Legenda Aurea

Latin Medieval and Neo-Latin
1

I have a question on a passage from the LA no. 4, Lucia:

Can someone help me with the translation of the sentence, particularly the boldfaced:

“Per ipsam ergo te deprecor, quae suis orationibus te sanavit, ne mihi de cetero nomines sponsum, sed quidquid mihi datura eras pro dote, pauperibus elargire”

Text is her https://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost13/Voragine/jav_lluc.html
(3rd paragraph from the top)

Would it be “licet” if I translated it with:

I pray you therefore by her (St. Agatha), who with her prayers cured you, that you will not declare me as a spouse, but instead give to the poor whatever you wanted to give as dowry.
???

Valete!

2

Notice that mihi is dative, not accusative, so that sponsum can’t stand in apposition with it, and it has to function as an indirect object here, “that you not withal name a husband for me…”

3

Ah, of course, it makes more sense now! :slight_smile:

4

a quick question:

In the legend on “Lucia” the texts goes in the beginning:

“Lucia virgo Syracusana nobilis genere audiens fama…”
Should I take nobilis to go with virgo ?
But in that case what about genere ?

I would rather have nobilis to go with genere (though they don’t fit)

I would love to translate:
“Lucia, a Syracusan virgin from a noble family hearing the rumour…”. but then I am linking genere and nobilis

How shall I tackle this?

5

Yes, virgo nobilis. And as for genere, it shows what kind of nobility:

Lucia, a Syracusan virgin noble by birth

6

So genere modifies nobilis ?

So in a syntactical analysis the description would be (sorry if I don’t use the correct english terms, but hope you understand)

genere as an adverbial joint modifies the attribute nobilis, because a noun in ablative can function as an adverbial joint.

???

7

Are you reading from a critical edition? Could it be nobili genere? Cfr. qui nobili genere nati sunt
Cic. Ver. 2.5.180

8

Surely there’s nothing wrong with nobilis genere. In the Cicero nati makes all the difference.

In Jerome’s very fine epitaph of Paula (which is well worth reading, by the way) she’s described as nobilis genere sed nobilior sanctitate.

9

Yes, a German critical edition by Bruno Häuptli in the series Fontes Christiani

10

Can you help me to understand the relation between the words, then? Is ‘genere’ modifying ‘nobilis’ ? :slight_smile:

11

I suggest Ablative of Specification AG 2.9.14.418, if you like grammatical finesse.

12

I do like that indeed! Thanks!