Seneca De Beata Vita 27

[adastra]

Hi,

I am reading Seneca De Beata Vita 27 and anticipate that I might have some things I'd like to clarify/discuss; here is one to start with:

qui iste furor, quae ista inimica dis hominibusque natura est infamare uirtutes et malignis sermonibus sancta uiolare?

I interpreted qui and quae as interrogatives: 'what (is) that fury, what is that character, hostile to gods and humans', but from infamare onwards it doesn't seem to make sense anymore. How do the infinitive phrases fit into this whole clause?

Thanks!

 

[Notascooby]

The verbs are historical infinitives. You can read them as if they were finite verbs.

 

[adastra]

Thanks for the quick reply but if they're historical infinitives then would you translate it as 'what fury, what character hostile to gods and humans denigrated virtue and violated sacred things with spiteful words?'? What would happen to the est?

 

[kizolk]

The verbs are historical infinitives.

Are they? Real question as I'm really not familiar with historical infinitives other than what I read in a thread here, but I feel like in adastra's quotes, the infinitives could be replaced with genitive gerund, e.g. "natura virtutes infamandi", "the character of defaming virtues".

 

[rothbard]

In English, the gerund is used to indicate "the act of", e.g. you can say "I like travelling". So you could translate it as something like "dishonouring virtue and violating sacred things" etc.

 

[Notascooby]

Thanks for the quick reply but if they're historical infinitives then would you translate it as 'what fury, what character hostile to gods and humans denigrated virtue and violated sacred things with spiteful words?'? What would happen to the est?

The est is the verb of the questions. They form a sort of subject for the infinitives.

 

[adastra]

So it would be like 'what madness, what character hostile to gods and humans, is dishonouring virtue and violating sacred things with spiteful words?'
As in, dishonouring and violating are both nouns (gerunds) complementary to madness and the hostile character?

 

[Pacifica]

So it would be like 'what madness, what character hostile to gods and humans, is dishonouring virtue and violating sacred things with spiteful words?'
As in, dishonouring and violating are both nouns (gerunds) complementary to madness and the hostile character?

Yes, but it would be less ambiguous with infinitives: "what madness etc. is it to dishonor..."

And, to make sure it's entirely clear: these infinitives have nothing to do with historical infinitives.

 

[Godmy]

The infinitives is the subject. Nātūra est īnfamāre -> 2.[predicate] -est- 1.[subject]

(change the word order if it makes it easier for you to parse: īnfamāre est nātūra [inimīca*] dīs hominibusque...)

 

[Dantius]

(change the word order if it makes it easier for you to parse: īnfamāre est nātūra dīs hominibusque...)

Well, just to avoid any confusion, dis hominibusque goes with inimica (a nature inimical to both gods and men), it's not saying that it is nature for gods and men to dishonor...

I do think kizolk is right that in the most classical Latin these infinitives might be genitive gerunds, as a sort of appositional/defining genitive. It's sort of hard to fit in both the interrogatives and the "iste" forms unless you do like "what is this madness of dishonoring/to dishonor...". In poetry especially you get a lot of overlap between infinitives and genitive gerunds, e.g. Statius "nec devitare facultas" for "nec (erat) divitandi facultas".

 

[adastra]

Thank you, I understand now

There's a bit in the next sentence that I wanted to ask about:

quod si uobis exercere taetram istam licentiam placet, alter in alterum incursitate

If you decide to exercise that foul outspokenness, clash one against the other.

I've translated it literally, and from here, I can't seem to understand what Seneca means with alter in alterum incursitate?

 

[kizolk]

If you decide to exercise that foul outspokenness, clash one against the other.

I've translated it literally, and from here, I can't seem to understand what Seneca means with alter in alterum incursitate?

Your translation looks good to me; the literal meaning of incursitō is "run against", but here it's the more figurative meaning of "charge" or "assault".

I've checked the following sentence for context (nam quum in cælum insanitis, non dico, sacrilegium facitis, sed operam perditis), and it seems to me he's saying that while he doesn't condone the temperament he was talking about earlier, if you do indulge in this behavior you should direct your anger towards other men with the same inclination, rather than to the gods.

 

[adastra]

Ah yes that would explain it!

 

[Godmy]

Well, just to avoid any confusion, dis hominibusque goes with inimica

Oh, sorry, I added those two words as an afterthought... I'll add a correction.

I do think kizolk is right that in the most classical Latin these infinitives might be genitive gerunds, as a sort of appositional/defining genitive.

It's a different syntactic solution: an attribute[in predicate]+subject (a non-agreeing attribute => which is genitive) instead of a subject+simple* predicate. It's like everywhere else when one's got more choices how to phrase something (like when we express a purpose in multiple ways)...

*nominatival