quo numine laeso

Latin Learning Latin
1

Somebody please help me with the ablative absolute in Aeneid I:8:

quo numine laeso

How does this function in the context?

2

by which divine will i am hurt

3

“…I am hurt”? I don’t see how it can be read in a way other than that it is the “numen” which is “laesum”?

Anyhow, a google search found this thread which is worth reading:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.language.latin/browse_thread/thread/1e62fa139ea25c00/3a25e2cf9ffda973

4

you are right laeso is participle :angry:

5

Tertius -

Glad you caught the mistake. There is another form (laesio) which could easily cause confusion if your eyesight is going kaput! :wink:

6

All -

Here’s one reply I received on another forum when I posted the same question.

Please share your thoughts.

I think it’s not actually an ablative absolute. It’s actually an ablative interrogative pronoun in the indirect question introduced by the imperative <> before it. At least that’s how I take it. <> can’t be an ablative absolute because quo by nature provides a grammatical link to the rest of the sentence, thus ruling it out.

7
8

I sometimes think that the distinguishing feature of Latin is its ambiguity. The theme of this thread is a case in point. However …

I came across this note in a nineteenth century edition of Virgil (Davidson / Buckley):

“quo, i.e. quo modo. It is a mistake to suppose that we should join ‘quo numine’, since Juno has been already mentioned?.

This led me to analyze the lines as follows:

Musa, mihi causas memora = O Muse, remind me of the causes
quo = HOW
(numine laeso) = (her divinity having been offended / when her divinity was offended)
quidve = OR WHY
dolens = still suffering [at the time of the story]
regina deum impulerit = the Queen of the Gods should have driven
insignem pietate virum = a man of such manifest piety
tot volvere casus = to undergo so many calamities
tot adire labores = to face so many hardships.
Tantaene animis caelestibus irae? = [Are there] such humungous hangups in heavenly minds?

In other words, ‘tell me, Muse, what it was that first offended her and why, still burning with resentment years later, she should have hounded our poor hero so, etc’.

In this interpretation, both quo and quid go with dolens (asking the questions how and why Juno is suffering) - though the ablative absolute ‘numine laeso’, taking us back to the time of the original offence, is closely associated with ‘quo’. ‘Dolens’ itself describes Juno’s ‘current’ state-of-mind.

Or am I completely off course? :cry:

Cheers,
Int

9

Int -

I appreciate your effort to exegete the possibilities!

I thought of another one, but I’m sure no scholar has probably ever considered what I’m about to spew.

Maybe the ablative absolute stands out as an exclamation:

“O Muse, tell me the reasons–_what divine will thwarted!–_etc.”

Just a thought to offer.

10

Maybe the ablative absolute stands out as an exclamation:

“O Muse, tell me the reasons–what divine will thwarted!–etc.”

Just a thought to offer.

All -

Just for the record, please forget I’ve mentioned this. It was a stupid idea!

I’m leaning more toward the interrogative interpretation right now while I keep studying this and learn more.