Help with Seneca

Jiacheng Liu

Member

Location:
Sina
Admittedly, I can feel that some of my senses for Latin have withered after not being actively reading, and I have been stuck here for half an hour now:

Seneca's Quaestiones Naturales Book 3, 28.4:

Nam ut aeris ut aetheris, sic huius elementi larga materia est multoque in abdito plenior. Haec fatis mota, non aestu (nam aestus fati ministerium est), attollit vasto sinu fretum agitque ante se.

"For ?? of air ?? of the heaven, in this way there this element has plentiful material, and even more plentiful [materials] [is present] in the many thing that has been put aside. This ?? fates ?? motion, not undulation (for the undulation of the destiny is a work (??)) brings forth the sea to a huge bay, and acts before itself"

I have never seen the construction ut ... ut ... before and I cannot find it anywhere; what does that even mean? The construction of "Haec fatis mota, non aestu" also makes no sense to me, especially the singular ablative of mota and aestu with a plural of fatis. I have tried to make sense with it by intrepreting it both as a noun or as a supine to no avail. Can someone please help?
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Ut here means "(just) as".

Here's a fairly literal translation of the passage:

For just as [the material] of the air, [and] just as [the material] of the ether, so is the material of this element abundant, and much more plentiful in hidden places [lit. "in the hidden"]. This [material], set in motion by the fates, not by the tide (for the tide is [but] an agent/instrument of fate), lifts up the sea with a vast fold and drives it before itself.
the singular ablative of mota
Mota is nominative.
I have tried to make sense with it by intrepreting it both as a noun or as a supine to no avail.
Mota can't be a supine. No supine ends in -a (only -um and -u).
 
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Michael Zwingli

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

I have never seen the construction ut ... ut ... before and I cannot find it anywhere...
...just as...[and] just as...
A syntactic peculiarity of Latin, no doubt, to say "...ut X ut Y..." rather than "...ut X et Y..." or "...ut X et ut Y..." (as would be done in English syntax). Interestingly, this is in marked contrast to the correlative repetition of other conjunctions in Latin, wherein each instance takes on a distinctive meaning. I'm thinking of "...et...et..." ("...both...and..."), and "...si...si..." ("...whether...or...").
 

Michael Zwingli

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Right, that can happen. But it isn't so common.
The interesting aspect of this seems to be that only some conjunctions were used in a correlative manner, while others were not, even when repeated. This, assumedly to plug semantic gaps not addressed by the Latin lexicon??
 
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Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
I'm not sure what you mean by "gaps".

Note that sive is merely si + -ve ("or"). It can also be contracted to seu.
 

Michael Zwingli

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Haha, I guess I don't either...just musing at 6 a.m. Maybe simply a convention based on euphony; perhaps "et...et" just sounded more euphonic than "ambo...et" or "uterque...et"(?) The rationale would be interesting to identify.
 

Michael Zwingli

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Captain Kirk: "The translation key says that this means 'both...and...' Mr. Spock, what do you make of this?"
Mr. Spock: I do not know, captain. This is highly illogical."
 

Laurentius

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  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Lago Duria
A syntactic peculiarity of Latin, no doubt, to say "...ut X ut Y..." rather than "...ut X et Y..." or "...ut X et ut Y..." (as would be done in English syntax). Interestingly, this is in marked contrast to the correlative repetition of other conjunctions in Latin, wherein each instance takes on a distinctive meaning. I'm thinking of "...et...et..." ("...both...and..."), and "...si...si..." ("...whether...or...").
You can just put a comma between them if you like and voilà.
 
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