# Pyramo Thisben ne videre quidem licebat



## bookandlanguagelover

Hello!  I'm translating a sentence and I know I have the right translation but I'm unsure of what the "-en" ending at the end of "Thisben" means.  I'd really appreciate help from the forum on this one!

"Pyramo Thisben ne videre quidem licebat."

"It was not even allowed for Pyramus to see Thisbe."


Why is it "Thisben?" 

Thanks!


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## Fred_C

bookandlanguagelover said:


> Why is it "Thisben?"
> 
> Thanks!


It is the accusative of a hellenic declension.


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## Starfrown

Fred's right. It is a feminine long-vowel noun of the Greek first declension, η-subgroup.

nom. Θίσβη Thisbē
gen. Θίσβης Thisbēs
dat. Θίσβῃ Thisbēi (note the hard-to-see iota subscript on the Greek)
*acc. Θίσβην Thisbēn*
voc. Θίσβη Thisbē

Above I have provided _transliterations_ of the Greek, which are not _necessarily_ the same as the forms used in Latin.


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## bookandlanguagelover

Thanks all!


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## quexavymz

What then would be the ablative of Thisbe?


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## Hamlet2508

quexavymz said:


> What then would be the ablative of Thisbe?



It would be *Thisbe*

regards,Hamlet


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## Ben Jamin

Fred_C said:


> It is the accusative of a hellenic declension.


 
"Incidit in Scylla*m*, qui vult vitare Charybdi*n*"
Both Scylla and Charybdis are originally Greek, but Scylla takes the Latin accusative ending -m, and Charybdis takes Greek -n.
Does the rule concern only names that do not fit a Latin declension?


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## Starfrown

quexavymz said:


> What then would be the ablative of Thisbe?





Hamlet2508 said:


> It would be *Thisbe*
> 
> regards,Hamlet



Hamlet's right, though sometimes such nouns do have the usual long "a" of the Latin first declension. See here.

Note that Greek had lost the ablative case by the classical period, with most of its functions in that language taken over by the genitive.



Ben Jamin said:


> "Incidit in Scylla*m*, qui vult vitare Charybdi*n*"
> Both Scylla and Charybdis are originally Greek, but Scylla takes the Latin accusative ending -m, and Charybdis takes Greek -n.
> Does the rule concern only names that do not fit a Latin declension?


Greek nouns in Latin are a messy business, as no Greek noun truly "fits" a Latin declension. Most of the educated Romans were quite familiar with Greek, so it mattered little to them whether they used a form adapted to their own language or the original, and often a noun case may be found in both forms. For instance, the accusatives _Charybdim_ and _Charybdin_ both occur in Latin literature.

This link provides some good information.

----
I advise those who will be reading a lot of Latin to go ahead and learn the Greek noun declensions--at the very least the nominative, accusative, and vocative forms. It doesn't take very long, and is well worth the effort.


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