Unit 1 - Exercises - English to Latin

Textbooks M&F's Latin: An Intensive Course
1
  1. The sailors kept on shouting about the punishment of the women.

I came up with:

Nautae dē poenā fēminārum clāmābant.

The answer key gives:
Nautae clāmābant dē fēminārum poenīs.

Two questions:

  1. Should it be poenā fēminārum or fēminārum poenā? Or are both correct? Genitive after the word it is about is my preferred order but just using the opportunity to ask.
  2. Should it be poenā or poenīs? Punishment in the English sentence in in singular (so I think it should be poenā) but am I missing something.

Thanks in advance

2

Hi Venabili

  1. Both are fine. M&F recommend genitive second as the usual order, but it’s quite common to see the other. Just as we say “the punishment of the women” or “the women’s punishment”.

  2. Poena/poenis? Once again, there’s nothing wrong with your syntax. A quick glance at the quotations under “poena” in Lewis and Short’s dictionary might indicate that the plural was used very commonly where we might use the singular.

3

Thanks :slight_smile:

That explains it (the plural usage). Considering that there is no explanation for that and it is in Unit 1 exercise I did not even think to look into a dictionary to see if there is something special for this word.

4

I am not friendly to Latin, this is the first time when I am grabbing English Translation of Latin first time
Thanks you for the share, of course, learning a new thing is always a bravo choice and if you have command on 2 languages then I can must say that you will get benefit from this too. :laughing: