10 Infinitives

 

“Finally, the Infinitive of a verb can play a role in a sentence. These are the forms like amāre, spērāre that end with āre, along with esse, the infinitive of sum. An infinitive can be the Subject of another verb, such as est. Its gender is neuter.”

Infinitive Used as Neuter Subject, Example (G)

• Bonum est parāre.
• Bonum (pred.) est (3rd sing. pres.) parāre (subj.).
• Good (thing) is to prepare.
• To prepare is a good (thing).

 

To love is not a bad (thing). (21)

“An Infinitive can also complete the meaning of certain verbs, like cōgitō:” Complementary Infinitive Example (H)

• Dare cōgitō.
• Dare (inf.) cōgitō (1st sing. pres.).
• To give (inf.) I plan. >>> I plan to give.

 

“And the Infinitive can have its own object – here, tē is the object of servāre, which is complementary infinitive of cōgitābāmus:”

Tē (obj.) servāre (inf.) cōgitābāmus (1st pl. imp.). We were planning to save you.

“Each of these sentences has two verbs, one main verb with personal endings, and one infinitive.” Parāre tē cōgitāmus. (22) “Which word is the infinitive?”

You all will plan to change me. (23)

It was good to call them. (24)

 

“So, let’s return to Cato’s original sentence, which begins: Praedium cum parāre cōgitābis.”

 

“The farm, praedium, is the object. Parāre is an infinitive. As for cōgitābis, the subject is ‘you’, 2nd person singular, and the verb is future tense:”

Praedium (obj.) cum parāre (inf.) cōgitābis (2nd sing. fut.)

 

Farm (obj.) : when : to acquire (inf.) : you will plan >>> When you will plan to acquire a farm…

 

“Notice in the last step how I added ‘a’ to the noun praedium, ‘farm’. Latin does not have ‘a’ or ‘an’ or ‘the’; you can add it whenever you feel like you need to. Likewise, when you translate a sentence from English into Latin, you cannot translate ‘a’, ‘an’, or ‘the’.”

“Treat this phrase as a model for this next sentence. Don’t add subject pronouns.” Unless you were planning to acquire a farm, I was not hoping. (25)

“Likewise, use this sentence from Cato as a model and translate into English:” Sī mē rogābis, sīc dīcam.If you will ask me, I will say thus.

If he will ask me, I will say thus. (26)

 

With that, we finished. As we were walking away, we heard a man inside the villa continue the argument: Prīmō locō est glandāria silva cum porcīs! As the building receded in the distance, Latinitas grew more reflective, thinking about history instead of grammar.

“Some bits of the Roman past are gone forever. A decade after Cato died, this villa experienced a fire and burned to the ground. The owners rebuilt it on the same foundations, and it survived another six hundred years, only to be sacked by raiders from the north of Italy. Later, the locals stripped the ruins of useful building materials; what was left at that point was overgrown by weeds and trees. But there are still hundreds of villas just like Cato’s in this part of Italy – not as old, but very similar in design, with the same scalloped rooftiles. Their owners still grow the same crops, with a few new additions – tomatoes, peppers, eggplants – from the New World.

Pigs still roam the oak forests. And the fruits, olives, cheeses, and wines that this soil still produces – who can describe how heavenly they are?”

 

 

 

• A copper plate that would have been attached to the collar of an enslaved person working on a farm. The inscription reads Tenē mē nē fugia(m), et revocā mē ad dom(i)num Euviventium in ar(e)ā Callistī, which means ‘Hold me so I don’t flee, and bring me back to my master Euviventius, on the estate of Callistus.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• A marble bust of

a Roman pater or father, the so-called ‘Patrician Torlonia’. It was once thought to depict Cato the Elder, but now the identity of the subject is considered unknown. First-century CE. Notice the realism that stresses his wrinkles and age, rather than trying to repress them.

 

 

 

• A Vatican manuscript of Terence’s comedy The Andria, from the ninth-century CE. The illustrations are sketches of the scene as it would have looked when acted on the scaena or stage. Actors in the ancient world almost always wore persōnae or masks when they performed.