# Deponent "sīgnor"?



## Dib

Saluete omnes!

Today I stumbled on Vergil's Georgics book 4 line 15:

"et manibus Procnē pectus signāta cruentīs"

I really can't parse this line. The best I could do was to take Procnē as nominative and as one of the "coordinated" subjects to "absint" in line 13, and signāta as the perfect participle of a deponent "signor" (which, however, doesn't seem to exist in Lewis & Short) agreeing with the subject Procnē, and governing "pectus" as its accusative object. However, I am almost sure that this parsing is wrong, based on the the non-existence of such a deponent verb in the exhaustive dictionary of Lewis & Short. In fact, L&S, quotes this very line as an example of usage of normal non-deponent signō.

So, please, help me parse this line, O all of you ever-helpful folks in the forum.

Thanks in advance!


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## Scholiast

salvete omnes

A rather entagled myth lies behind this. I wonder whether Dib wants the short explanation or the long one?

The short option here, to start with: "And Procne, marked on her breast with bloody hands"...

Yes, _Procne_ is nominative.* _signata_ (from _signare_, not deponent, incidentally) agrees with this (www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DS%3Aentry+group%3D43%3Aentry%3Dsigno) and is past participial. _manibus...cruentis_ are (instrumental) ablative.

_pectus_ is what ancient teachers of Latin grammar such as me conventionally refer to as an "accusative of respect": "marked _as to_ the bosom with...".**

Of course I recognise that this is a far from fully adequate explanation.

Σ

*[Edit] And indeed, one of the string of subjects to _absint_ at the start of l. 13.
** [Further edit] See A&G § 397b.


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## Dib

Thank you very much, Scholiast, for your detailed and referenced answer as usual. This was a completely new grammatical feature for me. Thanks again for lifting the mystery, though my brain will still struggle to parse this naturally for sure!


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## Scholiast

salvete de novo!



Dib said:


> though my brain will still struggle to parse this naturally for sure



Dib may rest assured: it was something of a mystery to Latin poets and rhetoricians themselves—as Dib's own foraging in L&S will already have shown, it is a structure not native to Latin at all, rather one of those "imports" from classical Greek (and hence sometimes referred to as a "Greek" accusative by grammarians even more ancient than I am—or more modern), and hardly attested at all before the Augustan age.

Σ


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## Dib

Thank you, Scholiast, for all the additional information. This makes me ask a related question. Is there a parallel native Latin way of expressing the idea, maybe using another case? Or does it have to be reformulated? For example: Is "Absit Procne manibus cruentis (in) pectore signata" or something like that possible in Latin?


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## Scholiast

salvete omnes discipuli

Were I teaching Dib Latin Prose Composition, I would probably advise against any attempt to better Virgil or Ovid. But now we are about it, _in pectore signata_ is grammatically fine, it just lacks Virgil's oomph.

Σ


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## Dib

Thank you very much for the confirmation, Scholiast, and sorry for the long delay in replying.


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