Translation

Latin Learning Latin
1

Salvete all.

I’ve just finished translating the very last of the end of chapter passages in Wheelock. Huzzah! :smiley: Now it’s onto the LA and LI at the back of the book. Which isn’t exactly as celebration inducing a prospect! Anyhoo, the final passages wouldn’t have felt right if they hadn’t caused me all sorts of problems, and, obliging as Wheelock is, they duly did so. So, any help with the following would be appreciated:

Olli subridens hominum sator atque deorum
vultu, quo caelum tempestatesque serenat,
oscula libavit natae, dehinc talia fatur:

I don’t understand how the first passage in bold can be “by which/whom the sky and seasons brighten”. Surely the verb would be in the trird person plural if that were the case? Also, the answer key has “fatur” as spoke, whereas I translated it as in the present tense.

That’s about it this time. Thanks…

Einhard.

2

The father of men and the gods, smiling at her with a look by which he [Jupiter typically] brightens the sky and its weather, kissed [his] daughter, thereupon the following [/such things] he says…

historic present, i.e., also “he said/spoke” // nonnè tempus praesens historicum est?

3

As Adrianus has written this is the historical present tense, used for emphasis, or to create a sense of urgency or ‘being there’. I always use the example of telling a story of last night’s bar adventure to a friend. ’ So last night I went to this bar and a guy bumped into me. So I say to him “hey man, what’s your problem?” And he says to me “up yours!”
Historical present… specifically designed for retelling bar fight stories…

4

Thank God for bar brawls! Is there anything so esoteric that their example can’t illuminate?!

Much obliged.