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Post by Bitmap on Jul 15, 2023 6:50:07 GMT
Is it not possible for creō merely to mean 'cause to be', not necessarily 'create'? So that the sense would be 'of those [horses] whom Circe, in stealing [them] from [their] father, made spurious.' My Georges 1913 quotes that passage and understands it as bastards from a lower-born mother. |
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Post by Bitmap on Jul 15, 2023 10:00:16 GMT
After having failed to find anything on Circe regarding horses or any comment on that passage in particular, I remembered that Servius had once written a commentary on Vergil: latin.packhum.org/loc/2349/5/0#4005Apparently, Vergil simply completely made up that story about Circe. However, it is a reference to the Iliad where Anchises was supposed to have such horses; and the transfer to the Aeneid can essentially be seen as the restoration of the former Trojan prosperity. As Latinus says a few lines above (261f.): non vobis rege Latino
divitis uber agri Troiaeve opulentia deerit.Anchises' horses are mentioned in book 5 of the Iliad. Zeus had given the Trojans divine horses in exchange for abducting Ganymedes, and Anchises secretly had them cover his mares. The offspring were 6 foals, out of which Anchises kept 4 and gave 2 to his son Aineias. These are the horses that Diomedes and Sthenelos steal from Aineias by wounding him and giving his friend a headshot. And this is also actually the scene in which this happens. You even find some phrases/ideas literally repeated by Vergil: 5,263-273: (Diomedes says to Sthenelos) Αἰνείαο δ' ἐπαίξαι μεμνημένος ἵππων, ἐκ δ' ἐλάσαι Τρώων μετ' ἐυκνήμιδας Ἀχαιούς. τῆς γάρ τοι γενεῆς ἧς Τρωί περ εὐρύοπα Ζεὺς
δῶχ' υἷος ποινὴν Γανυμήδεος, οὕνεκ' ἄριστοι
ἵππων ὅσσοι ἔασιν ὑπ' ἠῶ τ' ἠέλιόν τε,
τῆς γενεῆς ἔκλεψεν ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Ἀγχίσης
λάθρῃ Λαομέδοντος ὑποσχὼν θήλεας ἵππους· τῶν οἱ ἓξ ἐγένοντο ἐνὶ μεγάροισι γενέθλη. τοὺς μὲν τέσσαρας αὐτὸς ἔχων ἀτίταλλ' ἐπὶ φάτνῃ, τὼ δὲ δύ' Αἰνείᾳ δῶκεν μήστωρε φόβοιο. |
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Post by callaina on Jul 16, 2023 16:20:15 GMT
No, I think it works: of the race [de gente] of those [illorum] having stolen which [quos furtata] Circe created bastards [nothos creavit] from a substituted mother [supposita de matre]. That syntax is horrible in English because it doesn't use relative pronouns like Latin does, but you see what I mean. Hmm ... maybe. That would still mean that the nothos is a complement to quos. No - perhaps I didn't make that clear. When I wrote "Circe created bastards" I didn't mean that she had somehow make the "quos" into bastards after stealing them; I meant that she had just created some bastards after stealing the "quos". |
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Post by Bitmap on Jul 16, 2023 18:40:18 GMT
I don't see how the sentence in its entirety would make any sense if nothos is not a complement to quos.
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Post by callaina on Jul 16, 2023 21:16:10 GMT
I don't see how the sentence in its entirety would make any sense if nothos is not a complement to quos. I don't see the difficulty. She stole her father's stallions (illorum...quos) and from them she created bastard foals (nothos). The foals and the stallions are two separate groups. |
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Post by Bitmap on Jul 17, 2023 4:57:41 GMT
I don't see how the sentence in its entirety would make any sense if nothos is not a complement to quos. I don't see the difficulty. She stole her father's stallions (illorum...quos) and from them she created bastard foals (nothos). The foals and the stallions are two separate groups. I understand what is meant semantically ... after all, I figured it out above :> I'm talking about the grammar of the sentence. |
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Post by callaina on Jul 18, 2023 22:49:37 GMT
What exactly do you consider grammatically problematic?
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Post by Pacifica on Jul 18, 2023 23:18:23 GMT
I guess the main thing is the word order: because furata comes after nothos, that seems, at first sight, to suggest that quos and nothos go together and are the object of both furata and creavit (rather than quos being the object of furata and nothos that of creavit). On the other hand, poets sometimes mess with word order a bit...
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Post by Pacifica on Jul 18, 2023 23:25:49 GMT
Because of the word order, I at first didn't even consider the possibility that quos and nothos might be separate objects. But after some discussion it occurred to me that taking them separately might actually make for a better reading, word order notwithstanding (hence my post of the other day).
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Post by Bitmap on Jul 19, 2023 3:54:00 GMT
If you put it in proper order, you would still get
<dedit> Aeneae equos de gente illorum, quos patri furata Circe nothos creavit.
I don't see how you could not take nothos as a complement to quos.
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Post by Pacifica on Jul 19, 2023 20:09:18 GMT
Quos and nothos could be separate objects, as I said: quos the object of furata and nothos the object of creavit. " ... which (= the stallions) having stolen, she created bastards (= the stallions' offpring)." That makes for odd grammar in English because in English, at least nowadays, a relative pronoun doesn't usually go with just a participle like that. But it's pretty common in Latin. (You actually find those constructions in archaic English too, most likely in imitation of Latin.)
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Post by Bitmap on Jul 19, 2023 21:56:19 GMT
maybe if you take the sentence introduced by illorum de gente as independent from the previous 2 lines ... that makes less sense, though.
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Post by Pacifica on Jul 19, 2023 22:25:26 GMT
I don't get what you mean by taking it independently from the previous two lines.
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Post by Pacifica on Jul 19, 2023 22:28:44 GMT
Do you mean taking "illorum de gente patri quos daedala Circe / supposita de matre nothos furata creavit" as one complete sentence like "illorum de gente (quos daedala Circe furata [est]) supposita de matre nothos creavit"?
That's hardly possible. I'm not suggesting anything of the kind. I probably didn't make myself clear but I'm not sure how better to explain what I mean.
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Post by Bitmap on Jul 20, 2023 5:13:39 GMT
Then I have no idea what you mean.
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