I’m working on upgrading my Project Gutenberg version of “Colloquia, sive Confabulationes tyronum literatorum” by Schottenius, and I found a word I can’t identify, even with the context. Some words in the text have a non-standard spelling and I’m fixing that, but this one eludes me.
Here’s the text:
Cornelius: Ah, si licet nobis diutius stertere.
Petrus: Hoc et ego optarem.
Cornelius: Me sopor oppidò adhuc gravat.
Petrus: Et mihi oculi sunt constricti.
Cornelius: Sputo ipsos > linias> , et aperientur.
I don’t understand the last sentence, even less the word “linias”. I checked on two editions, which both bear “linias”. “Linia” is referenced as a variant of “linea”, but it doesn’t make sense to me, both in grammar and meaning.
Spitting into the eyes of a blind man will open then, per Mark 8:23. He may mean the line of constriction between the eyelids, but maybe there is another word related to sight or the eyes that he means.
“paruit” looks like the perfect of “pārēre”, but it doesn’t make sense given the meaning/grammar context. Other solution: it may be a bad perfect for “parere” instead of “peperisse”.
Any educated advice about that?
Thanks
(Edit: I checked on another edition, which has pāvit, which makes much more sense)
paruit is presumably the unreduplicated perfect of pario, equivalent to peperit. I wouldn’t call it a “bad” perfect; the compounds routinely drop the earlier reduplication, as in many verbs. Cf. e.g. tuderunt as the perfect of tundo instead of tetuderunt. There was a previous thread about that.
Tardus nōn ībō, ēn redeō, pōtus hic > cerere > coctus salūtī sit omnibus bibentibus ipsum, sed praebibere est meum, tibi propīnō Arnolde
I checked on two editions, which have “cerere” and “Cerere”. This looks like the ablative of “Cerēs”, but it doesn’t seem to make sense. It may be an adverb, but from what adjective? Cerer(us)? It doesn’t exist. There doesn’t seem to exist any “caerer” either.
It really is the ablative of Ceres, the name of the goddess, which is often used to mean something like “grain”. So the potus Cerere coctus is probably beer.
If Cerēs is taken as a noun, it does work, but it’s a little far-fetched. Oh, well, it doesn’t change much from other things I could see in that book. Thanks for the clarification.
The verb is obviously, in this context, vēnīre, but this imperfect is a problem. It’s the imperfect of venīre when the expected form is vēnībant. I checked in different editions, and I always find veniebant. Does such an imperfect of vēnīre exist somehow? Or is it plainly incorrect? It’s similar to asking if iēbant is a correct imperfect for īre. Is it an analogic form to the 4th conjugation imperfects?
Edit: the answer has the verb vendī, and not vēnīre. I also note the verb vēnīre or the noun vēnum are often written vænire and vænum, which is not the case here. Still, does the verb venīre suit here? It seems unlikely.