I have translated this as “It has been six hours since I have taken a meal,” which I think is loosely correct, but I am a little baffled by the sentence.
The first part is fairly clear, “Sex horae iam sunt” – there are six hours now." But the second trips me up: “cum cibum non sumpsi”.
cum cibum = with food
non sumpsi = perf ind act of “sumo” – to take hold of, obtain, etc. – so, “non sumpsi” = “I did not obtain”
Can you help me make sense of the second half of the sentence? Thanks!
Recall that “cum” has multiple uses; one is the preposition “with,” but this requires the noun to be in the ablative case. You’ll notice that “cibum” is accusative/nominative, so it can’t be that usage. Otherwise, “cum” can have a variety of adverbial meanings, in this case, temporal. Note that the verb is in the indicative; “cum” with the indicative indicates time, as in “when” or “since”. Other non-temporal uses of “cum” will probably be introduced later, but they involve the verb being in the subjunctive.