# olim annis ille ardor hebet



## bluton

Topic: olim annis ille ardor hebet
Added by Cagey, moderator 


I am trying to figure out what this means.
Here is my attempt:

"In the future after years that heat becomes dull."

I cannot understand how "olim" can be used with the present tense. It should have been the future tense!


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## Glenfarclas

Could you tell us where you found this (an inscription on a tomb, a medieval poem, a video game, ...) and what the surrounding context is?

Also, are you sure that it's _hebet_ and not _habet_?


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## bluton

I got it from English Wiktionary, article "hebeo".


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## Glenfarclas

bluton said:


> I am trying to figure out what this means.
> Here is my attempt:
> 
> "In the future after years that heat becomes dull."



Mozley's translation of this passage from Flaccus' _Argonautica_ has, "The years have long since dulled the old fire."



bluton said:


> I cannot understand how "olim" can be used with the present tense. It should have been the future tense!



"Olim" is normally used with the present or the _past_ tense.  In any case, the sense here is "for a long time, since long ago."


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## wandle

bluton said:


> I am trying to figure out what this means.


The meaning is 'That enthusiasm of mine has long since by the passage of years become dull'.

_hebet _is present tense, meaning 'is dull'. In the context, it is understood as 'has become dull'.
_olim _here has the meaning 'for a long time past'.


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## bluton

wandle said:


> The meaning is 'That enthusiasm of mine has long since by the passage of years become dull'.
> 
> _hebet _is present tense, meaning 'is dull'. In the context, it is understood as 'has become dull'.
> _olim _here has the meaning 'for a long time past'.



Where did you get "of mine" from, if I may ask? I'm just curious because I am a beginner in Latin.
By the way, can you quote a source for the meaning of "olim" that you gave?


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## Glenfarclas

It is definition 2 of _olim_ in the Oxford Latin Dictionary: "For a long time past, since long ago (often with verb in present tense)."


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## wandle

bluton said:


> Where did you get "of mine" from, if I may ask?


_Ille_ is there for emphasis. In this case, the quotation comes, as *Glenfarclas* mentioned, from the _Argonautica_.
In the context, it refers to a remark two lines earlier: 'If I had my former strength ...'



bluton said:


> By the way, can you quote a source for the meaning of "olim" that you gave?


Lewis & Short give this as the second metaphorical meaning of _olim_:


> *2.* Now for a long time, this good while, long ago (mostly post-Aug.; “not in Cic.):
> _olim non librum in manus sumpsi: olim nescio, quid sit otium,_” Plin. Ep. 8, 9, 1: “a_udio quid veteres olim moneatis amici,_” Juv. 6, 346


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## bluton

Thanks.


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## voltape

I picked the word OLIM long ago from the famous "Carmina Burana" by Carl Off - it has the aria: 
Olim lacus colueram, 
olim pulcher extiteram, 
dum cignus ego fueram.
Miser, miser! 
modo niger 
et ustus fortiter.
It is the story of a swan that has been cooked - Olim is obviously the past - "A time ago I lived in the lake, A time ago I had a beautiful life when I was an "alive" swan -  and the chorus answers: Woe, Woe, now you are black and burned"


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