@HDE226868 I take a very, very pessimistic view of people in general until I get to know them and they prove otherwise. That way I'm rarely disappointed.
@QPaysTaxes Wait, now I'm confused. I meant holding you to the promise never to have children. I'm planning to rip them from your arms and cast them into the Hudson.
@QPaysTaxes I'm lazy. The Great Pacific garbage patch is too far away.
It's okay, they'll just end up floating away on a raft or something to be raised by a shepherd and to return some day to kill me and/or save your life.
@QPaysTaxes How do you know?
@QPaysTaxes Talk about the modern decline in morals....
@QPaysTaxes Exactly! The idea of intimacy with one's wife is shocking.
@QPaysTaxes Next thing you know they'll be kissing.
Let me check my notes.
It's Daphne, 1,535-9:
alter inhaesuro similis iam iamque tenere sperat et extento stringit vestigia rostro, alter in ambiguo est, an sit conprensus, et ipsis morsibus eripitur tangentiaque ora relinquit: sic deus et virgo est hic spe celer, illa timore.
Sorry, I.535-539.
Google is your friend.
I just Googled without quotes.
@QPaysTaxes As well you should be!
@QPaysTaxes I think it's good, but the fact that the former in this case is masculine and the latter is feminine dilutes the example a bit, no? That said, I'm not thinking of another off the top of my head. I'm sure @C.M.Weimer could.
"He is swift with hope, she with fear."
Ah. Ovid Tristia, 1.2.23-4:
Nihil est, nisi pontus et aer, Nubibus hic tumidus, fluctibus ille minax.
Go ahead!
HA! Yes, nisi is "unless."
Or "except."
@QPaysTaxes "HA!" not meant as mockery.
(Just in case it came across that way!)
Before it comes "quocumque aspicio," so I think probably "there is nothing" rather than "it is nothing."
Ita est!
Am collecting resources to quote—will answer soon.
Unfortunately, I do not think it is a good way of thinking about it.
Especially since in English it would sound opposite. "The latter is swollen with clouds and the former is threatening with waves" is unusual. In English, the standard is "the former...the latter", which fits the Greek μεν...δε, but less hic...ille.
"Valid" isn't really a helpful statement. Does it accurately convey the meaning of the sentence? Using "the latter...the former" in English actually emphasizes the unusualness of the former, while in Latin there is no such connotation.
Because it emphasizes something very unique about the former, which in Latin is entirely absent from hic...ille...
The former = the sea
The latter = the air
it just doesn't work.
"The latter swelled with clouds, the former threatened with waves" as a neutral sentence is awkward no matter how you cut it.
The sentence demands the twist, why else would it be subverted?
If you do that, then you're butchering the Latin.
OR, we can just not translate it your way?
I'm not sure why you think we need to improve the sentence at all.
If you want to turn out good English poetry, you can do whatever you like, but if you're trying to convey the meaning of the Latin clearly and efficiently, it's better to educate readers on hic...ille than rearrange something so common.
So much that it actually obscures the concrete aspect of the pronouns.
It seems to me that meaning and translation are getting conflated in this argument?
@QPaysTaxes I'd say the point of translation is to preserve as much meaning as possible but that it's impossible to preserve meaning entirely.
There's a reason for the Italian saying, Traduttore, traditore. ("Translator, traitor.")
@QPaysTaxes I am now completely unable to follow this argument. But I don't mind, because conflict makes me anxious. So I'm going to go watch TV, where I can learn about Trump and Clinton, because THAT won't make me anxious at all.
@QPaysTaxes Well, I'm in the Dominican Republic, where there don't seem to be many people who care about it.
@QPaysTaxes How's yours?
@QPaysTaxes Ah, well. I don't drink (ever since a party in my sophomore year of college the taste of alcohol turns my stomach) so I'm pretty much impervious to the charms of the vine.
Yeah, it just says, "If a site reaches critical mass, it becomes a full member of the Stack Exchange Network."
In the FAQ.
Hmm. It doesn't answer that question, but it does give some other statistics. By some measures we're doing well (88% of questions answered; 90% is healthy) but by other measures we're not doing well at all (3.1 avg. questions per day; 10 is healthy and 5 "needs some work").
