ’ οὗ ζῇ πάντα τὸν βίον γυνή.
(…) It seems in context here, at the risk of intruding on the Latin board.
Maybe you should provide your own Latin translation? 
From a 16th c. Latin edition of Lucian (the translations were done by Erasmus, Melanchthon, More and others),
Ergo immerentem dictitant Promethea
Pendere fixum Caucasi de rupibus?
Et geritur illi Lampas, at aliud nihil
Boni, quod omnes autumo odisse superos.
Fecit mulieres, proh suppreme Iuppiter
Genus scelestum, ducit aliquis coniugem?
Clam ducit, et quodammodo oblitus sui.
Nam mox cupiditates sequuntur plurimae,
Thoroque adulter nuptiali subsidens
Illudit. hinc nascuntur insidiae et metus,
Et temperata toxico mala, pocula,
Morbique varii, atque omnium gravissima
Invidia, cum qua mulier omnia aeuum exigit.
Within the same subject, another phrase:
“Ob hanc rem Mercurius Iovis iussu deligavit eum in monte Caucaso ad saxum clavis ferreis et aquilam apposuit, quae cor eius exesset”
“Because of this thing Mercurius chose him in mount Caucaso, with the order of Jupiter. And he placed the iron keys and the eagle, which would consume his heart, near the wall of stone.”
My doubts are: why doesn’t have any comma between"Caucaso" and “ad”? Because the “ad saxum” makes part of the other sentence, isn’t? The other one: is “ferreis” really describing clavis, since it’s a plural ablative/dative adjective and “clavis” accusative.
dēligō, -āre= “bind,” not dēligō, -ere “choose.” clāvīs from clāvus, -ī, m. nail, not clāvis, -is, f. key. In translating, put proper names back into the nominative singular, and so Caucasus. Quae…exesset is a relative clause of purpose.
As Barry indicates, you’ve mixed up two different deligo verbs. deligavit, 1st conjugation, means “he fastened.” And as Barry also indicates, clavis is abl.pl. of clavus “nail”, nothing to do with clavis “key”.
But here’s the main thing. As you realize, there are really two sentences here—two main verbs. They’re connected/separated by et. Everything before the et, including ad saxum clavis ferreis, belongs with deligavit, and everything after the et belongs with apposuit.
So it goes “Mercury, by order of Jupiter, fastened him to a rock on Mt. Caucasus with iron nails, and …”.
In translating we can shuffle the phrases around a bit to make it more natural in English, but that et is unbridgeable: we have to keep the two sides separate.
Hope this solves your problems.
Oh yeah, I’ve now understood it completely. Thanks.The “clavis ferreis” really confused me. I will make more attention next time to not mix up anything again 
“Hi propter solitudinem cum vivere non possent, petierunt ab Iove, ut aut homines daret aut eos pari calamitate afficeret. Tum Iovis iussit eos lapides post se iactare; quos Deucalion iactavit, viros esse iussit, quos Pyrrha, mulieres. Ob eam rem laos dictus, laas enim Graece lapis dicitur.”
“These, not being able to live near lonely places, asked Jupiter to give men or to (?). The Jupiter ordered them to throw stones behind him; the ones that Deucalion threw, he ordered to be man, the others that Pyrrha threw, she ordered to be women. Because of this Laos was said, (?)”
My doubts are: does this cum introduce a relative clause of cause here? This verb, afficere, I searched it and I didn’t find it, but It seems that actually It’s adficere . I didn’t understand its usage and its meaning. Iovis is here in genitive, but I think It’s actually in nominative. The sentence, in genaral, I couldn’t understand very well. Throw stones behind him? The last sentence, I couldn’t understand at all. Thanks!!
propter, not prope. Look it up again.
cum with subjunctive, “since”
adficere = afficere. ad- often gets “assimilated” to the following consonant. Similarly with in- and others. It’s a spelling thing, but reflects actual pronunciation.
aut eos pari calamitate afficere “or to affect them with an equal catastrophe”—i.e. to destroy them. Presumably referring to the Flood, which had wiped out all humankind except Deucalion and Pyrrha. (Cf. the Noah myth.)
Iovis here nominative, “Jove” = Jupiter
post se behind them, se here plural. It’s Jove’s way of repopulating the earth..
Subject of iussit is Jove
laos dictus, laas enim Graece lapis dicitur. laos is Greek for “a people”, laas “a stone." It’s a fake etymology: people are called “laos,” for a stone in Greek is called “laas.”
OK now?
That’s perfect!! Thank you again.
You’re very welcome. That’s all from me, but I’m sure others will help.