Note to readers: this is a trial effort. I’m posting it to see if any of it is correct!
Boethius, Consolation…, Book 2, Prosa VI
The context is a philosophical argument: Philosophia teaches that office and official power are not good in themselves. For in fact, we see that evil men often hold official power. If offices were good in themselves by nature, then they wouldn’t be possessed by bad men.
Ita cum pessimos plerumque dignitatibus fungi dubium not sit, illud etiam liquet natura sui bona non esse quae se pessimis haerere patiantur.
My problem was this passage, “illud etiam . . . patiantur.” “Illud . . . liquet” seems to introduce a clause of indirect discourse, with a subject accusative, and its own dependent clause in the subjunctive. At the same time, this passage is the apodosis of conditional sentence, whose protasis is “Ita . . . non sit,”. Or so I believe.
Parsing the hardest words took work, but I think I have it.
illud: nominative singular, subject of liquet [ that . . .proves]. Antecedent is the whole preceding clause.
natura: ablative singular: by nature, an ablative complement of bona.
sui: genitive plural, to agree in number with quae
bona: accusative plural, predicate adjective, needs to agree with quae, in my opinion.
quae: neuter plural, subject of patiantur.
My translation: Since it is obvious that the worst of men often hold powerful offices, then we also know that those offices are not good in themselves by nature, for they can be occupied by the worst of men.
I hope I got some of this right!