A simple zeugma or syllepsis: 1 verb with 2 objects (indirect here), one of which is literal, the other metaphorical.
",""], "1":["antecedent of quae is omitted: \"getting to know [things] that are rare and amazing\".
",""], "2":["\"in that area where\". quā (sometimes emended to quō) is fem. sing., so media loca (neut. pl) is not the antecedent. Thessaliae may be the antecedent (and so qua would be ablative of location/place where), but quā can be used adverbially to mean simply \"where\".
","subject of celebrentur (which is subjunctive because its clause is subordinate to indirect discourse, reputans me etc.)
","the accusative fabulam is the subject of exortam [esse], with the infinitive implied. This is parallel to me tenere above: \"considering (reputans) that I was in Thessaly, and that that story came from there\".
",""], "5":["\"otherwise in suspense because of both desire (voto) and determination (studio)\". a votum is a prayer, and therefore both the thing desired and the desire for it. His studium is his interest in witchcraft imagined as a kind of research project (DJ: \"my scientific interest\").
","A somewhat compressed expression: \"there was nothing in that town which, when I saw it, I believe to be what it was\".
crederem is subjunctive because the relative clause is one of characteristic. esset is subjunctive because subordinate to crederem.
","We should beware of over-translating, since there is no sense of uncertainty or indefiniteness. Perhaps \"nothing such that...\" Latin regularly uses a rel. cl. of characteristic when saying that something doesn't exist: since it doesn't exist, the indicative seems too factual for it.
"], "7":["A form of esse is needed to complete the sense: either sunt/erant, if L. is offering a vivid report of his credulous perspective: \"they (as I saw it) had been changed...\" More likely, however, we should understand esse or fuisse, with crederem: \"I didn't believe anything was what it was, rather I believed everything had been changed...\"
","4 accusative nouns, 4 accusative participles: again with crederem and omitted esse/fuisse: \"I believed stones had been hardened out of men, birds feathered from the same source, etc.\"
","crederem is subjunctive in a result clause; the other subjunctives (offenderem, audirem, ambirent) are subordinate to this, and so inherit the mood.
","What follows ut is the positive result of my negative belief that the town is full of transformed beings: I didn't believe things where what they were, and therefore I did believe that trees were men etc.
"], "10":["4 accusative nouns, 4 participles (future this time), again the crederem esse/fuisse construction, but this time without crederem too.
",""], "11":["Result clause: what follows ut is the positive result of my negative belief that the town is full of transformed beings: I didn't believe things where what they were, and therefore I did believe that trees were men etc.
",""], "12":["\"by deadly incantations\": ablative of means or cause. Take prorsus with translata, not with ferali.
","id genus is to be read adverbially: \"cattle of that sort\". An archaic or conversational equivalent to eius generis.
","VM suggests this is common in African authors, and it recurs in this book.
"], "14":["\"a starting place or even a footprint for/of the object of my desire\".
","cupidinis (the object of his desire, not the desire itself) is objective genitive with initio (literally \"an entering of my desire\"), but subjective with vestigio (\"a footprint left by my desire\").
"], "15":["The text is in doubt. luxu has been emended to luxum, and this probably means \"like [one who has fallen into] prodigious luxury\".
","VM and DJ suggest similis + ad + acc = similis + dative, and so similis nepoti luxurioso (perhaps \"like a lazy trust-fund kid\"? nepos sometimes means \"spendthrift\"), which (despite A's liking for accusative constructions) I find unlikely (the comparison with malitiae novercalis in 10.5 is not apt). It is, however, probably the brachylogic remnant of a common phrase or saying (compare quod unctui from book 1)
"], "16":["reflexive object of intuli.
","terminal accusative (end of motion without preposition, though the prefix of intuli does part of that job).
","mihi is dative of reference with ignotae (\"unknown to me\"). feminae is a dative object of vereor: either \"I show respect to a woman I don't know\" (by not approaching); or possibly an implied infinitive (accedere, suggested by accedis), \"I am ashamed to approach a woman I don't know\".
","Since conversa is passive (\"having been turned\"), optutum can't simply be it's direct object. It is rather an accusative of respect (\"Greek Accusative\"): \"turned around in terms of her gaze\". It is possible that the verb is deponent, but convertor normally means \"I turn (myself) around\". Of course, it does add up to \"turning her gaze\". Cf. Tacitus Hist. 1.85 animum vultumque conversi
","ad amussim (\"to the dot\"), a combination of adverb and preposition, is an archaism.
","ad amussim (\"to the dot\"), a combination of adverb and preposition, is an archaism.
","If caesii is the right emendation (for caeci siquidem), it must imply some kind of sleepiness, or perhaps the fuzziness of glaucoma: hence the adversative sed vigiles: \"soft blue, but sharp...\"
","\"altogether flowery\"
","Perhaps Byrrhena is running out of intensifying adverbs (after exsecrabiliter, ad amussim and prorsus): it's hard to explain how this is exactly appropriate (\"flowery from all perspectives\"? \"any way you look at it\"?) Probably best taken simply as \"utterly\", \"entirely\", but note that the word is at home in rich visual descriptions (cf. 8.27, and it's frequency in Vitruvius, where it tends to mark approximate measurements). For its use in description of bodily appearance, cf. 11.30 (the last sentence of the whole work, describing L.'s \"entirely/openly unhidden\" baldness).
"], "30":["\"Isn't that so?\" or \"don't you know?\"",""], "31":["The genitives sanguinis and alimoniarum modify socia, and are themselves modified by parentis: \"a partner/sharer not only in the blood, but in the upbringing of your mother\". socius + genitive is an objective relation.
","prognatae takes familiā as its ablative object (a source relation): \"descended from the same family\".
","Lit. \"we drank the same nurse\". Though nutricem is to be taken as an obvious metonymy for nutricis mammam (\"nurse's breast\"), this is one of Apuleius' bolder accusatives.
","Not exactly \"humble\", since (as we soon find out) Byrrhena's family is doing very well; pretty much the opposite of clarissimas here. Salvia's marriage has dignitas (status) because her husband is a well-known politician or soldier; Byrrhena's isn't.
","saepicule -> frequentatum: 'you remember my name because it was oft-repeated amongst those who brought you up'
","\"the fact that we made...\" - a noun clause in apposition to (and specifying or explaining) dignitas. The subjunctive shows that it is not a quod-because clause.
","ablative of manner with accede: \"approach with confidence\"
","\"God forbid that I desert...\" Absit is a usage from prayers and invocations, lit. 'let it be absent' (said of things that would taint the ceremony). The ut clause is a subject noun clause (subject of absit).
","the antecedent of quod is implied (curabo id quod...)
","A future temporal clause (hence future indicative nascetur), \"whenever the idea for this journey comes up, it will always be the case...\"
","He means, I think, \"whenever I thought about the journey, I always intended to stay with you\", but by seeming to refer to future journeys he reveals his discomfiture. This would have to be reconciled to his description of Byrrhena as an ignota mihi femina, and VM suggests rather that he is talking about actual future journeys: \"it hasn't worked out this time, but next time for sure...\"
"], "44":["\"It will never be the case that I shall not stay with you\" Again, his embarrassment shows itself in the double negative. ut...devertar is a subject noun clause (hence subjunctive, not fut. indic.).
","Not an ablative absolute, but ablative of means with attolerabant. quadrifariam is an adverb: \"in 4 places\", or \"fourfold\". per singulos angulos: \"in each corner\".
","Images of the victory-palm goddess (Nike). facies is nom. plural, in agreement with delibantes and antecedent of plural quae (subject of creduntur). There is a statue of Nike in each corner and, as we shall discover, a statue of Diana in the center.
","\"without making a step\". For VM it this the natural consequence of pinnis explicitis: since she is using her wings, she does not walk.
","\"touching down their their unstable footstep upon a spinning ball/globe.\" The image of Nike with her foot on the sphere of the world was popularized by Octavian after 31 BCE.
","\"They hold fast (to their bases) but no so as to (give the impression that they will) remain.\" ut maneant is a result clause. A. plays with negatives and conjunctions in a very Ovidian way: the indicative is positive, and it is the subjunctive that is negated by the conjunction. Understand: inhaerent, sed non ut maneant.
","\"they are believed to be in flight\"
","reference to the reaction of the hypothetical viewer is a staple of ecphrastic description, though more often it is the indefinite second person rather than this anonymous passive (\"you would think...\", putēs, credās etc. - see putābis and putēs below).
"], "52":["Parian marble, the most expensive stone.",""], "53":["\"holds in the balance the center of the whole space\" (this is like something out of a gallery catalog). libratam is a predicate adjective/participle - think \"hold x as y\" - lit. \"holds it balanced\", as if the space were a scale held by the statue. The idea is that the space is kept in balance by the presence of the statue.",""], "54":["\"blown back in terms of its clothing\" - veste is abl. of respect. The transference of the attribute of the clothing onto the person (the clothing is blown back, not the statue) seems odd to us, but it's a common metonymy.",""], "55":["dative of advantage, common with description of body parts, and almost equivalent to a possessive - enough so that translation as \"their eyes...\" is acceptable.",""], "56":["\"If a barking noise should enter from somewhere nearby\"",""], "57":["note mixed future condition: si ingruerit... putabis. though the former can be read as future perfect indicative, the hypothetical situation makes perfect subjunctive more likely.
","\"the matter in which\". Antecedent is a clause, the one beginning with sublatis. Placing such a relative clause before the clause that is its antecedent in a storyteller's delaying tactic. To paraphrase: \"here's the really cool thing...\" We might compare it to clickbait.
","Dative of advantage, just like hīs above.
","\"their chests vertical\". Literally \"vertical in(to) their chests\" (arduis agrees with canibus). We know by now that A. enjoys accusative constructions, but this one (though it doesn't really make sense) has a pedigree in classical poetry: Ovid Met. 10.538, celsum in cornua cervum, which is itself probably an adaptation of Vergil's more understandable surgentem in cornua cervum (Aen. 10.725).
","The simulation of a natural grotto was usually achieved by wall-painting, but it seems clear that this one has been sculpted (signum=sculpture, lapis is the sculptor's material), a very extravagant piece.
","Not \"by a quiet word\"; rather \"since our conversation was private\", ablative of circumstance; or possibly separative with decedere, \"to leave our private conversation.
","note redundant use of ipse, a colloquial feature of A's style
","\"running from the goddess' foot\". vestigio is ablative of separation.
","Again, note mixed condition; assuming aspexeris is subjunctive (not future perfect), we would expect credas.
","illos is subject of carere in indirect statement: \"you'll believe they don't even lack\"
","\"the job of agitating\" or \"being agitated\". Does he mean that the low hanging grapes cause the waves in the water (vibratur)? or simply that the grapes seem to wave in the breeze?
","\"Actaeon as a statue\", subject of visitur (\"is to be seen\").
","\"already, as a wild thing, (turning) into a stag\". Unless a word has been lost, or A. expects us to supply one, he must think that ferinus can govern in + acc: \"wild into a stag\".
","with visitur: \"he can be seen in both rock and in the spring\" - i.e. the artist has carved his reflection in the spring.
","\"as I fear and as I wish...\", causal clauses with cave, \"beware\".
","\"sink the light to the depths of Tartarus and into ancient chaos\"; submergere first takes a dative object (imis), then a prepositional phrase (in chaos). Chaos is a Greek neuter accusative: as in Latin, the accusative and nominative of neuter nouns is the same.
","Possibly \"she is consumed by his loveliness\", but more likely \"she is consumed with desire for him\", taking eius to be objective genitive. Though classical venustas is an attribute of the desired person, it is entirely Apuleian to transfer it to the desire of the lover.
","\"and the unattractive ones\" (not to be taken with minus)
","The adjective's standard meaning would make this \"you are roomy enough for her\"; but A. expects us to see the root (capio), so \"you are the kind to capture her attention\"
","object of implied verb (dixit etc.)
","\"stoutly engage in close combat\" (congredere is imperative).
","\"she showed how unwillingly she was leaving\" (quam... discederet is an indirect question).
","According to normal usage with compound verbs, lectulo is probably dative; though colloco is most often used with in + ablative or in + accusative, and occasionally with ablative alone.
","\"May that, then, be good, fortunate and well-omened\" - an amplification of a common formula, with subjunctive of wish (sit) implied (unless we are to take erit as the verb, which would make this a very confident statement). The position of itaque is odd, but may be justified by regarding what precedes as an inseparable unit.
","Cf. Cicero De Divinatione: maiores nostri quia valere censebant, idcirco omnibus rebus agendis 'quod bonum, faustum, felix fortunatumque esset' praefabantur. \"Our ancestors said this (because they thought it had power) before all things they needed to do...\" Also Plautus Casina 382: quod bonum atque fortunatum sit mihi.
"], "122":["\"no matter if it's not good for me\"
","jussive subjunctive
","\"as they say\"
","\"of a pig\" (gen. sing.) - not the dat/abl. plur. of the possessive suus!
","\"she was preparing minced meat finely chopped (fartim concisum) and the flesh (pulpam) of a juicy [whatever ambacupascuae is - we don't know] cut into pieces (frustratim consectam)\"
","short for iam inde a principio, \"from the very beginning\", i.e. as soon as I entered
","girdled (agrees with Photis, the subject)
","\"food bowl\"
","\"the turns of a circle\"
","adverbial: \"constantly\"
","also \"limbs\" stood up which were lying down before.
","Apuleius' narrative is sensuous (perhaps nowhere more than here), but he limits himself to relatively few explicit or obviously rude references.
"], "135":["take placide with quatiens
","\"How beautifully!\" (exclamatory quam)
","\"when my one interest has been...\"; perfect subjunctive in circumstantial cum clause.
","both infinitives (and their accompanying noun clauses) are subjects to fuerit: \"to look and to enjoy has been my only interest\"
","parallel to fuerit: \"and when there is with me...\"
","objects of intueri and perfrui
","unlike the preceding quod, not \"because\". \"that which the cheerful color of clothing achieves in other limbs, this (hoc) a natural splendor (nitor) achieves on the head\". quod is correlative with hoc.
","\"when they want to show\": the future participle verges on expressing purpose (cf. placiturae below).
","\"something that is blasphemy to say\"; the antecedent of quod is the idea that begins with si cuiuslibet... (a woman shaving her head).
","If this is another relative pronoun, parallel to the previous quod, it is rather in conflict with ullum exemplum as subject of the clause. This may simply be an example of redundant use of pronouns, or an error in the text, but I suspect we are supposed to read it as the conjunction: \"nor [do I think] that there should be any so dreadful example of this thing\".
","\"strip her appearance of it's natural beauty\". Like capillo, specie is separative ablative.
","A parallel structure that is not quite as parallel as seems at first glance. The first three participles are to be read with fuerit, hence the periphrastic form of the perfect, with extra variation from the use of the finite form on its own in the fourth phrase (\"let her be Venus herself\"); the second set of 3 participles are circumstantial with processerit (\"let her proceed surrounded, accompanied and girdled...\")
","The apodosis of the conditional that starts with si... spoliaveris (note that a licet... clause can also play the role of a protasis, \"even if she is...\")
","A long question, and the question is simply \"quid?\", followed by several indicative cum clauses; meaning \"what can I say when...\"
","capillis is ablative with inlucet, \"shines in [a girl's] hair\"
","caerulus here means simply \"dark\". corvinā nigredine is ablative of specification.
","\"rivals the little flowers of doves at the neck\". The feathers on doves necks were proverbially delicate and pretty.
","The MSS read collis, which would be \"the flowers of the necks of doves\", but the next clause shows that Lucius' imagination is moving from hair on the head to its arrangement on the body.
"], "173":["the conjunction, not the preposition (with reddit below, and continuing the \"quid, cum...\" construction with which the paragraph begins).
","\"gathered at the back\". pone versum = \"towards behind\"
","One can only speculate about what Lucius is thinking here. Does the girl's oiled hair somehow reflect her lover's face back to him? That would seem to be the implication of speculi. In that case, we must assume the reflection is \"gratiorem\" because he is also looking at her hair. Looking at yourself in the mirror of your girlfriend's hair is not, I suspect, something familiar to the modern reader, and it is probably a humorous exaggeration on A.'s part.
","The adjective is probably to be taken as a predicate object: \"returns the appearance as something more lovely\" (reddo is frequently used this way).
","\"flows over the back\"; dorsa is poetic plural for singular (common with non-paired body parts, esp. colla).
","concessive clauses with quamvis regularly take the subjunctive (though, as with the nisi clause following, we would expect a subjunctive here anyway since the clause is subordinate to a result clause).
","crines, with the accusative adjectives and participles that accompany it, is the direct object of the verb at the end of the sentence: \"a knot had tied up her rich hair...\"
","\"gathered together towards their ends\": this would seem to imply some kind of bun, but that hardly fits with what has just been said - unless Lucius is imagining Photis' hair at different stages of the evening (hence dein, \"then\", and paulisper, \"a little later\").
","accusative crines with its adjectives and participles
","\"at the extremity where...\" (= fine quā), i.e. right at that point where. qua fine is cited by the grammarians as equivalent to quatenus, \"as far as\".
","Unless we are to correct this to illuc (\"at that spot\"), this demonstrative must be used to indicate some kind of wink towards the reader, with reference to the description melitissimum (\"a super-honey-sweet kiss - you know what I'm talking about\").
","morsicare is the verb used for love bites, but here it is (somehow) the eyes that do the biting.
","Both mellis and bilis are genitive singular: note parallel word order (adj.+ genitive + abstract noun x2)
","\"by even a single kiss\"; ablative of means with recreatus, \"revived\".
","VM: \"Her love joined with mine so as to equal it\". The verb suggests siblings growing together and at equal pace; the in + acc construction suggests growing towards a final state (\"equality of love\"), though as we have seen, Apuleius tends to choose accusative constructions where classical authors would use the ablative. Note how mecum deliberately avoids the exact metaphor: to be precise, her passion (libido) should be growing alongside his passion, not him.
","dative object of inquam: \"I say to her as she becomes aroused...\"
","tibi mancipata sum = \"I have been made your slave\"; mutua voluntate plays on Lucius' implication (in propitiaris) that he serves her as his goddess.
","\"valuable in its age\", i.e. because of its age. Cf. 2.2 senex gravis in annis. The ablative is one of specification, and the preposition is not necessary.
","\"during an all-nighter\" (pervigili agrees with nocte, literally \"a night that doesn't go to sleep\")
","Lucius is responding to Photis' promise of an all-night activity (tota nocte above).
"], "215":["oleo and vino are ablative objects of abundet (\"be full of oil, wine\")
","a noun clause (hence subjunctive) in apposition to sitarchia (the clause = the provisions that are needed). Not a purpose clause, not a result clause.
","\"I was revived in spirit\"; animi is genitive of specification (see above on vecors animi)
","cum inversum again
","crastino = crastino die
","a compressed ablative absolute, with (e.g.) oriente implied: \"with the evening star now rising\" (see the end of para. 13).
","\"what a big rain!\" - exclamatory quam.
","locum tenere = \"to hold a place\", and so \"be in a place\" - me is the subject of the infinitive, loca its object, though it is possible that Apuleius expects us to see it the other way round (\"the place held me\").
","\"The elementary exercises in this kind of divination\". We might say Divination 101.
","i.e. haec sunt - meaning Pamphile's divination by lamp.
","et... enuntiare is a noun clause, the subject of nec mirum [est].
","\"remembering that fire\": ignis is genitive singular, object of the verbal sense of memorem (one remembers things in the genitive).
","\"knows...what it is going to give forth at the summit of the aether\": indirect question with scire and enuntiare. is refers to the celestial fire (ignis, the sun).
","\"for the sake of earning some cash\". emerendis is gerundive, dative of purpose (lit. for the sake of cash to be earned).
","Understand qui dies again. negotiatori, viatori and navigiis are all dative of reference (as usual with adjectives of likeness, appropriateness etc.); understand \"sit\" with these last 3 phrases.
","\"when I asked about the outcome of this journey\"; mihi is the dative object of respondit, proventum the direct object of the participle inquirenti.
","\"he said that I would be glory, a story, a tale and books\". libros is plural because Lucius apparently knows there will be more than one chapter in his story.
","\"By what name is he called?\" Note that \"est\" is to be read with both praeditus and nuncupatus.
","\"he was handing out fortunes to a ring of bystanders\" (coronae is dative, indirect object of donaret).
","When a relative clause is also a cum-clause, the relative pronoun normally comes first. In English we usually turn the relative into a demonstrative, and start with \"when\": \"when he had marked it out\" (\"it\" = the day: dies is the antecedent of quem).
","\"marked out as chosen\"; destinasset = destinavisset.
","centum, though not declinable, represents an ablative plural; denarium is genitive plural, partitive with a number. 100 denarii is not cheap, though we may recall that Lucius' fish (for a one-person meal) cost 20 denarii in book 1.
","\"as the price of the prophecy\" (a predicate object: the relative pronoun is the direct object of auferret).
","object of prehendit, not of adrepens.
","\"when Diophanes turned around\" (agrees with eum, now object of exosculatur).
","\"made him sit down next to himself\". eum = Diophanes, se = the youth. ut adsidat is an object noun clause (hence subjunctive). If word order is confusing here, rewrite as \"effecit ut adsidat iuxtim se\". Note primary sequence subjunctive (present), despite secondary main verb.
","\"How long is it since you got here?\" or (given the answer) just \"when did you get here?\" The combination quam olim is not attested before this.
","\"empty of mind\", i.e. \"forgetting himself, not paying attention\". mente is ablative of specification (compare with animi vecors).
","\"resisting their bold attack\" (audaciae is dative)
","\"he saw that we (nos) had broken out (effusos [esse]) into open laughter\".
","\"to you alone out of everyone\" (omnium is partitive genitive)
","\"may you extend/continue on with your successful trip\". sis and porrigas are volitive (of wish) subjunctives.
","
.