I cant follow the gist of this passage
Ad capitulum XXVIII 1.Atalanta
10th paragraph
cīvēs vērō et ipse atalantae pater cursūs quī solēbant fierī poscēbant, neque moram patiēbantur
It seems like a jigsaw puzzle to me..
thank you in advance
There are two clauses here, and this is how they break down:
- cīvēs vērō et ipse atalantae pater
cursūs quī solēbant fierī
poscēbant
- neque moram
patiēbantur
Now try to identify the grammatical components of each of these: subject, object, verb.
- cīvēs vērō et ipse atalantae pater
cursūs quī solēbant fierī
poscēbant
- neque moram
patiēbantur
1.even the country folks and atalanta’s father himself demanded the running that they usually did
is cursūs the object of poscēbat?
- not even they experience/suffer delay
am I correct?
Yes, you have it more or less right. Just a few comments:
Cives would be better translated “citizens” in English. “Country folks” would mean people who live in rural areas outside the city.
Cursus – “footraces,” although it’s probably best translated in the singular in English, a"a footrace" (even though it’s plural in Latin). The Latin word literally means “runnings”.
Neque here means just “and . . . not”. It doesn’t mean not “not even”.
The tense of the verb patiebantur is imperfect, like poscebant, so it should be translated with a past-tense verb, and here the verb means something like “allow” or “endure”: “they were not allowing any delay” or maybe “they weren’t standing for any delay.”
But I recognize that your first language isn’t English, and for the most part these comments relate to the English translation. You now understand how the Latin fits together.
thank you for the so clear explanation
and yes I am not native english speaker,
and the concept of encoding time into verb form is still foreign to me..
even after so many years learn english…
but now I understand better the passage
“the concept of encoding time into verb form is still foreign to me”
That’s a very important feature of Latin grammar – maybe even more important than in English. Because English verb inflection is generally very simple, you can get by in English by using the basic form of the verb without inflection and using an expression of time such as an adverb or prepositional phrase to make yourself clear. You can’t do that in Latin. You will need to devote some attention to this aspect of Latin grammar if you have trouble with it.