This is the Metamorphoses, book XIII, lines 911-915, and a very rough translation, for context:
constitit hic et tuta loco monstrumne deusne
ille sit ignorans admiraturque colorem
caesariemque umeros subiectaque terga tegentem,
ultimaque excipiat quod tortilis inguina piscis.
“Here she (Scylla) takes her stand and safe in the place, not knowing whether he be a monster or a god, she admires his color and his hair covering his shoulders and his back lying under it, and that he derives his last, private parts from a curving fish.”
I’ve been trying to find in Allen and Greenough’s grammar for an explanation why “excipiat” should be subjunctive here, but I struck out. Apparently the “quod” is introducing a substantive clause, but A&G say such a clause takes the indicative.
Hi Dave,
The subjunctive shows that the clause is governed by admiratur, “she marvels at the fact that …” It’s perfectly regular (apart from the word order!), cf. e.g. Cicero’s “sed te amavi tamen admiratusque sum quod nihilominus ad me tua manu scripsisses” (ad Att. 6.9.1). It’s not an indirect question but the construction is the same.
Yes you were right to see that it’s not an indirect question. It’s a noun clause (aka a “substantive” clause, as you rightly called it), describing what she marvels at. If it were indicative it would not be governed by admiratur but stand apart: “As to the fact that …”
Original text, repeated:
constitit hic et tuta loco monstrumne deusne
ille sit ignorans admiraturque colorem
caesariemque umeros subiectaque terga tegentem,
ultimaque excipiat quod tortilis inguina piscis.
But we wouldn’t be able to modify the existing text to be make it use a substantive clause just by changing “excipiat” to “excipit”, would we? Seems like we’d have to replace the last line with a whole different kind of sentence like “sed quod ultima excipit tortilis inguina piscis eam piget” (or whatever) wouldn’t we?
Hi leisulin, I haven’t read this part of the Metamorphoses in a long time, but this is a causal clause. It gives the reason or ground why Scylla admiratur. The reason this is in the subjunctive is that it is in virtual indirect discourse, i.e. this is the reason given by Scylla. If it was in the indicative, it would be the reason given by Ovid.
