Monday, February 21, 2011

Fabula Facilis: Minerva et Naufragus


Dives Atheniensis olim navigat.
Tempestas ingens exorta est,
et subversa est navis!
Omnes reliqui natatu se servant.
Sed Atheniensis Minervam invocat:
"O Dea, sescenta tibi promitto,
si me ex undis eripis!"
Unus ex naufragis adnatat et dicit,
"Cum Minerva, tu quoque manus move!"

This story is based on 790. Minerva et Naufragus.



Minerva - Minerva, Athena
et - and
naufragus - shipwrecked man
dives - rich, rich man
Atheniensis - Athenian
olim - once, once upon a time
navigo - sail, travel by sea
tempestas - storm
ingens - huge, great
exorior - rise, arise
subverto - overturn, subvert
navis - ship
omnis - all, whole, every
reliquus - rest, remaining, surviving
natatus - swimming
se - reflexive pronoun
servo - save, protect, store
sed - but
invoco - call upon, summon
O - o! oh!
dea - goddess
sescenta - 600
tu - you
promitto - promise
si - if
ego - I, me
ex - from, out of
unda - wave
eripio - snatch out, rescue
unus - one
adnato - swim up, swim to
dico - say, speak
cum - with, together with
quoque - also
manus - hand
moveo - move, set in motion
M0790 Perry030

4 comments:

clark said...

Last line

With Minerva you (must) move (your) hand also.

As written there is no sense of obligation and the imperative form of moveo does not do it for me. What am I missing?

Laura Gibbs said...

I'm sorry that the imperative does not do it for you - an imperative is a command; the man swimming by is ordering the Athenian to get moving. It's not so much obligation as self-preservation! :-)
There are other variations on this proverb, too - or you can of course write your own! Here are the versions I've seen:
Cum Minerva et manum move.
Cum Minerva etiam manus move.
Cum Minerva manus etiam move.
Cum Minerva manum quoque move.
Cum Minerva manus quoque movenda est.
Minerva auxiliante, manum etiam admove.

The imperative is the common form, but maybe you will like that gerundive. :-)

Unknown said...

Shouldn't the verb in the SI-clause spoken by the Athenian be in the second person, since he's speaking directly to the goddess? SI...ERIPIS/ERIPAS...

Laura Gibbs said...

YES, absolutely - when I did the first version of this I had left it in indirect speech and then when I changed it to direct speech the eripit stayed there - mea culpa! Of course it should be second, now that he is addressing the goddess directly. I've changed it to eripis (I'm trying to avoid subjunctives in the easy fables when I can). Thank you: this is exactly why I blog the first draft of everything. Then, when I go to do a book (years from now, at this rate) I get the benefit of having drafted once and nice people finding mistakes for me.