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In the Latin sentence "sunt in villa multi servi, multae servae." what does the multae servae mean?
This is from Ecce Romani (book 1) 4 Show-off! I've pretty much got the rest of it sorted.
... ecce! ambulat in muro, nam temerarius puer est Sextus. clamat "magnus puer sum. spectate me!" Marcus et puellae spectant et rident. Davus quoque spectat, sed non ridet.
sunt in villa multi servi, multae servae. hodie tamen Davus in horto laborat solus. defessus est et iracundus, quod dies est calidus...
Look! He walks on the wall, for Sextus is a reckless boy. He shouts "I am a big fellow. Look at me!" Marcus and the girls look and laugh. Davus (Dave) also looks, but he does not laugh.
There are many slaves on the estate, [multae servae]. Today, however, Davus works alone in the garden. He is tired and irritable because the day is hot.
I don't think the multae servae needs to be there, but it doesn't make sense to me. Servus is 2nd declension and so I don't know why it has a -ae ending. Is this supposed to signify many slaves male AND female? Or is there something I'm missing here?
3 Answers
- AngelaLv 41 decade agoFavorite Answer
In the villa there are a lot of male and female slaves.
More literal translation: In the villa there are a lot of male slaves and a lot of female slaves.
Source(s): Studied Latin for nine years... - 5 years ago
Without any reference to "what the books actually ARE", there's not enough information to "rewrite" the sentence due to the lack of information about "the books". In English "the books" can have a variety of meanings: could mean a number of literary works (as in the "book" 'The Da Vinci Code') "the books" can mean also in English "accounting ledgers"............ They way that the sentence is written now, it sounds to ME (as this is a personal interpretation) "The books got left behind" means to ME: "The books that were meant to be taken [with one] were forgotten [to be taken] by the person in question." Another complete example of the re-worked sentence would be: Due to the fact that we were in a hurry to leave for the airport, the books that we needed for the trip got left behind. I hope this helps............ Christopher K.
- 1 decade ago
i took latin last year so I am kind of inexperianced. but, i think that from what i remember you were correct when you said
"Is this supposed to signify many slaves male AND female? "
I hope that helped!
-Victoria