P. Vergilius Maro, Aeneid, XII, 604 and ff.

[marcovlatinforum]

Hello Textkit,

I've recently encountered the following verses from the Aeneid:

Quam cladem miserae postquam accepere Latinae,
filia prima manu flavos Lavinia crinis
et roseas laniata genas, tum cetera circum
turba furit: resonant late plangoribus aedes.

and I'm having some troubles going into the grammar of piece. The thing that confuses me the most is the participle laniata. Reading a (in some other places - fortunately for me - quite literal) translation (Calzecchi Onesti, Einaudi, ET Classici), it seems that it is given as an active form, something like "she mistreats the cheeks" (the original sentence [in Italian] is "le rosee guance maltratta [...]").

I'm wondering why the pefect participle could be rendered as active: how it is linked, in the latin text, with the two accusatives flavos ... crinis and roseas ... genas? Why Virgil made this choice, and not wrote this passage using the active form of lanio?

[Hylander]

laniata is passive in form, to be sure, but it's used as if it were a participle in the Greek "middle" voice: an action performed by the subject on him/herself, for his/her own behalf, or similar. Something between active and passive.

Here is Smyth's Greek Grammar on the middle voice:

1713. The middle voice shows that the action is performed with special reference to the subject: λοῦμαι I wash myself.

1714. The middle represents the subject as doing something in which he is interested. He may do something to himself, for himself, or he may act with something belonging to himself.

flavos . . . crinis and roseas . . . genas are accusatives "of specification." This is also typically a Greek-flavored construction that often goes along with the "middle" use of the Latin participle. Allen & Greenough's grammar discusses this at section 397b-c:

b. The so-called synecdochical or Greek Accusative, found in poetry and later Latin, is used to denote the part affected:—

“ caput nectentur ” (Aen. 5.309) , their heads shall be bound (they shall be bound about the head).
ārdentīs oculōs suffectī sanguine et īgnī; (id. 2.210), their glaring eyes bloodshot and blazing with fire (suffused as to their eyes with blood and fire).
nūda genū (id. 1.320), with her knee bare (bare as to the knee).
“ femur trāgulā ictus ” (Liv. 21.7.10) , wounded in the thigh by a dart.

[*] Note.--This construction is also called the Accusative of Specification.

c. In many apparently similar expressions the accusative may be regarded as the direct object of a verb in the middle voice (§ 156. a):

“inūtile ferrum cingitur ” (Aen. 2.510) , he girds on the useless steel.
nodō sinūs collēcta fluentīs (id. 1.320), having her flowing folds gathered in a knot.
umerōs īnsternor pelle leōnis (id. 2.722), I cover my shoulders with a lion's skin.
“prōtinus induitur faciem cultumque Diānae ” (Ov. M. 2.425) , forthwith she assumes the shape and garb of Diana.

The Latin passive participle used like a Greek middle participle with accusative of specification is quite common in Latin poetry. The Italian translation you quoted is accurate. I think the Italian reflexive can function somewhat like the Greek middle.

Here is a link to Allen & Greenough:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 99.04.0001

[marcovlatinforum]

Thank you for the answer, @Hylander.

I unfortunately don't know anything of the Greek language at the moment, but I think I've found something similar to the "middle" voice in the past (the verb moveo for example, which can be used in the middle form moveor to indicate the act of involuntary movement, opposed to something like me moveo).

There is still one little thing that is not clear to me, namely why the participle form was used, instead of a finite verb (something like the active indicative of lanio, i.e. lanior, as in inūtile ferrum cingitur quoted from AG). Thinking about it for a moment, I came up that an adjectival form is more appropriate to describe the situation, more than a verb.

Additionally, think I've found something similar in ib. I, 325: Sic Venus; et Veneris contra sic filius orsus: [...]. I think here orsus (form the deponent ordior) is not simply to be meant as an active participle, but as a(n "adjectival") middle form of the verb (conveying the meaning of a spontaneous action of speaking.) The translation "[...] and so the son of Venus began to say" (It. "[...] e così il figlio di Venere prese a dire".) seems to confirm it.

I obviously ask for confirmation as to whether this could be correct.

The very last thing that confuses me in the passage in the OP, is the case of cetera: is it the subject of the verb furit, or is it its object, making filia prima ... Lavinia the subject? (ironically, this ambiguity remains in the translation).

[mwh]

It will become clearer once you learn Greek, but the section from A&G that Hylander quoted is really all you need. What makes this different from both moveor (which is simply passive) and orsus (which is simply deponent, no active form) is the so-called “retained” accusative with the passive—laniata crines et genas and ferrum cingitur. (The adjectives don’t affect the construction.) It’s a poetic construction, and it sometimes makes better sense if we think of the passive forms as being used as if they were middles, as in the examples given in A&G c. (Greek has a separate middle voice, which Latin doesn’t). There’s no syntactical difference between A&G’s b and c, and laniata crines et genas can be thought of as meaning “torn as to her hair and cheeks” (an acc. “of respect” or “part concerned” or "reference"); but since she is the agent, it may be better to think of laniata as a passive form used in a quasi-middle sense.

Sorry if this seems complicated. “Passive + accusative” is a hard thing to come to terms with.

As to laniata participle not finite verb: the main verb comes only when we get to the sentence end, with furit (furor being thick on the ground hereabouts, read on!); singular agreeing with the nearer subject, which is turba. Grammatically speaking there are two subjects: prima Lavinia, tum cetera turba, first Lavinia, then the rest of the crowd. Between them these constitute the Latinae of the opening clause.

Does this help, or only make more muddle?

PS Trickier still, in every sense, is Vergil's (again) Dic quibus in terris inscripti nomina regum
nascantur flores (Ecl.3.106), "Say in what lands grow flowers inscribed with the names of kings," where nomina is accusative but inscripti is pure passive. AIAI, as the Greeks would say.

[marcovlatinforum]

Thank you for answering, @mwh.

I think I'm quite comfortable with the use of the accusative of specification (or "Greek accusative"). What I was trying to figure out instead (and rereading my previous message I must admit that this was not so clear), was the differences between the use of the verb in the two sentences 1) inūtile ferrum cingitur and 2) filia prima manu flavos Lavinia crinis // et roseas laniata genas: in the first one, a finite verb in a "middle" (passive) form is used; in 2) a participle is used. While I can understand why the choice of the passive, I don't get why the author had not written something like lănĭātur instead of using a participle.

Here the action of mistreating the cheeks is carried out by the subject (an Italian translation says "le rosee guance maltratta [...]", where "maltratta" is third person singular of present indicative of "maltrattare" [to mistreat]), it isn't simple an adjective of filia ("she has the cheeks mistreaten" [if it was the case, the use of the accusative would have been Greek-like]), so why the perfect participle, and not another (finite) middle form like lănĭātur?

How could be translated the sentence filia ... Lavinia crinis // et roseas laniatur genas?

(The same question applies for the example reported in A&G nodō sinūs collēcta fluentīs, but here collecta is actually given in Italian as an adjective).

[Hylander]

The answer to your question, I think, is that laniata here is really the periphrastic perfect passive: participle + est, but est is omitted (as often in poetry, e.g., sic filius orsus, and even prose).

Then in the next clause Vergil shifts from the periphrastic perfect tense to the historical present, tum cetera circum turba furit. cetera turba is the subject of furit. resonant late plangoribus aedes continues the historical present. inūtile ferrum cingitur is also historical present.

The shift from perfect to historical present is not unusual, and here a present tense verb, est, is understood with laniata anyway, So I think it's Vergil shift between perfect and historical present that were the source of your confusion. But you're right to be attentive to these details of grammar.

It's worth noting that laniatur would not scan here, but Vergil undoubtedly could have found another way that would scan to express the same thoughts, and the shift from perfect to historical present did not make him, and shouldn't make us, uncomfortable. Dropping est with laniata and shifting to the historical present are devices that move the narrative along briskly and with elegance.

[seneca2008]

Sorry for a more basic question but is the “accusative of specification” what might be called (by me at least) the “accusative of respect” in Greek.

[marcovlatinforum]

Sorry for a more basic question but is the “accusative of specification” what might be called (by me at least) the “accusative of respect” in Greek.

I found this use of accusative be called "accusative of respect" (it. "accusativo di relazione") also in a Latin grammar.

I think, is that laniata here is really the periphrastic perfect passive: participle + est, but est is omitted (as often in poetry, e.g., sic filius orsus, and even prose).

Ok! Now this sentence makes more sense to me.

Thank you everyone, that seemed to make me understand more

[Hylander]

Sorry for a more basic question but is the “accusative of specification” what might be called (by me at least) the “accusative of respect” in Greek.

Yes. A&G uses a different terminology, but it's the same phenomenon.

[mwh]

I rarely disagree with Hylander, but I read the sentence differently. I take laniata as participial, and furit as the one and only finite verb, as I explained in my post.

[marcovlatinforum]

@mwh So you would translate it as "Lavinia ... mistreating [form the "middle" perf. participle] the cheeks"? I think this still makes sense.

[Hylander]

I rarely disagree with Hylander, but I read the sentence differently. I take laniata as participial, and furit as the one and only finite verb, as I explained in my post.

After I've reread it, you're clearly right. "First Lavinia, having mutilated [herself with respect to] her blonde hair and rosy cheeks, [and] then the rest of the crowd around [her] grow wild . . . "

Prima . . . tum clinches it. furit is grammatically singular in agreement with turba, but Lavinia is a coordinate subject.

[mwh]

I wouldn’t quite say that prima … tum clinches it. It’s not primum … dein, after all, a straightforwardly temporal sequence. Prima means that Lavinia was the first to mutilate herself (and/or to go into a frenzy).
Here’s how I see it. The Queen, out of her mind with grief and shame, ignominiously hangs herself (note furorem, the keynote of the passage). Quelle horreur. When they learn of it, her daughter and the rest of them give in to furor themselves. Naturally Lavinia’s gestures of lament claim the lion’s share of attention (she takes the lead—prima), but it quite spoils the balance to take laniata as a finite verb and to restrict furit to the cetera circum turba.

As for translation, Marco, the first thing, if not the only thing, is to understand the Latin as Latin, and only then to think how best to translate it, if translate it we must. You might consider what I wrote in my earlier post. Following up on that, there are a number of possible ways of translating this, none of them accurate::
(1) As you said, the action is here carried out by the subject (that’s what I meant by calling her “the agent”), so we could treat laniatur as middle (as if it were Greek) and translate it as active, “her daughter Lavinia, tearing (maltrattando or avendo maltrattato) her fair hair and her rosy cheeks” (or in Italian we could incorporate a reflexive, -si);
or (2) we could translate it more literally as passive: “her daughter Lavinia, torn (maltrattata) in respect of her … cheeks”—but that’s hardly English;
or (3) we could try to find a compromise between the two, e.g. “her daughter Lavinia, having her … cheeks torn” (le guance maltrattate o colle guance maltrattate). That would be parallel to A&G’s translation of nodō sinūs collēcta fluentīs as “having her flowing folds gathered in a knot” (where collecta is not actually an adjective but a participle, just like laniata.

None of these are very good, and none of them convey the effect of the Greek construction on a Roman reader. The important thing is to comprehend the construction, regardless of how it’s translated. We shouldn’t let translation determine our understanding of the Latin, especially when the Latin does not coincide syntactically with English or Italian (nor with ordinary Latin ).