13.02.27: Level 3+ (review); correlatives [5] making comparisons (2) tantum … quantum …

[x] tantum … quantum … | as much … as …

The first three examples from Adler show tantum … quantum with a noun in the genitive case:

tantum panis [genitive] quantum lactis [genitive] emit

• She buys as much (of) bread as (of) milk

dā mihi tantum aquae quantum vīnī

• Give me as much (of) water as (of) wine

Habēsne tantum aurī quantum argentī?

• Do you have as much gold as silver?

These quotations from Plautus use the same construction:

quīn ex occlūsō atque obsignātō armāriō dēcutiō ¦ argentī tantum ¦ quantum mihi lubet (Plautus)

• why, though his chest is shut up and sealed, yet I shake ¦ as much money ¦ out of it as I like

cui bonī tantum afferō quantum ipsus [ = ipse] ā dīs optat, atque etiam amplius (Plautus)

• I'm bringing him as much good fortune as he desires from the gods, and even more.

But you should expect variations:

… mihique ¦ ex agrō tuō tantum ¦ adsignēs, quantum meō corpore occupārī potest (Cicero)

• and allot me ¦ as much of your land ¦ as can be occupied by my body

The use of the correlative is not only with nouns and often functions purely as an adverb:

amāta tantum quantum amābitur nūlla (Catullus)

• loved as much as no other will (ever) be loved

nōn queō tantum, quantum vereor, scrībere (Cicero)

• I cannot write as much as I fear [ = I cannot write all my fears]

meam āmentiam accūsō, quod mē ā tē tantum amārī, quantum ego vellem, putāvī (Cicero)

• I blame my foolishness, because I thought I was loved by you as much as I would wish.

The construction reversed:

Domum mē rūrsum quantum poterō tantum recipiam (Plautus)

• I'll come back home as much as I can [less literally: … just as fast as I can]

Two correlatives in the same extract:

mōtum in rē pūblicā nōn tantum ego impendēre videō, quantum tū aut vidēs aut ad mē cōnsōlandum adfers (Cicero)

I do not see the change in the state as so imminent as you either see it or bring to me for consolation.

The three quotations below – all from Cicero’s letters to Atticus – well illustrate the need to be flexible in translation. At this higher level of Latin, a dictionary translation of a construction may act as a starting point, but it is not necessarily the solution. The Latin original may need to be reworked to achieve greater fluency. The translations given are from the Loeb edition (translator: Winstedt).

(1) … sī mē amās tantum, quantum profectō amās … (Cicero)

[Lit: … if you love me as much as you surely love …]

• if your affection for me is as real as I know it to be (transl. Winstedt)

(2) ‘tantum’ as an independent adverb means ‘only’, and that sense can be conveyed in the correlative construction:

ita sum ab omnibus dēstitūtus, ut tantum requiētis [genitive] habeam, quantum cum uxōre et fīliolā et mellītō Cicerōne cōnsūmitur. 

[Lit: I am so deprived of everything, that I have only as much rest as is spent with my wife, my little daughter and darling little Cicero.]

• So utterly am I deserted, that the only moments of repose I have are those which are spent with my wife, my little daughter and darling boy. (transl. Winstedt)

(3) Two correlative constructions in the same sentence

nec tantum intellegēbam eī esse offēnsiōnis, quantum litterae tuae dēclārārant, nec tantum prōficiēbam, quantum volēbam (Cicero)

[Lit: And I neither understood that he had as much offence as your letter had declared, nor did I make as much progress as I wanted.]

• I could neither find that he was as much annoyed as your letter makes out, nor yet make as much headway with him as I wished. (transl. Winstedt)