This sentence is from one of the selections of Wheelocks 38 stories titled "Echo And Handsome Narcissus.
I translated it as " He loved only himself and spent his life in the forest." However I have two questions; first why is ipse used and not the accusative form(ipsum)and second, since ipse is used isn’t se rather superfluous? If ipse is used alone doesn’t the translation stay the same?
Ipse is the intensive modifying the subject, lit. “He himself loved only himself.” Sē is the reflexive pronoun acting as the direct object. The two words mean very different things and function differently in the sentence. The problem is English, which uses -self as the usual gloss for the intensive and also use “himself” as third person singular masculine reflexive pronoun. It’s okay for a student type of translation, but it’s best to think of a way to capture the force of ipse without using the literal gloss -self if possible.
The first question is better than the second. ipse is rather nice, in the context of someone admiring his own reflection (but without recognizing it as his own reflection!)—not just “He loved himself” (se diligebat, without ipse) but “He himself loved himself.” He himself (ipse) is the lover, the agent of the loving, in love with himself (se), the object.
se ipsum diligebat would be perfectly possible (rather that than ipsum se) but would put all the emphasis on himself as the object, “He loved his very own self.” ipse se makes it less one-sided, splitting attention evenly between the two of them, the viewer and his indistinguishable mirror-image. It’s a subtle distinction but a real one.
As for your second question: se is absolutely necessary. It provides the direct object. ipse (nom.) and se (acc.) are performing quite different functions, as Barry points out. As he says, it’s English’s different uses of -self that creates the problem.
Thanks. Now I understand why se is necessary. I did try to to translate the sentence initially as mwh did in response to my first question but I thought it looked too clumsy and it would not be a common use in English. (He himself loved only himself).
Clumsy in English, yes, but not in Latin.