An incident at the market …
Senex quīnque pullōs gallumque ūnum in sportā portat.
Senex: Quis pullōs emere vult?
Ēmptor: Pullōsne dīcis? Ubi sunt? Ō nōs miserōs! Taurum
cavē! Ut terribilis est aspectū!
Agricola: Nōlī timēre, domine! Taurus nōn tē cornū petet.
Senex: Hī sunt pullī, domine, sed quō
aufugit ille ēmptor, quī pullōs emere vult? Cavē! Cavē! Taurus
mēcastor iterum hūc ruit! Tot rēs molestās numquam anteā ūnō
diē percēpī!
____________________
Vocabulary
aufugiō, aufugere [3-iō]: run away
percipiō, -ere [3-iō]: perceive; observe; notice; (here)
‘see’ would work
petō, petere [3]: (here) attack
ruō, ruere [3]: rush
tot: so many
Notes:
[1] In this text and in the previous post from Initium,
Appleton and Jones are setting the ‘targets’ i.e. the basics, the conjugations
and, here, the five noun declensions.
sporta, -ae [1/f]: basket; hamper
dominus, -ī [2/m]: master
gallus, -ī [2/m]: rooster
pullus, -ī [2/m]: chicken
taurus, -ī [2/m]: bull
ēmptor, emptōris [3/m]: purchaser; buyer
senex, senis [3/m or f]: old man / woman
aspectus, -ūs [4/m]: appearance
cornū [4/n]: horn
diēs, -ēī [5m/f]: day
rēs, -eī [5/f]: matter; thing
[2] I chose this excerpt partly to show these:
1. Ut terribilis est aspectū! │ How terrible he looks
= how terrible he is in appearance
2. Tot rēs molestās numquam anteā ūnō diē percēpī!
│ I have never before seen so many annoying things in one day.
3. Taurus nōn tē cornū petet. │ The bull will
not attack you with its horn.
4. And from the post before this: Quid enim arbore pulchrius
esse potest? │For what can be more beautiful than a tree?
All three use the ablative case and you can see that it has
many different functions. I have uploaded a file that summarises them. What’s
useful about that file from latinlibrary.com is that it gives one example
of each. For me, that was the best way of learning them, and I didn’t learn
them all at once.
[3] Quis pullōs emere vult? │ Who wants to buy
chickens? The irregular verb: vōlō, velle: want.
[4] If the Romans were surprised or annoyed by something,
they had various ways of expressing it:
mēcastor!; ēcastor! [literally: by Castor!]; ēdepol!
[literally: by Pollux!]: my goodness! oh my! Heavens above!
‘mecastor pulcher est’ (Plautus) │ By my troth, but he is a
handsome man. [Well, that translation was written in 1895!]
[5] From this text and from a previous one: if you’re
feeling sorry for yourself …
Ō mē miserum! [male speaking]; Ō mē miseram! [female
speaking] │Oh, poor me!
And if there’s more than one person feeling sorry for
themselves …
Ō nōs miserōs! │ Oh poor us!
____________________
An old man is carrying five chickens and one rooster in a
basket.
Old Man: Who wants to buy chickens?
Buyer: Chickens, you say? Where are they? Oh, poor us! Look
out for the bull! How terrible it looks!
Farmer: Don’t be afraid, master (sir)! The bull won’t attack
you with its horn.
Old Man: These are the chickens, master, but where’s that
customer running away to, who wants to buy the chickens? Be careful! Watch out!
My goodness, the bull is rushing again (to) here. I have never before seen so
many annoying things in one day.
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