Potanti dixit imis mitique bidenti

Latin Learning Latin
1

It is the good old fable about the wolf and the lamb. A medieval author rewrote it thus:

Currunt ad liquidas potantes fluminis undas;
Atque ferox, limphas lambens trux gurgitis altis,
Potanti dixit imis mitique bidenti: (…)

It is all ok with the two first veres. But what about the imis of the last one? As to the bidenti, I take it to a misspelling of bibenti. A lamb does not have two protruding teeth, and the dative clrearly refers to the lamb.

Thanks,
MSF

2

No, it’s bidenti. See Laura Gibbs’s page for help without translation

http://bestlatin.net/legenda/perry155_lupus_agnus_romdh.htm

3

Yes, Laura Gibbs says it`s bidenti. But can you make sense out of it?

4

See the definition in the dictionary

bidens

5

As for imis, the lamb was drinking “at the bottom,” “in the low position,” i.e. downstream of the wolf.

6

See the definition in the dictionary

Thanks, bedwere. I hadn`t checked it the Lewis and Short. It is not an being with two big teeth, but “an animal for sacrifice whose two rows of teeth are complete.”

Thanks also, mwh, for the imis translation.

One more thing. The verse is scanned thus:

Potan/ti di/xit i/mis mi/tique bi/ denti.

isn`t it?

It is strange that the first i of imis should be long in Medieval Latin as opposed to the short duration attested in the Lewis and Short for Classical Latin.

Thanks.

7

imus always has long i.