Pro Archia

Latin Learning Latin
1

Alright guys, I am taking AP Latin Literature this year, and I feel very intimidated by the texts. I am having infinitive amount of problems with this first peice of work. I’m having to worst time making any sense of it.. can you help me?

I’m not asking for a translation.. but maybe help me parse it up a little, how to look at it. etc.

Ac ne quis a nobis hoc ita dici forte miretur, quod alia quaedam in hoc facultas sit ingeni neque haec dicendi ratio aut disciplina, ne nos quidem huic uni studio penitus umquam dediti fuimus. Etenim omnes artes quae ad humanitatem pertinent habent quoddam commune vinculum et quasi cognatione quadam inter se continentur.

This is the excerpt we are working with, I appreciate your help.

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Also, I should mention I KNOW the latin. haha, I worked alot with Latin Prose, this will be my 4th year of Latin,and I know Latin poetry is EXTREMELY different, but I don’t know why I’m having so much trouble, I hope I can get some help.

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Here the working is to have whoever has questions post their attempts first before being helped, otherwise it would be the posters doing the other person’s work. Post your attempt and difficulties and I and certainly others as well will be willing to help.

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I appreciate your concern, but I must say I take a little offense to it.

I am NOT asking anyone to do my “homework”. I am in a self teach class, and I have been given nothing to help me tackle this, I am intimidated by it and I dont even know where to start with it. I just want HELP breaking it down, how I should go about it. That is, the ONLY reason, I have posted this. I can’t give you my “effort” when I dont have a clue where to start it. THAT is why I posted.

I WANT to do the translating, I WANT to work with the passage, but I NEED some guidance on how TO DO that. So please, if you could be so kind, UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION.

You don’t even have to USE my Excerpt, help me parse POETRY in general, is that really so hard to ask? for a little help?

So Miguel, I appreciate you “filling me in”, but I am well aware of the rules, thanks, however I think you missed my point..

5

If you think that this is poetry, you need more help than I can give you. The same likely holds true if you don’t even know where to begin.

However, in the interest of trying to make some progress here: start at the beginning, read left to right. Start with ac … miretur. What can you make of this part of the sentence? Here are a couple of hints: hoc refers to what Cicero has said above in section 1 of the speech. quis = aliquis (“after si, nisi, num, and ne, every ali drops away”). What mood is miretur? What is the form of dici?

Is this helpful to you?

6

First, this is prose, not poetry. Second, if you feel you’re completely lost, you can always start by asking some specific questions (as Didymus is doing) as they occur to you. Don’t try to take the whole passage in one leap.

I’ve edited the font of words that are semantically connected (are combined in sense). I’ve changed up the fonts just to help you keep the groups separate (e.g., a new group begins every font change). Can you deduce the meaning of each group?

Ac ne quis a nobis hoc ita dici forte miretur, quod alia quaedam in hoc facultas sit ingeni neque haec dicendi ratio aut disciplina, ne nos quidem huic uni studio penitus umquam dediti fuimus. Etenim omnes artes quae ad humanitatem pertinent habent quoddam commune vinculum et quasi cognatione quadam inter se continentur.

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AP Latin FOCUSES on Poetry

this uses Rhetor and other poetic devices, and i get confused. THAT is why I am asking. Period.

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I appreciate you helping me out thesaurus, I hope you understand my thinking behind everything [heh, its NOT poetry, but have poetic devices within it, which im not used to when reading prose.] but, as I was saying, Thank you for your kindness, and not being a jerk. =]

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It isn’t poetic devices in particular that make reading Cicero, or, indeed, any connected ‘real’ Latin prose difficult: it’s just that your (I presume) three years of traditional-style high school Latin do not expose you to enough ‘real’ Latin for you to master the idiom, viz. the flow of the language and the way it constructs ideas. I know just the feeling of incomprehension you are experiencing, and I’m afraid the only cure is reading Latin (lots of Latin) … which may not be much comfort to you, if you are preparing for the AP, but hey.

Also, please don’t blow up. You must admit that a vague plea for help, such as you began this thread with, is not easy to respond to: we can’t read your mind.

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without blowing up, I will say
I’m not sure I agree, but enough is enough. Thanks anyway.

11

Brent2009:

Thanks for the opportunity to nibble at another morsel of classical Latin. As an autodidact with no interest in exams but keenly aware that Cicero (however opaque or wordy) is part of my heritage, I am keen to own a bit of the action! So I gate-crash the party in the following crude manner:

  1. First I google “Ac ne quis a nobis? to get the full Latin paragraph.

http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/documents/archia.html

  1. Then I google “Cicero Pro Archia translation? to get a translation.

http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/cicero/arche.html

  1. I fire up Whitacker’s Words (a must-have for every autodidact).
  2. Still struggling, I dust off Clark’s ‘Cicero - Interlinear Translations’ and search out the spot. Things are getting clearer. You can buy a copy here if you want:

http://www.amazon.com/Select-Orations-Cicero-Interlinear-Translation/dp/B000SOPR8S%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V218YP1R2%26tag%3Dbookfindercom0e%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB000SOPR8S

  1. I take down from the same shelf Steven M. Cerutti’s ‘Cicero – Pro Archia Poeta Oratio – A Structural Analysis of the Speech and Companion to the Commentary’. Available here:

http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Archia-Poeta-Oratio-Structural/dp/0865164398%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V218YP1R2%26tag%3Dbookfindercom0e%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0865164398

This contains a literal translation alongside an analytical diagram for each sentence. Cerutti notes the first sentence is “an awkward sentence to translate smoothly into English? and explains why. He also notes the CHIASTIC arrangement of nominatives and genitives: facultas … ingeni :: dicendi ratio aut disciplina. If you’re not sure about ‘chiastic’, check out this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiastic_structure

Chiastic structures are indeed used in poetry …

Now I can break up the 2 sentence myself into small sense groups somewhat after the fashion of Laura Gibbs on her website:

Ac ne QUIS a nobis (and lest anyone from (among) us)
hoc (this (oration))
ita (in this fashion)
dici (is being presented/said (by me))
forte MIRETUR, (by chance MAY WONDER)

quod ALIA QUAEdam in hoc FACULTAS SIT ingeni (because THERE IS in him SOME OTHER FACULTY of genius)
neque (and not)
haec dicendi ratio aut disciplina, (this (usual) system/science or discipline of (public) speaking)

ne NOS quidem (nor WE OURSELVES indeed)
huic uni studio (to this one single pursuit/study (of oratory))
penitus umquam dediti (completely ever devoted/given)
FUIMUS. (WERE/HAVE BEEN)

Etenim (Indeed/For)
OMNES ARTES (all the arts)
QUAE ad humanitatem PERTINENT (that (may) relate to humanity (civilized society)
HABENT quoddam commune vinculum (have some common bond)
et (and)
quasi cognatione quadam (as-if by a certain relationship)
inter se CONTINENTUR. (ARE CONNECTED among themselves / one to another)

Of course, taken out of the blue these two sentences probably still don’t make much sense. You have to know more about the context and what Cicero is up to. It’s all here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_Archia_Poeta

I can’t resist quoting this:

“Exordium or introduction

Cicero begins his speech by gaining the goodwill or benevolentia of the judges. He starts with his trademark periodic sentence by depicting his strengths of natural talent, experience, and strategy while appearing humble and inferior to the qualities of his client. He asks the court to indulge him with a novum genus dicendi “new manner of speaking”, similar to the style of a poet. The greater part of the speech contains finely crafted rhetoric and an increased frequency of such poetical devices as hendiadys, chiasmus, and the golden line. His aim is to draw attention to Archias’ profession and appeal to his value in Roman culture. He reveals this thesis in lines 20-22

Etenim omnes artes quae ad humanitatem pertinent habent quoddam commune vinclum et quasi cognatione quadam inter se continentur.

“To be sure, all arts which are relevant to human culture have a certain common bond, and are connected, one to another, by a sort of, as it were, kindred relationship.”

Don’t miss the External Link at the bottom of the page: original Latin with translation. Everything is revealed. :smiley:

Cheers,
Int

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Interaxus, I just want to let you know that this is one of the best presented and finest wrought autodidactic approaches to a Latin passage I’ve seen here. Brent, and others in his place, would do well to heed this advice.

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Thesaurus:

Thanks. I just wish I had your skills! :frowning:

Cheers,
Int

14

A few very brief notes:

Take a nobis (= a me) with dici. hoc refers to what Cicero has just said (sec. 1), not the speech as a whole.

ne NOS quidem (nor WE OURSELVES indeed)

ne xyz quidem = “not even xyz”

QUAE ad humanitatem PERTINENT (that (may) relate to humanity (civilized society)

No need for “may.”

Such trivialities aside, you’re clearly able to digest this little morsel.

As a point of minor interest, do you understand the use of the subjunctive in the clause quod alia quaedam in hoc facultas sit ingeni? (This is perhaps the most grammatically subtle part of the passage.)

15

sigh I thank you for your help now, after the “reassuring” comments that I couldn’t be helped. heh, I did my best with what I could, this is really pointless to me now, but thank you for your time, I appreciate all your efforts.

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Got it! :smiley:

Thanks a million.

Cheers,
Int