The term “old” Latin or “early” Latin is used to refer to the Latin language before 75BCE. However, although there are differences, the works of the Roman dramatists Plautus and Terence are regularly studied.
An interesting note on
Terence is given in Wikipedia:
“His plays were heavily used
to learn to speak and write in Latin during the Middle Ages
and Renaissance Period, and in some instances were imitated by William
Shakespeare.”
In fact, if you obtain a
copy of Reading Latin by Jones and Sidwell – a book that is
highly recommended – it begins with excerpts from those comic plays. Some
excerpts from these works are very useful for this topic. The command forms
introduced are in the singular; previous notes refer to the plural forms, which
are straightforward to do.
[1] eō, īre [irr.]: go >
ī: go!
- Ī …ī ad
forum (Plautus) ¦ Go…go to the forum
[2]
[i] dexter, dext(e)ra,
dext(e)rum: right
[ii] sinister, sinstra,
sinistrum: left
- ī ad sinistram ¦ hāc rēctā
platēā; ubi ad templum Diānae vēneris, ī ad dextram. (Terence)
¦
- Go to the left ¦ straight along
the “broad” street; when you’ve come to the temple of Diana, go to
the right.
- ī ad sinistram: go to
the left
- ī ad dextram: go to the
right
platēa: “The principal street in a
town, suggesting the Broad Street and Broadway of modern cities” (Thurston
Peck); in the UK we would most likely say “High Street”.
hāc rēctā platēā:
this phrase is in the ablative, the character saying to go by means of this
straight road
A small point to note that
is still quite a long way off is: “Ubi ad templum Dianae veneris”; veniō,
venīre [4]: come + ad (to) with accusative. However, a feature of
Latin that differs from English is the use of tenses. What the character
actually says is “When you will have come to the temple” i.e.
“When you’ve reached…” French would create a similar construction, but English
doesn’t.
As always, you don’t have to
wait for a grammar explanation to be able to use it:
- Ubi ad macellum vēneris,
ī ad dextram. When you get to the market, go
to the right.
[3] Later writers also give
us information. The poet Horace, talking about those who stray from the path in
error states:
- ille sinistrōrsum,
hic dextrōrsum abit ¦ one goes off to the left,
another to the right
Describing a forest, Caesar
says:
- hinc sē flectit sinistrōrsus ¦
from there it bends to the left
And in the works of Livy, we
read:
- Sp. Furius M.
Horatius dextrōrsus in maritimam oram atque Antium… pergunt.
¦ Sp. Furius and M. Horatius continue / go on to the
right in the direction of Antium and the coast
[i] sinistrōrsus;
sinistrōrsum [adverbs; they don’t change]: to the left
[ii] dextrōrsus; dextrōrsum
[adverbs; they don’t change]: to the right
And so, there is more than
one way of saying the same thing.
[5] Go back to the Caesar
quotation where he says that the river bends or turns itself (sē)
to the left. It’s possible to use that:
- Flecte tē sinistrōrsus /
sinistrōrsum: turn (yourself) to the left
- Flecte tē dextrōrsus /
dextrōrsum: turn (yourself) to the right
You will also come
across verte tē which has the same meaning as ‘turn
(yourself)’:
- Verte tē dextrōrsum: turn
(yourself) to the right
[6] In the Livy quotation,
they are continuing to the coast.
pergō, pergere [3]:
continue; go on
We can say:
- Perge rēctā [rectā was
in the Terence quotation]: Carry on straight ahead.
- Perge īre: keep on
going
And [image] although Terence
was based in Rome, we can use his instructions to take a short walk around
Pompeii, with a few alternatives.
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