Latin Lesson
A while ago I posted the following Latin sentence, and promised to post again showing how to translate it but ended up having severe internet problems and didn't.
Catilinam orbem terrae caede atque incendiis vastare cupientem nos consules perferemus?
Cic. In Cat. 1.1
So, I think it's about time I gave the translation aid, since people seemed so interested!
Context: This is from Cicero's first Catilinarian oration, a speech that comes from the pinacle of Cicero's career, when he was consul and took it upon himself to be a great defender of the state. Catiline is a bit of a dissident type and was supposed to be plotting some terrible coup, which Cicero then portrays as the Worst Crime In History Ever. He has the most wonderful rhetorical dramatic touches, which is one of the reasons why I love him so much as a writer.
Description: The sentence constitutes a direct question (as you can see from the question mark). Latin direct questions don't rely on a change of word order like many English direct questions, so if you took the question mark away from this you could make a non-question statement-type sentence out of it.
Parsing: I gather it's the nouns and (ad)nominal things in the sentence that are causing the most trouble. Here is the sentence with their case written in: Catilinam (acc.) orbem (acc.) terrae (gen.) caede (abl.) atque incendiis (abl.) vastare cupientem (acc.) nos (nom.) consules (nom.) perferemus?
Fitting it all together: (1) First you want to know who the subject of the sentence is. (2) Then you want you know where the main verb is, and (3) what sort of object or objects it takes. (4) Who is the object? Once you have the basic who-is-doing-what-to-whom you then want to work out what the rest of the sentence is doing. (5) There's a participial phrase here: who does it agree with, and what is its construction? (6) Do you now understand why there is more than one accusative in the sentence? (7) Finally, what are the ablatives doing?
Answers to fitting it all together: (1) nos consules, (2) perferemus (at the end), (3) direct accusative object, (4) Catilinam, (5) cupientem agrees with Catilinam, and the infinitive vastare depends on it, (6) vastare takes an accusative object, (7) caede atque incendiis tell us in what manner the orbem terrae is the object of vastare.
Translation: Shall we consuls (nos consules) tolerate (perferemus) Catiline, who desires (cupientem) to lay waste (vastare) to the whole world (orbem terrae) by means of slaughter (caede) and fires (incendiis)?
Catilinam orbem terrae caede atque incendiis vastare cupientem nos consules perferemus?
Cic. In Cat. 1.1
So, I think it's about time I gave the translation aid, since people seemed so interested!
Context: This is from Cicero's first Catilinarian oration, a speech that comes from the pinacle of Cicero's career, when he was consul and took it upon himself to be a great defender of the state. Catiline is a bit of a dissident type and was supposed to be plotting some terrible coup, which Cicero then portrays as the Worst Crime In History Ever. He has the most wonderful rhetorical dramatic touches, which is one of the reasons why I love him so much as a writer.
Description: The sentence constitutes a direct question (as you can see from the question mark). Latin direct questions don't rely on a change of word order like many English direct questions, so if you took the question mark away from this you could make a non-question statement-type sentence out of it.
Parsing: I gather it's the nouns and (ad)nominal things in the sentence that are causing the most trouble. Here is the sentence with their case written in: Catilinam (acc.) orbem (acc.) terrae (gen.) caede (abl.) atque incendiis (abl.) vastare cupientem (acc.) nos (nom.) consules (nom.) perferemus?
Fitting it all together: (1) First you want to know who the subject of the sentence is. (2) Then you want you know where the main verb is, and (3) what sort of object or objects it takes. (4) Who is the object? Once you have the basic who-is-doing-what-to-whom you then want to work out what the rest of the sentence is doing. (5) There's a participial phrase here: who does it agree with, and what is its construction? (6) Do you now understand why there is more than one accusative in the sentence? (7) Finally, what are the ablatives doing?
Answers to fitting it all together: (1) nos consules, (2) perferemus (at the end), (3) direct accusative object, (4) Catilinam, (5) cupientem agrees with Catilinam, and the infinitive vastare depends on it, (6) vastare takes an accusative object, (7) caede atque incendiis tell us in what manner the orbem terrae is the object of vastare.
Translation: Shall we consuls (nos consules) tolerate (perferemus) Catiline, who desires (cupientem) to lay waste (vastare) to the whole world (orbem terrae) by means of slaughter (caede) and fires (incendiis)?