qui fueris dominae male creditus uni
Daniel
At tibi, qui fueris dominae male creditus uni,
Nunc saltem novus est inveniendus amor.
Completely foxed by words from qui to uni. I take
uni with dominae, fueris as perf. subj., creditus
as perf. pass. participle, male as meaning "not at
all" or "with difficulty". May be wrong everywhere.
Thanks,
Daniel.
Johannes Patruus
"Daniel" <xe...@onetel.net.uk> wrote in message
news:ff299c65.03121...@posting.google.com...
Perhaps A.S.Kline's translation will help:
"But you, who were foolishly trusting of one mistress,
at least now a fresh love is to be contrived for you."
http://www.tkline.freeserve.co.uk/Webworks/Website/CuresforLove.htm
Johannes
Daniel
> > Nunc saltem novus est inveniendus amor.
>
> at least now a fresh love is to be contrived for you."
>
Thanks, but... creditus = trusting? Should that not be passive?
Is creditus a participle with both voices, as are sometimes
those of deponents? Or, indeed, is creditus not actually the
p.p. of credo, but of a deponent synonym?
I've had a good look through the dictionary. Nothing relevant
is obvious.
Thanks,
Daniel.
Daniel
[A Latin Dictionary, Lewis & Short]
credo , didi, ditum, 3 (pres. subj. creduam, Plaut.
Poen. 3, 5, 2: creduas, id. Bacch. 3, 3, 72 ; id. Trin.
3, 1, 5: creduat, id. Bacch. 3, 4, 5 ; 4, 7, 6: creduis,
id. Am. 2, 2, 49 ; id. Capt. 3, 4, 73: creduit, id. Truc.
2, 2, 52 ; inf. credier, id. Poen. 2, 43; crevi for credidi,
id. Cist. 1, 1, 1 ), v. a. [Sanscr. crat, crad, trust,
and dha-; v. 2. do].
<snip>
C. To trust one in his declarations,
assertions, etc., i. e. to give him
credence, to believe:
<snip>
c. Credor in poets several times equivalent to
creditur mihi: certe credemur, ait, si verba
sequatur Exitus, Ov. F. 3, 351 ; so id. Tr. 3,
10, 35: creditus accepit cantatas protinus herbas,
etc., id. M. 7, 98 ; so in part., id. H. 17, 129;
cf.: (Cassandra) non umquam credita Teucris,
Verg. A. 2, 247.
In Ovid as in Vergil supra?
Thanks,
Daniel.
Giljoyroy
"dominae male creditus" by "unfaithful to the lady". So I would venture: "You
who have been unfaithful to one lady, the least you can do is to find a new
love."
Aegidius
Daniel
Thankyou for the suggestion.
Do you know why a subjunctive
form of sum is used?
Daniel.
Edwin Menes
and so the construction is that of a characteristic clause.
'Creditus' as passive can be construed as middle and 'male' as
proleptic: 'badly entrusted to one lady', that is, 'you (whoever you
are) who entrusted yourself to your mistress alone, and it turned out
badly.' It's useful to remember that elegiac love is conceived of as
'servitium, furor, morbus' and the lover as 'servus unius amoris', so
that the 'domina' is more than metaphorically the owner of a slave. For
a lover to be unfaithful is, in Propertius and Tibullus, unthinkable,
while the mistress is often fickle, greedy, and unfaithful, as well as
being beautiful, tasteful, and a connoisseur of poetry.
Ovid plays with the conventions more than a little, but when he acts as
'praeceptor amoris' (another common pose of the elegiac lover-poet), I
doubt that he would give advice to unhappy lovers as a result of their
being unfaithful. Conventionally, it's the mistress who is unfaithful
and the lover who is miserable, though eventually complaisant.
Robert Stonehouse
> At tibi, qui fueris dominae male creditus uni,
> Nunc saltem novus est inveniendus amor.
>I wonder...
On the Virgil passage, Austin notes "probably with 'ora'" which looks
right if you have the whole sentence:
"tunc etiam fatis aperit Cassandra futuris
ora dei iussu non umquam credita Teucris."
"Then Cassandra too opens with future prophecies
that mouth, by the god's command, never believed by the Trojans."
For once, Lewis and Short have actually misrepresented their
quotation.
Austin compares Metamorphoses 15.73f.:
"... primus quoque talibus ora
docta quidem solvit, sed non et credita, verbis"
"and he (Pythagoras) was first to release his mouth, learned, yes, but
not believed, with words like the following"
again, 'credor' as above. Similarly 7.98. I have not got the other
books referred to.
But is this the best meaning in this passage? A more basic meaning of
'credere' is "to entrust or commit something to somebody" (aliquid
alicui). The passive of this will be "to be entrusted or committed to
someone" (alicui).
Then we get something like: "But for you, one who would erroneously
have been committed to a single mistress, / now at least a new love
must be found".
'Committed' by yourself, of course. So we would be likely to say 'have
committed yourself'. 'Now at least' - you should have done it before -
at least do it now.
Ovid does not know his reader's situation. He says in his exordium
(41-2) "Disappointed young men, come to my precepts / those whom love
has failed in all respects" (pars 15B, L&S). The subjunctive 'fueris'
tells the readers what kind of failing he is now prescribing for. I
have probably over-translated it.
'Male' is here in its first meaning. This (kind of) young man has done
something and he was wrong to do it (note: not that he did it badly).
The argument of the last few lines has been that everyone needs more
than one mistress as a ship needs more than one anchor. "If you have
got that wrong, then now at least ..."
-----------------
Robert Stonehouse
To mail me, replace invalid with uk.Inconvenience regretted.
Daniel
interesting replies.
Daniel.