Grammar question: "Discite justitiam..."
Clifton Meynard
johnm...@hotmail.com wrote on 9/22/02 3:20 PM:
> Hello Latin Group:
>
> A quote from Vergil's Aeneid is used in one of Isak Dinesen's short
> stories (The Monkey):
> "Discite justitiam moniti, et non temnere Divos". I have had a hard
> time getting a good translation of this, but I found one in French
> which I transposed to English as:
> "Learn to know justice by this warning, and do not despise the Gods."
>
> My question has to do with the grammar. If the word "moniti" were left
> out it would be easy: "justitiam" is clearly accusative and the object
> of the imperative of "disco". The second clause is also self-
> explanatory. My problem is with the word "moniti" which I first
> thought was the genitive singlular of "monetus", believing it to be a
> second declension noun. But my dictionary gives it as "monitus, -us"
> which makes me think it is a fourth declension noun, and as far as I
> know there is no "-i" ending in the fourth declension. Could the
> dictionary be wrong? If, for example, monitus is is actually second
> declension, then dative "moneti" would make sense.
>
> How would this sentence be properly parsed?
> How do we decline "monitus"?
>
> Many thanks. My "50 years ago" Latin needs some help!
>
> Jack
I'm still pretty new at this but I'd like to suggest that 'moniti' is the
perfect participle functioning as a verbal adjective not the noun 'warning'.
Learn justice now that you [all] have been warned.
Please, let me know if I'm off.
Johannes Patruus
"JClark" <johnm...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:8i8souoesadn20sbk...@4ax.com...
> Hello Latin Group:
>
> A quote from Vergil's Aeneid is used in one of Isak Dinesen's short
> stories (The Monkey):
> "Discite justitiam moniti, et non temnere Divos". I have had a hard
> time getting a good translation of this, but I found one in French
> which I transposed to English as:
> "Learn to know justice by this warning, and do not despise the Gods."
>
> My question has to do with the grammar. If the word "moniti" were left
> out it would be easy: "justitiam" is clearly accusative and the object
> of the imperative of "disco". The second clause is also self-
> explanatory. My problem is with the word "moniti" which I first
> thought was the genitive singlular of "monetus", believing it to be a
> second declension noun. But my dictionary gives it as "monitus, -us"
> which makes me think it is a fourth declension noun, and as far as I
> know there is no "-i" ending in the fourth declension. Could the
> dictionary be wrong? If, for example, monitus is is actually second
> declension, then dative "moneti" would make sense.
>
> How would this sentence be properly parsed?
> How do we decline "monitus"?
I would suggest construing "moniti" as the nominative masculine plural of
the perfect passive particple of the verb "moneo". Cf.
http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/words.exe?moniti
So the translation would literally be:
"Learn justice, having been warned, and do not despise the gods"
Consistent with this is David West's translation (Penguin Classics) which
reads:
"Learn to be just and not to slight the gods. You have been warned."
The quotation is from Aeneid Book 6 line 620:
http://patriot.net/~lillard/cp/verg.aen6.html
Johannes
Johannes Patruus
"Johannes Patruus" <JPat...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:amlbcl$6sa9s$1...@ID-156050.news.dfncis.de...
> So the translation would literally be:
> "Learn justice, having been warned, and do not despise the gods"
>
> Consistent with this is David West's translation (Penguin Classics) which
> reads:
> "Learn to be just and not to slight the gods. You have been warned."
P.S. I was wrong to have translated "temnere" as if it were an imperative. I
now think it's a prolative infinitive, as in West's translation.
Johannes
Johannes Patruus
> Now I must go look up "prolative infinitive". I recollect that many
> modern languages use the infinitive in an imperative sense: "Nicht
> rauchen", "Défense de fumer", "No fumar" etc.
"Prolative infinitive" is explained by North & Hillard ("Latin Prose
Composition") as follows:
"All verbs whose meaning is incomplete in itself require a complement, and
this is usually in the infinitive. We call it a 'prolative infinitive'.
E.g.:
volo abire = I wish to go away
conor laborare = I try to work
possum vincere = I can conquer
te sino proficisci = I permit you to depart."
Among verbs which take the prolative infinitive the following are listed:
audeo (to dare)
coepi
cogo
conor
constituo
cupio
debeo
disco (the verb in Virgil's line)
desino
doceo
incipio
malo
nolo
possum
sino
soleo
statuo
videor (to seem)
volo
PLUS: "passives of all verbs of saying and thinking", e.g.:
Bonus imperator esse putabatur.
He was thought to be a good general.
Johannes
Edwin Menes
infinitive in USAn grammars.
Robert Stonehouse
Do we need to get so complicated?
"Discite justitiam moniti, et non temnere Divos"
Being warned, learn justice, and<learn> not to despise the Gods.