Hey there everyone.
I need help with the following sentence,
Parce, precor, saecli decus indelebile nostri, terrarum dominum quem sua cura facit.
I was just wondering if i have the right translation:
Spare me, I beg you, indestructible glory of our world, master of the world, whom your care makes.
It sounds horribly unnatural though but the problem I have is translation after “quem”. Quem is masculine singular, so the only word that could be the antecedent is dominum. But as you can see with my translation it sounds horribly unnatural. Can anyone give a very literal translation which sounds natural and explain the grammar behind it, if possible.
This is how Crispin renders Ovid’s lines (or how I do in English from Crispin’s Latin rewording in his 1821 edtion of the Complete Works --see below for Crispin’s Latin rewording) [Ovid is looking at the portrait of Caesar that Cotta sent]:
Pray pardon, Oh everlastingly honour of our age, whom his zeal makes master of the Earth [i.e., whose zeal has made him master of the Earth].
Daniel Crispinus in libro P. Ovidii Nasonis Opera Omnia Ex Editione Burmanniana nomine (Londini, 1821), volumine quinto, paginâ 2606, hanc sententiam ità aliter reddit [imaginem Caesaris quam Cotta misit Ovidius aspicit]:
Ignosce, oro, honos indelebilis nostri aevi, quem sua cura facit dominum terrarum. >