Firstly my translation seems to be a bit off. Literally: A man is absent to me who (ought to/is able to lack/is worthy of being without) limits which have been taken away.
Isn’t the idea that the man lacks limits redundant with the idea that they’ve been taken away? Is there some poetic significance to the fact that the idea of removal and absence is expressed three times here?
Secondly, the line to me does not appear to scan properly as a pentameter:
I have it so:
virque mihi dempto fine carendus abest
u u u - - | - u u - u u -
The half after the diaeresis appears to scan well. But not the first half. It would be OK if the second syllable of mihi could be lengthened. It appears from this page that mihi can be lengthened. Why has this happened? When can it happen again? Or is it merely poetic licence?
carendus seems to be carrying an almost adjectival sense “(to be) needed” (i.e. “missing”), modifying vir, with dative of agent mihi. dempto fine is sort of an ablative phrase, which some people choose to translate as “without end”. vir apparently refers to a husband. I would translate this as “and the husband (to be) endlessly needed by me is gone”. mihi could be pulling double duty as both dative of agent with carendus and dative of respect with abest.
I hope I am right, poetic interpretation is not exactly my forte.
Secondly, the line to me does not appear to scan properly as a pentameter:
I have it so:
virque mihi dempto fine carendus abest
u u u - - | - u u - u u -
The half after the diaeresis appears to scan well. But not the first half. It would be OK if the second syllable of mihi could be lengthened. It appears from > this page > that mihi can be lengthened. Why has this happened? When can it happen again? Or is it merely poetic licence?
Metrically, mihi is a very flexible word. The normal form is “uu”, but the second syllable can also be lengthened to create “u-” (which must be the case here), and it can also be contracted to a monosyllabic mi “-”, not to mention the possibilities with elision.
carendus seems to be carrying an almost adjectival sense “(to be) needed” (i.e. “missing”), modifying vir, with dative of agent mihi. dempto fine is sort of an ablative phrase, which some people choose to translate as “without end”. vir apparently refers to a husband. I would translate this as “and the husband (to be) needed by me is gone without end”. mihi could be pulling double duty as both dative of agent with carendus and dative of respect with abest.
Ah! A dative of agent with carendus. I assumed it was a dative of disadvantage going together with abest. I still have to assimilate the rules of syntax - I suppose that’s what reading’s for. Still, I am pleasantly surprised how easy Ovid is - easier by far than Catullus, or even, I think, than Caesar.
Turpissime, this may be of use to you if you have not already found it:
I’ve already got a translation. But thanks anyway.
Metrically, mihi is a very flexible word. The normal form is “uu”, but the second syllable can also be lengthened to create “u-” (which must be the case here), and it can also be contracted to a monosyllabic “-”, not to mention the possibilities with elision.
Peculiar. Could be worse. At least we’re not studying Greek.
b is certainly right as to the variable latter syllable of mihi. it is naturally, however, an iamb (u-) and it is a phenomen of accent that brings about the pyrrhic scansion (uu). since in any disyllablic Latin word the word stress lies on the initial syllable, words of iambic form would often lose the length of the latter syllable by virtue of the pronounced stress on the former. this correption of the closing syllable is known as ‘iambic correction’ and alongside ego, nemo, mihi, tibi, sibi, ergo, ubi and ibi in elegy stand various verbs used parenthetically, such as uolo, puto, nego, tollo, amo, perto, scio, cano, credo, desino and confero (to name a few). also of variable scansion of final syllable are the nouns homo and leo and various proper nouns, such as Scipio and Sulmo.
well, i’ve quickly read the question and some anwers, and isn’t it that a the second line of a pentameter exits out of 2 dactyli, and at the end a arsis. so what i’ve got is:
u u/- -/ -| - u u/ - u u /-
virque mihi dempto fine carendus abest
well, i’ve quickly read the question and some anwers, and isn’t it that a the second line of a pentameter exits out of 2 dactyli, and at the end a arsis. so what i’ve got is:
u u/- -/ -| - u u/ - u u /-
virque mihi dempto fine carendus abest
Yeah. But my question was, whether the second syllable of mihi can be long. We’ve now established that it can be. The line above is correctly scanned.
