[xi] totiēns … quotiēns … [or: totiēs … quotiēs …] | as
often … as …
Unlike most other correlatives which can be ‘neatly’
conveyed, you cannot always mechanically translate but need to consider the
most fluent rendering while retaining the underlying meaning: with totiēns
… quotiēns … two actions take place with the same frequency.
The first two quotations do conform to dictionary
translations of the correlative:
[A] cum tū eī contumēliōsissimē totiēns male dicās
[B] quotiēns tē illī adfīnem esse dīcis (Cicero)
- since [A] you abuse him in the most insulting manner as many times [B] as you say that he is associated with you
[A] totiēns, [B] quotiēns praescrībitur,
… [A] hymnum recitārimus (Cicero)
- [A] we shall recite … a hymn as often [B] as
is prescribed
The order of the correlative construction may be reversed
and variations in form can occur:
quotiēnscumque dīcō, totiēns mihi
videor in iūdicium venīre (Cicero)
- As often as / however often I speak, I seem just as often to be brought into judgment …
At this level of Latin, you will encounter more flexible and
fluent translations which will avoid awkwardness and still convey the sense of
the correlative in context without rendering it so literally:
quotiēns ībis, totiēns magis placēbit quod
bonum erit
[Lit: However often you go, what will be good will just
as often please you more.]
In context, the quotation is from Cato’s Dē
Agricultūrā:
- However often you go, a good piece of land will please you more at each visit.
Likewise, in this example, you encounter Cicero’s style of
the tricolon i.e three statements which, here, are structurally identical:
(1) quotiēns coniugem, (2) quotiēns domum, (3)
quotiēns patriam vidēret, totiēns sē beneficium meum vidēre (Cicero)
[Lit: [A] As often as he saw his wife, as often as
his home, as often as his country, [B] so often he saw my
kindness. ]
A fluent translation needs to retain the emphatic idea that
both [A] and [B] happened with the same frequency. At the same time the
translation should avoid clumsiness:
Every time he saw his wife, or his home, or
his native land, he always recognised my kindness.
- He never saw his wife’s face, or his home, or his native land, without recognizing the debt he owed to me. [transl. Winstedt]
There is no “answer” and this correlative is only an example
to show that, when translating Latin, you need to be flexible and not always
use verbatim definitions from a dictionary.
In other words, dictionary definitions are a starting point, but not necessarily a solution.
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