Ponere with accusative - possible after all?

Latin Learning Latin
1

Here’s part of a charming schoolroom (actually pergula ludi) scene from ‘Dialogues of Roman Life’ by Winbolt 1913. A teacher is teaching boys to write the alphabet on their wax tablets:

“Horati, ex armario adfer ceras”. [Adfert.]
”Bene. - Hodie scribendi artem discetis. Iam in
ceris exeravi (I have inscribed) litteras S-A-P-I-E-N-T-I-A.
Velim per litterarum simulacra stilos ducatis: sed tardius, si vultis.
Ponite ceras in genua: in manus capite stilos.
Incipite. - Gracche, litteram S praeformatem
male persecutus es”.

I was stunned to read ‘Ponite ceras in genua’. Accusative after ponere? Always thought it must be ablative, as in Assimil’s Journalist to Famous but Inebriate Pianist: “Tu vero, cur clavichordium potius elegisti?” Pianist: “Quia facilius in EO quam in fidiculis (violin) ponitur poculum!”

Is the rule more flexible than I/we have been led to believe?

Int

2

In Assimil the sentence is ponere poculum in eo, “to put the glass on it” which is the same as ponere ceras in genua.

3

I beg to differ.

eo is ‘on it’ (on the piano) - ablative. Accusative would be ‘id’ (clavichordium).

genu, genus is 4th - not 1st - declension.

genua is neuter plural - knees.
genibus is neuter plural ablative - on your knees.
genu is ablative singular - on your knee.

So I’m still perplexed. Anybody?

Int

4

Right, one sentence has in + Abl. and the other has in + Acc. But your question was about ponere and wether ponere with Acc. was possible. In both sentences you quoted ponere has a direct object in the accusative case (poculum/ceras).

Verb + Direct object (Acc.) + in
(ponere) + (poculum) + (in eo)
(ponere) + (ceras) + (in genua)

edit. ok, I think I got it, uyour question was about ponere in and not ponere…

5

Lewis and Short:

pōno, pŏsŭi (Plaut. posīvi), pŏsĭtum, 3 . . . to put or set down a person or thing, to put, place, set, lay, etc. (syn.: colloco, statuo); constr. with acc. alone, or with in and abl., or with adv. of place; > sometimes with in and acc.> , or absol.; . . . With in and acc.: hodierno die primum longo intervallo in possessionem libertatis pedem ponimus, Cic. Phil. 3, 11, 28 B. and K. (Klotz, possessione): Cyzici in Prytaneum vasa aurea mensae unius posuit, Liv. 41, 20, 7 Weissenb. ad loc.: stipes erat, quem … in flammam triplices posuere sorores, Ov. M. 8, 452: omnia pone feros in ignes, id. R. Am. 719: oleas in solem, Cato, R. R. 7: coronam in caput, Gell. 3, 15, 3.

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.14:3738.lewisandshort

6

Best not to think of ponere at all, just in + acc., as in the following in manus capite stilos. The tablets and the pens will end up in genibus/manibus, but first there’s movement involved, hence acc. (“onto your knees, into your hands”, though in english we’d be more likely to say just “on” and “in”). You really didn’t frame your question well.

Hard to imagine young children today being presented with WISDOM as their first writing exercise.

7

Thanks Qimmik for:

“sometimes with in and acc.”.

Sometimes.

Interestingly, the synonym ‘collocare’ is mentioned.

Assimil also has:

‘Difficile est sarcinas IN RAEDÂ COLLOCARE’.

and

‘Arcae magnae et bulga parva IN RAEDÂ tandem COLLOCATAE SUNT’.

You really didn’t frame your question well.

You’re quite right. I meant to say ‘ponere + in + accusative - possible after all?’ Sorry!

Best not to think of ponere at all, just in + acc., as in the following in manus capite stilos.

But that’s the whole point: pono and colloco (unlike capio) ARE usually followed by the ablative rather than the accusative. Hence my confusion (kindly resolved by Qimmik).

Hard to imagine young children today being presented with WISDOM as their first writing exercise.

No doubt it would be hard for an ancient Roman to imagine young children today being presented with Z-O-M-B-I-E as their first writing exercise.

I sniffed out a few more examples of pono + in + ablative on the Web. It has quite a long ancestry. Here some crumbs for what they’re worth (at least I got a bit more Latin practice in hunting them down):

Vergil, Georgics, Bk 2

Agricola … velocis jaculi certamina (contests of the swift dart) PONIT IN ULMO = The farmer arranges swift-javelin contests (‘certamina ponere’=arrange contests) in/on an elm tree for his teams of herdsmen.

(Vergil’s recommending laid-back country life as opposed to other more stressful life choices.)

Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Oratore 3.161.4:

illa vero oculorum multo acriora (sunt), quae paene PONUNT IN CONSPECTU animi, quae cernere et videre non possumus. = But these (referring to metaphors) of the eyes are much more striking, because they place in your mind’s eye objects which otherwise it is impossible for us to see or comprehend.

L.M. Gesner (1691-1761), latin scholar, philosopher, friend of J.S. Bach, writing about the pre-heliocentric system:

… hoc systema PONIT IN MEDIO terram, et circa eam Lunam, deinde Mercurium, Venerem, Solem, Martem, Jovem, denique Saturnum, tum demum fixas. … Pallida Luna subest.

The elements of Latin grammar by Richard Hiley 1836

‘IN’ IS USED WITH AN ABLATIVE AFTER THE VERBS ‘pono’, ‘loco’, ‘colloco’, ‘consido’.

I notice that Caesar uses ponit + ad in the Civil War:

Caesar castra AD FLUMEN Apsum PONIT

And of course Horace famously uses the accusative after motion in Ars Poetica (no PONIT here):

semper ad eventum FESTINAT et IN MEDIAS RES
non secus ac notas auditorem rapit,
= always to the main event he hastens (ie a good author), and whisks his audience into the middle of things, as if they knew them already (‘no otherwise than if known’).

Int