I’m still having trouble seeing the clues for questions in the subjunctive. This question sent me to the translation before I could make it out. Pro Sestio is an oration in a political trial of Cicero’s client Sestius. But Sestius’s plight is entangled with Cicero’s own politics. For this reason, much of the oration is devoted to justifying Cicero’s actions. Cicero has been exiled, but while away the political struggle took a different turn, and Cicero was brought back in triumph–for the time being. I knew this was a question by the question mark, but I had trouble working out the rhetoric and grammar of it. When I went through it several times, and then read the translation I saw the sentence.
Hunc ego reditum repudiarem, qui ita florens fuit, ut verear, ne quis me studio gloriae putet idcirco exisse, ut ita redirem?
Translation: Should I have refused this return, which was so glorious, that I might fear, that somebody might think I left, so that I might come back in just such a way?
An understandable problem, and often a problem for editors. Here however there can be no doubt that it’s a rhetorical question. As a plain statement it would make no sense, and it’s a highly rhetorical passage (as Cicero’s speeches tend to be). The subjunctive helps.
You skip studio gloriae in yr translatn. And better to use English punctuatn than Latin.
Right, good point. I keep having trouble with these questions in the subjunctive. I can’t explain what keeps me from seeing how the question shapes up. After struggling, I read a translation, then go back, and phrase by phrase, examine how the sentence produces the meaning that was translated. This nearly always works, AFTER looking at the translation.
If that’s how you learned to read Proust, as you say in the other thread, it should work for Cicero too, and I don’t see anything against it, so long as you try to understand the Latin before you turn to the translation. You just need more practice, that’s all, and to pay attention to how Cicero structures his sentences. It will get easier as you read more, but you may never reach the reading fluency you’ve acquired in French. In Cicero you might, but never in Horace!