I am having a very hard time rendering the following sentences into English:
“Quam libenter eum rursus videbo! Sane tamen multo libentius te videbo ubi tu Romam venies! Tum te libentissime nos omnes accipiemus!”
My attempt at translating:
How gladly I will see him again! Certainly, however, much more gladly I will see you when you will come to Rome! Then we all will receive you most gladly!
Is my translation completely off the mark? It seems to me that there should be forms of “sum” in the first and second sentences (i.e. “How gladly I will be to see him again!”). Are there any implied forms of “sum”? And in the the second sentence “much more gladly” doesn’t sound right.
As far as I can tell, you’re translations are spot on. There doesn’t have to be a form of esse here - in fact, there can’t be. Libenter, as your translations indicate, is as adverb; thus, it modifies the verb of the sentence, in this case, videbo.
Consider: eum libenter videbo. Does this sentence need a form of to be? Libenter is an adverb of manner, answering the question, “in what manner will I see him?” In your first sentence, it has simply been modified by the interrogative adverbial quam, changing “I will see you gladly” into “How gladly I will see you!”, an exclamatory sentence use of the interrogative adverb.
In the second sentence, the same rules apply. Libentius, of course, is the comparative adverb of libenter - multo is an ablative of the degree of difference, answering to the question, “How much more gladly?”
Aside from putting the “gladly” in an awkward spot (before the subject instead of before the verb), I think the main difficulty you faced in your translations is that this construction sounds slightly odd in English, and in fact I think it would be more common to use the adjective here, which must be what you are thinking of. Surely you didn’t mean, “How gladly I will be to see him!” You can’t say, “I will be gladly to see him.” However, you can say “How glad I will be to see him!” Now you can apply this to the second sentence: “How much more glad I will be to see you,” etc.
This construction, in English, has often bothered me since I have had difficulty analyzing the relationship of the infinitive to the sentence, but I think I perceive its adverbial nature now.
Examples:
“I would gladly help you out” becomes “I’d be glad to help you out.”
“He quickly answers questions in class” becomes “He’s quick to answer questions in class.”
“I regrettfully left my friends alone” becomes “I was sorry to leave my friends alone.”
With a bit more elaboration, it depends on whom you are translating for. If a teacher, I would suggest a translation ad litteram, since the purpose is not so much to produce a vibrant version in English as to demonstrate that you understand how the grammar functions. If you’re translating for your comprehension, for a friend, or for publication, though, by all means avoid metaphrase, or word-for-word translation. And with this specific issue, I do think that the to be + adjective + infinitive construction is possibly more natural, at least in some cases, than the adverb + finite verb alternative.