Horace, Odes I, 1.

ovidia nemausa

New Member

Hello,

I have a doubt regarding this fragment, Horace (Odes I,1):
..nunc viridi membra sub arbuto
stratus, nunc ad aquae lene caput sacrae..

(roughly: “..now with limbs stretched under a green bush, now by the mellow source of sacred waters..”)

I don’t see how ‘membra’ works grammatically with ‘stratus’.

Thanks in advance for any comment.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
It's an accusative of respect, a construction that's very frequent in Greek, less so in Latin, except in poetry where it's pretty much all over the place.
 

Anbrutal Russicus

Active Member

Location:
Russia
Yeah, it's a peculiar construction that's only used with body parts or actions related to them, where either active and passive, or two different subjects, get telescoped: membra strāvī + strātus jaceō => membra strātus jaceō; genua quatiuntur + ego quatior => genua quatior.
 
B

Bitmap

Guest

I would have thought it's not only used with body parts. I would be surprised if you couldn't find examples that don't comprise any body parts.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
I would have thought it's not only used with body parts. I would be surprised if you couldn't find examples that don't comprise any body parts.
Here's an example. I'm sure there must be a few others although, it's true, body parts are involved in the vast majority of cases.
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

  • Censor

Location:
Bohemia
It's an accusative of respect, a construction that's very frequent in Greek, less so in Latin, except in poetry where it's pretty much all over the place.
Do you remember how we used to meditate upon the accusative of respect like 8 years ago? We were also summoning some Bitmap's post as to support one's point ;D
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Do you remember how we used to meditate upon the accusative of respect like 8 years ago? We were also summoning some Bitmap's post as to support one's point ;D
Yes, I remember it a little. It was in that Venus poem where birds were percussae corda or something along those lines, right?
 

Katarina

Civis

  • Civis

Location:
Slovenia
Starting to read Horatius I am reopening this theme ...

Maecenas atavis edite regibus ...

I am not sure how to understand this dative/ablative. My guess would be D possesoris. Am I right about it?
 

Katarina

Civis

  • Civis

Location:
Slovenia
sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum
collegisse iuvat metaque fervidis
evitata rotis palmaque nobilis
terrarum dominos evehit ad deos;


From the metric I see that meta evitata and palma nobilis can be only Nominative singular. Evehit would need Accusative I suppose but there is none (so to say what is drawing and not where). Then next, evehit is singular, but the sentence starts with plural.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Evehit would need Accusative
Quos is the object of both iuvat and evehit.
Then next, evehit is singular, but the sentence starts with plural.
The subject of evehit is meta palmaque. Those are two things so technically plural but two or more things can take a singular verb when they're kind of regarded as a whole.
 
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