# Sat upon the blooming melilot



## Casquilho

Please, tell me if my translation to Latin is right, I don’t know if the _a mane_ by itself conveys “from the early morn”.

Sat upon the blooming melilot,
Who [is she that] sings from the early morn?
It is the girl with the flaxen hair, 
The beauty with cherry lips.

_Super florente meliloto consessa,
Quae [est ista quae] canit a mane?
Est puella lintea comam, 
Formonsa cerasi labiis.

_


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## Scholiast

Salve!

With respect, I think there are several things here that don't quite work.
1. _consessa_: _considere_ is an intransitive verb, so the past participle cannot be used in the sense you want to give it, of "having sat down";
2. _super_ does not mean "on", but "above" or "over" (though to judge by the Romance derivatives, It. _sopra_ and especially Fr. _sur_, it may have been used in this sense in vulgar Latin): if you need a preposition at all (which in a vaguely poetic context such as this is not certain) it should be _in _(with Abl.);
3. _mane_ is an adverb (meaning "in the early morning"), so _a mane_ is certainly wrong;
4. _puella_ _lintea coma_ (where _linteā comā_ is a descriptive ablative); _linteus_ however is hardly used of colour - _flavus_ or _subflavus_ (Suetonius' word for Nero's hair) is surely needed;
5. _formosa_ (spello/typo);
6. In a vaguely amatory context such as this, the diminutive _labellum_ (declined after _vinum_, _templum_, _oppidum_ &c.) suggests itself.
7. _cerasus_ is indeed a cherry-tree, and in classical Latin there is no corresponding adjective - though it would be legitimate to coin an adjective _ceraseus_ (-_a_, -_um_), on the model of e.g. _laurus_ > _laureus_, "of laurel", "laurel-like".

As to the implied question about l. 2: _quae est ista quae canit_ is grammatically OK, but note that where the demonstrative pronouns are concerned, _hic_ = "this one here (near me)", _ille_ is "that one over there", at some distance from both speaker and addressee, _iste_ = "that one there [near you]". So _ista puella_ must mean "that girl [_of yours_]", or "that girl [_who lives in your neighbourhood_]" or something like it. In any case I would prefer _Quae canit...?_ on grounds of brevity and elegance.

I hope this is helpful.


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## Casquilho

Thank you, Scholiast. Now about your remarks:

1. If _considere_ isn’t a proper verb, what do you suggest?
2. Indeed I used _super_ because of "sobre" in Portuguese. Very argute observation.
3. all that implies morning, morn, at morning, early morning, from the early morning etc, as noun, adverb or ablative of time, always puzzles me. What do you suggest?
4. _puella lintea comam_ was at first suggested to me as an option by the member Quiviscumque. The member J. F. de Troyes said: “_Puella lintea comam_ is a poetic phrase whith the _Greek accusative ,_ as it was much more usual in Greek (Relation accusative). Ovidius wrote _flava comas_ like Homeros”. In another thread, some members didn’t understand me about the “Greek accusative” (I was writing it slightly wrong, but the idea was there and I tried to explain it, how I had learned it from members here), they replied I was just wrong, and one of them even treated me discourteously.
More importantly: these lines are not from myself, they were written by Leconte de Lisle. _fille aux cheveux de lin_ is his gracious, unusual metaphor. He compares the linen to the girl’s hair. I want to make classical Latin as long as it be possible, but here I don’t want to change the metaphor and make the phrase literal; where would be the salt, poetry and imagination then?
5. I’m almost sure, that _formonsa_ is a variation of _formosa_ the dictionary gave me. 
6. Ok, but is _labium_ strictly wrong?
7. in _formonsa cerasi labiis_ I used the combination of ablative and genitive that the member Calabrone showed to me, which was used by Julius Caesar:

_Est bos cervi figura, cuius a media fronte inter aures unum cornu exsistit_
De Bello Gallico:Book VI: Chapter 26: The Germans: A kind of unicorn.

Don’t know why Caesar doesn’t use the adjective _cervinus_, anyway, I felt myself free to employ this kind of construction.

PS: The idea indeed is to write _Quae canit_, the part between [ ] is only explicative, I wasn’t quite certain about the use of _quae_, so I went to the _Canticum Canticorum_ and found _Quae est ista quae_...


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## Scholiast

salve iterum!

1. You could use the present participle, _sedens_ (not _considens_, for this means "to take a seat", "settle [into a seat]"), or make a separate clause, _ut sedet_.
3. _mane_ on its own is fine for the context; you could also say _a prima hora_/_luce_ ("from the first hour", "from dawn").
4. _lintea_ _comam_: granted, _comam_ can be regarded as an accusative of respect, but I still dislike _lintea_ as an attribute of the girl, not least because this adjective is chiefly found in the context of the _lintei Libri_, an archive in one of Juno's temples (written on linen sheets); and elsewhere, it is "linen", not "flax" (this is the noun _linum_) from which linen is woven. Latin is more literal-minded than the French from which you have culled the phrase, and Engl. "flaxen" in this connexion always refers to colour rather than texture.
5. _formo(n)sa_: _formonsus_ is an archaic form, found in a couple of inscriptions, but to the best of my knowledge it is never used in literary Latin.
6-7. _labiis_ is not strictly wrong, but _labellum_ is certainly commoner in a poetic-erotic (rather than purely anatomical) context. The problem with _cerasi labiis_ (genitive and ablative) remains, and this is not sematically equivalent to the Caesar passage you cite: rendered literally, this means "There is an ox(-like animal) with the form (body/figure/stature) of a stag", and your Latin would seem to suggest that the cherry-tree (or the wood of the cherry-tree) has lips, whereas what you are trying to convey is purely the colour of the fruit.

I hope this helps.


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## Casquilho

_Salve, cultissime amice!_

"flaxen" was in a English translation I've found online, but I thank you for clarifying the difference between "linen" and "flaxen".

I got your point, the dictionary indeed gives _flavus_ and _auricomus_/_auricomans_ as translations for "flaxen" (in the old thread, someone even got the idea of an hypothetical _linicomans_). You'll likely think I'm that stubborn, but, while I really appreciate your cultivated remarks, I'll insist with the _lintea_. Horace talks about Telephus' waxen arms, _cerea bracchia _(Ode I. xiii.); he's using a metaphor, the wax metaphor, to qualify a part of his rival's body, the arms. In the same spirit I was using the _lintea_. Although this wouldn't make the intended sense to a Roman, or to an experienced latinist as you, it does make sense to the friends which shall read my translations and creative exercises in Latin. I'm always willing to make classical Latin, with its grammar; if there are two ways to say the same thing, one in classical Latin, other in late/medieval Latin, I'll likely choose the former. But in this particular instance, I may either slightly violate the classical vocabulary and preserve the linen idea, or make an explanative locution, like, "linen-coloured hair" - the third via is to abandon the linen and directly apply the _auricomans_. I'm resolved for the first option. 

About the cherry: does Latin have a word for the tree and another for the fruit? Does Pliny say something about it? The cases do not make the sense clear? Maybe I'm viewing it too much mathematically:

_bos figura cervi_ - _bos_ nominative, _figura_ ablative, _cervi_ genitive.
_formosa labello cerasi_ - _formosa_ vocative, _labello_ ablative, _cerasi_ genitive.


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## Scholiast

And again, greetings.

On the appropriateness of _lintea_ then we must agree to differ. Horace's _cerea bracchia_ is indeed an apposite comparison - note the same morphemic formation (_cer-a_ [noun], "wax"), _cer-*e-us*_ (-a, -_um_), "waxen") as in _aurum_ ("gold"), _aureus_ ("gold*en*") and my suggestion of _ceraseus_ for "cherry-red". My impression is that Horace's sense here refers both to the colour and to the tactile texture of Telephus' youthful flesh, and _linteus_ could just about do the same, but my feeling remains that Engl. "flaxen" can apply to colour only.

_cerasus_ does indeed crop up in Pliny, three or four times, with reference to both the tree and the fruit thereof. There is of course a general word for "fruit" or "berry", namely _pomum_, but it would be pedantic and clumsy to try to introduce that here. But I stick by my earlier recommendation of using the artificial formation _*ceraseis* labellis_, "cherry(-like) lips". You have correctly analysed the case-grammar both of Caesar's phrase and of your re-written _formosa labello cerasi_, but while in English "lips of cherry" would be unambiguously fine in the context, I still maintain that the semantics of the two phrases are different: in Caesar's phrase, the genitive _cervi_ is quite literal ("the shape/form *of/belonging to* a stag"), whereas "with lips *of/belonging to* a cherry [-tree]" does not make sense, even if it is the fruit or berry alone that _cerasi_ signifies.
And finally: I should stick with the plural (_cerase*is*_) _labell*is*_: lips are usually in pairs after all.

This has been an intriguingly challenging exchange - keep them coming!


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## Casquilho

With your _auxilium luxuriosum_, I fixed the lines:

_In florente meliloto sedens,
Quae canit a prima luce?
Est puella lintea comam,
Formosa cerasea labella_

For sake of congruence, I used the "Greek accusative" in both descriptions. What do you think? The participle _sessa_ wouldn't work? _Sedere _I think became _sentar_ in Portuguese, and in my language the participle _sentada_ corresponds  to _sessa_. That's confusing me!


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## Scholiast

Salve Casquilho

I must say I admire your valiant endeavours and persistence.

This is shaping up, and almost looking like something to be wrought into an Alcaic or Sapphic stanza.

As a matter of linguistic and literary taste, though, the parallel usage of the "Greek" accusative of reference in ll. 3-4 looks laboured, particularly because the homophone endings in l. 4 (all metrically short '_-a_') is to a Latin _ear_ confusing - and poetry is always meant to be an oral medium.

I'd stick therefore with the descriptive ablative, _ceraseis labellis_ - compare Horace, _Odes_ 1. 5 with his simplex munditiis (not ideally translated by Milton as "plain in thy neatness").

Hmmm. _sentada_. Here English does not help either: "Seated..." means "Placed upon/settled in a seat/chair". And "to seat" is used transitively ("The King seated his chief guest at his right hand side"). But that is not what _sedere_/_considere_ means. I need to take further counsel on that.


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## Casquilho

I'd love to know how the Latin stanzas work, but for now I'll concentrate on the participle.
I know that translation by Milton, but I scarcely have read it in depth. I know Milton twists the English to make it sound like Latin (_Paradise Lost_'s phrasing must sound much more unusual to you, English speakers, than it is to us, who speak a Neolatin language more elastic to inversions.) 

_Sentar, particípio sentada (feminino)._
To sit, participle sat.

I think "to sit" (perhaps more clearly "to sit down") is intransitive. Leconte de Lisle says, "Sur la luzerne en fleur assise" (I changed the "luzerne" for "melilot" because in Portuguese "luzerne" is "alfafa", a plant which horses and donkeys eat; no one of us would think in poetry associated to such plant. As Bocage would say, translating Ovid to Portuguese and adapting a certain word: "in our poetry it's a vulgar word". Don't know if in Latin it would be so, but anyway...)


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## Scholiast

Dear Casquilho

You are right, _sedere_ is intransitive - but that is why it cannot, at least normally, be used in passive forms; and (unlike _sentada_ in Portuguese or "seated" in English), the past participles of most Latin verbs are passive. Some compounds of intransitive verbs can however be transitive: thus _obsidere_ ("to besiege") has the perfectly valid passive use, _urbs obsessa est_, "The city was besieged".

And yes, Milton's English is highly Latinate, but that is not because "he twists the English to make it sound like Latin" as you put it: it's rather because from a very early age - probably from as soon as he began to learn to read and write, he was taught Latin and Greek (and Hebrew too) as well as English. By the time he was in his teens he was already so deeply steeped in classical (and biblical) literature, he was, so to speak, "hard-wired" not only to write in this way, but to _think_ in these idioms.

I liked, incidentally, your choice of "melilot", a pretty (albeit unusual) word which seems to me perfectly judged for the context.


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