Hi Hugh. Here's my guess (I underline
guess!).
Aut quid est loquacius uanitate? quae non ideo potest quod ueritas, quia, si uoluerit, etiam plus potest clamare quam ueritas. Your translation: "And what is more empty than chatter? Though it might be louder than truth, it is not more powerful."
I'm a little confused by your translation "And what is more empty than chatter?". It reads to me almost as if you are construing
loquacius and
uanitate backwards? I would translate "Or what is more loquacious [in its negative sense] than vanity?" (As a minor point,
aut could mean "and" and introduce an
additional argument, as you translated it. But taken more literally it means "or" and introduces an
alternative argument (vanity more narrowly as his critics' motive rather than just general loquaciousness, inability to keep silent.)
quae non ideo potest quod ueritas, quia, si uoluerit, etiam plus potest clamare quam ueritas:
(1)
quae, the subject, is vanity, not chatter.
(2) I take
ideo as anticipating
quia. "Which [vanity] for this reason cannot [whatever], just because, if it wished, it could even out shout truth."
(3)
potest could certainly be intransitive, as you seem to be taking it. But since grammatically, I believe,
quod is a relative pronoun and object of
veritas (sc.
potest), I read
potest as governing an unexpressed verb or verbal phrase, let's say, for the sake of illustration,
respondere:
quae non potest (sc.
respondere)
quod (sc.
potest respondere)
veritas. "Which [vanity] for this reason cannot (sc. respond effectively) what truth (can respond effectively), just because, if it wished, it could even out shout truth." Unacceptably awkward translation, to be sure.
My
guess.
Randy
EDIT: I submitted this before seeing Nesrad's response, who (regarding
quod) says the same thing, but so less loquaciously!