I wonder how would a fluent Latinist (I mean one who understands everything at the first reading) understand this text (assuming it is the first time he reads it):
“Ut queant laxīs resonāre fibrīs” : I’d say no problem: “so that may resound, with loosened voices”, and I am waiting for the subject.
Now “Mira”: it can be nom. pl. or acc. pl., i.e. subject or object; it can well be the subject of queant (“so that the wonders may resound (intransitive)”) or object ([they] should resound (transitive) the wonders); I don’t know yet which.
“gestorum” = relates obviously to “mira”
“famuli”: now again two possibilities: nom pl or gen sing (“gestorum famuli”, the deeds of the servant, is not impossible). If nom, it is the subject of queant. Now I can suspect mira is acc.
“tuorum” could only relate to “gestorum”, so the “gestorum famuli” cannot be, so it is “mira gestorum tuorum”, and “famuli” can only be the subject (suspicion confirmed), so “mira” is the object and everything is OK.
The last two verses confirm what preceeds.
Now am I right? Is this the way one reads and understands this when able to understand it at the first reading?
Well I’m not much of a latinist, and I first took mira to be the subject, “So that the marvels of your deeds are able to resound, …,” but reaching famuli I realized that they must be the subject, which means that resonare will be transitive.
It’s reatum that I balked at, though I suppose it’s clear enough what it must mean. And these are sapphics!
So this is your reasoning, so I am conforted in trying to read very slowly, so that things become more precise with every word, until at the end of the sentence everything becomes clear.
I should have one more question: if it were not sapphic verse but prose, would this “famuli” have been placed between “gestorum” and “tuorum”? How would you put the same phrase with the same words in prose? “laxis resonare fibris” doesn’t seem unnatural for me, but the subject in the middle of “gestorum tuorum” does, I can’t explain why. Or isn’t it unnatural?
Yes, your procedure was very good, if a little laborious. I’d advise you not to read too slowly.
You’re right that in prose famuli wouldn’t be sandwiched between the two genitives; more likely in front of queant (or possint). Even laxis resonare fibris is too elegant a word order for most prose, quite apart from the vocabulary and the poetic rhythm.
Thank you so much, what you said is very helpful to me.
Now I have one more question, this time on the poetic rhythm:
I can enjoy English Sapphic verse (or in other modern language), because accentual prosody is used and not the length of the vowels.
But when I read Latin, I also stress syllables, so there are two rhythms: a stress-based one and a long-short one, from which the stress-based is for me more prominent than the quantitative. And the stressed vowel is not always a long one. So how should I read Latin verse (or Greek, for that matter) in order to enjoy their rhythm? To completely bypass the stress-based rhythm seems to me quite impossible. I must be wrong in some regard.
With Latin there’s often a conflict between the normal word-accent and metrical stress, and we can give precedence to the meter without seriously compromising the sense, e.g. ut queANT laXIS rather than QUEant LAXis.
With Greek it’s more problematic, for us modern westerners. The accents are generally metrically irrelevant, so I simply follow the quantities, though in practice I find I unwittingly tend to put some stress on the accented syllables (just as I do in prose) and/or on at least some of the long syllables, for the sake of metrical definition. But respecting the quantities is all-important, especially e.g. in the central section of τεθνακην αδολως θελω, or in φαινεται μοι κηνος ισος θεοισιν.
Respecting quantities is easier, English and German have quantities too. To bypass stress or make it less important than quantity is more difficult, but I shall try. I wonder if Greeks really didn’t have any stresses at all and only pitches…