grammar question in Ovid

Latin Learning Latin
1

nec mora, curvavit cornum nervoque sagittam
impulit et meritam traiecit harundine linguam. 325
lingua tacet, nec vox temptataque verba sequuntur,
conantemque loqui cum sanguine vita reliquit.

(Chione bragged she was more beautiful than Diana, so Diana teaches her a lesson…Book XI in Metamorphoses.)

So she immediately shoots an arrow right through Chione’s tongue. “Her tongue is silent, and neither her voice nor (seems required by the context) attempted words follow, and her life, along with her blood, abandoned her as she was trying to speak”.

I don’t think I’ve seen this usage before, namely “neither…nor” where the “nor” is -que which we almost always can translate as “and”. I tried to find a mention of this in A&G, but couldn’t. What are the rules for a case like this? Would someone please elucidate this a bit?

Thanks.

Dave S

2

The nec is not neither but nor, negating this latter limb of the line. Her tongue is silent, and her voice & attempted words don’t follow.

3

OKAY

Thanks, Michael. That makes perfect sense now. I don’t know why I still make mistakes like that. Every time I ask a question like that, you come back with an answer that makes me think “how did I not figure that out myself”! :blush: :cry: :blush:

I guess I usually expect neque to mean “and not…” as opposed to “and…not…” That was my mistake.

Cheers!

Dave S

4

Ha. That rings a bell.

5

Note that if nec were “neither” we’d have asyndeton, rather than a series of connectives.