Caelum iterum serēnum erat. Iam Rōmānī in Campō Mārtiō iterum ambulābant, sed rēgem nusquam vidēbant. Mox autem Iūlius, iuvenis Rōmānus, per viam Rōmānam iter ad urbem tenēbat. Subitō ā sinistrā, magnum et serēnum, Rōmulum prope viam vidēbat.
The sky was clear
again. Now / already the Romans were walking again in the Campus
Martius, but they did not see the king anywhere. Soon,
however, Julius, a young Roman, was well on his way to the
city by the Roman road. Suddenly on the left he saw the great
and serene Romulus near the road.
1. Rōmānī in Campō Mārtiō
iterum ambulābant. │The Romans were walking again
in the Campus Martius, i.e. like the English past continuous; this
was an ongoing action, an action in progress
… sed rēgem nusquam vidēbant.
│… but they did not see the king anywhere. [“They couldn’t
see him anywhere” would work] i.e. they were looking around for him
but “weren’t seeing him”; of course, we don’t translate it that way but that is
what’s implied as is the sense of this action going on for a length of
time
nusquam vidēbant │ literally:
they saw him nowhere; there is a suggestion of
"randomness" i.e. everywhere they looked, they couldn't see them.
Other examples of that are in the next post.
2. iter ad urbem tenēbat
│ [1] literally: he was holding the road
to the city (we still have it in: the ship maintained its course towards the
port) > [2] He was well on his way to the city.
It’s a simple example but it
makes the point. When translating from Latin into your native language, I
suggest the “two steps”: [1] Translate it literally even if it
sounds clumsy because the literal translation matches the grammatical uses of
the original Latin. [2] Sit back and only then think about how it would be more
fluently rendered in your own language. But don’t bypass step [1]
And be wary of online
translations of the Roman authors – poetry in particular - because some
translators think that they wrote the Aeneid, and not Virgil,
and sometimes go off on flights of fancy, writing what they want
to say, rather than what the original author said! Schoolbooks and other
textbooks stick as closely as they can to the original and, if I’m translating
quotations, I also try to do that otherwise the translation can be misleading.
3. Here is a good example
from Aquinas which also shows another way the imperfect tense can be used.
nōn [hūc et illūc] [i] ībat,
nec perambulābat vīcōs et mūnicipia, sed [iī] iter
tenēbat versus Ierusālem. │ He was not going [here
and there] traversing the villages and towns, but kept
on his way straight towards Jerusalem. Note the use of the imperfect
to suggest [i] ‘randomness’ with no sense of end, and that [ii] he kept
on doing something but, again, no suggestion that the action was
completed.
A Russian speaker would
recognise [i] immediately: Ya khodil v parke; Russian uses an imperfective aspect
meaning “I was walking about in the park i.e. with no
particular sense of direction.
4. Subitō ā sinistrā …
Rōmulum prope viam vidēbat. │Suddenly he saw [could see]…
Romulus near the road.
Think about: “I saw a little
bird in a tree” but there is a suggestion of a length of time; you didn’t
suddenly see the bird and then look away; you saw it / you could see it for a
while. Latin is conveying that idea.
And that is also a general
point: Roman authors may use different tenses to convey different ideas, but
just stick to the main uses otherwise you end up tied in knots trying to work
out why they used them!
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