faciens iter:
"traveling." It is typical of VL (as also of informal English) to replace
verbs with a periphrasis composed of an abstract word and an all-purpose
verb like facio or English make or do. Cf. do a
study of in place of the verb study.
civitatem:
"city," a meaning preserved in Romance derivatives of the word.
Batanis:
prob. Bathnae = mod. Sürüc in Turkey (TAW 37.D.9).
No city of this name is mentioned in the Bible. The Bathnae of Joshua 19:25
is a different city from the one that E. visits here.
quae civitas:
the repetition of the antecedent here promotes clarity but is in general
a mannerism of both informal language and "bureaucratese," which nowadays
continues to influence everyday usage.
usque in hodie:
"right up to today." Such combinations of a prep. with an adv. are
a trait of VL that survives in such Romance formations as French avant
from ab ante, or Spanish donde from de unde. Cf. "from
whence" for "whence" in English.
ecclesia:
phonetic spelling of ecclesiam. In VL, final -m was suppressed
in all words exc. monosyllables (e.g., French rien from rem).
et monacho et confessore:
appositives defining episcopo vere sancto. What the term confessor
means is uncertain, but its specialization as a regional ecclesiastical
term is clear from the fact that E. applies it to Mesopotamian bishops
exclusively.
aliquanta:
used in the same sense as aliquot in the previous sentence.
VL confuses "mass words" and "count words." Speakers of English show the
same tendency when they have trouble deciding between
less and fewer.
Ipsa etiam civitas:
"the city also." The use of the pron. ipse is significantly
more extensive in VL than in CL. In addition to its Classical function
as an intensive pron./adj., Vulgar ipse can also be a demonstrative
pron./adj., a third personal pron., or, as here, a definite article. In
some Romance languages (e.g., Provençal), the definite article is
derived from ipse.
habundans multitudine:
the misspelling of the first word reflects the extinction of the Latin
aspirate as of ca. A.D. 200 and, possibly, a folk etymology deriving abundans
from habere. As for the expression itself, VL is fond of pleonasm,
i.e., the repetition of the same idea in different words. Note also
habundans . . . est instead of abundat: another case
of a verbal idea expressed with a combination of abstraction plus all-purpose
verb.
miles:
"garrison." Sg. nouns used "collectively" in a pl. sense (e.g., "the
student body are all agreed") are a common feature of VL.
sedet:
used in the sense of the compd. praesidet. This is the reverse
of the usual Vulgar practice of preferring compd. to simple verbs.
proficiscens:
treated as an indeclinable participle. Once the participle trans
was so treated, it evolved into a preposition.
Edessam:
the city of Edessa = mod. Urfa in Turkey (TAW 37.D.8). Edessa
was the capital of the province called Osrhoene, which was organized in
the A.D. 300s. For the ecclesiastical importance of Edessa, see Gingras,
pp. 202-3.
Ubi cum pervenissemus:
VL tends to obliterate the distinction between the ideas of "place
in which" and "place to which." It generally favors expressions of the
former, as here, where CL would have the adv. quo ("whither") instead
of ubi. Similarly, where has replaced whither in mod.
English.
perreximus:
from pergo ("proceed," "continue on").
ad ecclesiam et ad martyrium sancti Thomae:
one building or two? For the arguments pro and con, see Gingras, p.
205, and Wilkinson, pp. 224-25. St. Thomas was the apostle who initially
refused to believe that Christ had come back to life (hence "a doubting
Thomas"). The episode is related in John 20:26-29.
Itaque ergo:
another pleonasm of the same sort as habundans multitudine above.
iuxta:
"according to."
orationibus:
"prayers," as always in Christian writers.
et cetera:
E.'s failure to write the form (abl. ceteris) required by strict
grammar prob. has much to do with the status of et cetera as a fixed,
invariable expression.
quae [acc. pl.] consuetudo erat:
another example of VL's preference for combinations of abstraction
and verb. She could have written quae [nom. pl.] solebant.
nec non etiam et:
a pleonasm in origin, but by E.'s day a fixed expression meaning simply
"also." E. uses atque rarely and -que not at all, and et,
being semantically weak, she augments with a host of synonymous but more
emphatic connectives, of which nec non etiam et, occurring 12x,
is one.
aliquanta ipsius [definite article] sancti Thomae:
either the apocryphal Acts of Thomas, written at Edessa in Syriac in
the A.D. 200s; or else the Gospel of Thomas, which was well known in the
West but condemned as apocryphal as early as the time of Origen (185-255).
Ecclesia:
a "dangling nominative" the predicate of which never arrives; a form
of anacoluthon that is common in Roman comedy and in spoken Latin generally.
A nom. introduces the main topic of the sentence, which then moves into
a different construction. A word or phrase later in the sentence typically
refers back to the initial nom., though that does not happen here.
que:
phonetic spelling of quae. In VL, the diphthongs ae and
oe were pronounced the same as the e in English set
and were often spelled accordingly. This type of sound change is called
"monophthongization," i.e., the process by which diphthongs change into
single vowel sounds.
ingens et valde pulchra:
i.e., magna et pulcherrima. Informal speech favors hyperbole
(hence ingens for magna), and VL prefers adverbs to suffixes
as a means of forming comparatives and superlatives (hence valde pulchra
for pulcherrima). See Allen and Greenough 291, Note 1.
nova dispositione:
"modern in its layout," prob. with reference to the interior. Edessa
was subject to frequent flooding, and the church there incurred heavy damage
in 201 and 303. It was rebuilt between 313 and 324, and it was enlarged
in 327-28.
ut vere digna est:
a result clause with an indicative predicate. This construction belongs
mostly to VL and is not found until the mid-100s. E. uses it only 5x, and
purpose clauses with indicative verbs never.
esse:
CL would have quae sit. E. uses both constructions, but she
has the Classical construction only once.
necesse me fuit:
unaccented personal pronouns are commonly put after the first word
or phrase in the clause, even when this separates two syntactically related
words like necesse and fuit here. This tendency is common
to all Indo-European languages and is known as Wackernagel's Law.
stativa triduana:
"three-day stopover"; acc. sg. f. spelled phonetically. VL triduanus
opp. CL triduus illustrates the Vulgar proclivity for adding suffixes
(cf. English orientate opp. orient).
sic ergo:
pleonasm.
vidi:
"I visited"
plurima:
agrees with martyria in form but in sense modifies sanctos
monachos as well.
nec non et:
pleonastic connective comparable to "and also" in English. As an archaism,
it occurs in epic poetry; for the same reason, it is missing in CL but
found in technical prose and later VL. E. uses it 7x (cf. nec non etiam
et in 19.2 above).
alios . . . alios:
"some . . . others" (so-called "partitive apposition" with sanctos
monachos: Allen and Greenough 282.a).
longius . . . secretioribus:
the partiality of VL to emphatic forms extends to comparatives, which
(as here) often convey no comparative sense. Cf. English sooner
or later or at better stores everywhere.
de civitate:
VL largely ignores the distinction in meaning among ab, de,
and ex and uses de indifferently in preference to the other
two. The end result is apparent in the Romance languages, where ab
and ex are extinct as prepositions.
monasteria:
cells occupied by monks, not monasteries.
ipsius civitatis:
the definite article ipse again.
ait:
formally a historical present, but functionally little more than a
marker of a direct quotation. E. uses ait exclusively to indicate
direct quotations; inquit is missing entirely.
michi:
in E.'s orthography, -h- between vowels indicates hiatus (e.g.,
Israhel
for Israël), while -ch- between vowels indicates the
aspirate h, as here. The latter is a pedantic spelling, for aspirates
were extinct in spoken Latin by A.D. 200.
filia:
sc. in Christo (the complete expression is found in the writings
of St. Jerome). As E. uses this metaphor, filia is always vocative,
and only the bishops of Edessa and Carrhae (both in Mesopotamia) address
E. as such.
tam magnum:
the usual word for "large" in VL is grandis, which E. uses 21x.
CL magnus she uses only 4x, accompanied by tam in all cases
but one. For her, then, tam magnus(cf. CL tantus) must have
been a fixed expression, and it survives as such in the Spanish word tamaño.
de extremis porro terris:
even if this is rhetorical exaggeration (the bishop's greeting ishighly
rhetorical), this is all that E. has to tell us about the
location of her homeland.
itaque ergo:
a pleonasm answering quoniam at the beginning of the bishop's
welcome. The high degree of grammatical subordination in the bishop's words
is perhaps the most obvious sign of their formality.
si libenter habes:
"if you please." Since one of the Latin glossaries uses this expression
and the verb delector to define a Greek verb meaning "enjoy,"
libenter
habere must have been an everyday expression for E.
grata ad videndum:
"pleasing to visit." The bishop's use of the gerund is another sign
of his formality, for the use of the gerund in VL was limited to the abl.
sg. functioning as a pres. part. Nevertheless, correct Classical usage
here would prescribe the supine visu, which, exc. as a relic preserved
in certain fixed expressions, was obsolete in colloquial Latin as early
as the beginning of the Empire.
ostendimus tibi:
sc. ea. The use of the pres. tense to refer to future time (the
so-called "future present") is a colloquialism occurring in all periods,
though it is commonest in Late Latin and with verbs signifying motion (cf.
English "tomorrow we leave for Europe"). Its colloquial nature is reflected
in the fact that E. uses it only in dialogue.
tunc ergo:
answers quoniam at the beginning of the sentence. The syntactical
complexity of the bishop's words has affected the language that E. uses
to quote them.
et sic:
"and then," correlative with primum. Inferential advv. like
sic often function as simple connectives in VL, their meaning determined
by the context.
ipsi:
here a third personal pron., like ipsius and (prob.) ipsi
in the next sentence.
plurimum:
E.'s sole use of the superlative of adv. multum.
Aggari regis:
Abgar V ("the Black"), who was king of Osrhoene from 4 B.C. until A.D.
7, and then A.D. 13-50. The form of the name Abgar (the usual name
of Edessa's kings) is due to "assimilation" of the first consonant.
archiotepam:
"portrait." The spelling archeotipam just below reflects the
homophony in VL of the vowel sounds short i and long e (the
former turning into the latter). There would thus be no phonetic clue as
to whether to write e or i. In either form, the word is a
borrowing of a Greek neuter plural and thus illustrates the proclivity
in VL for changing neuter plurals into feminine singulars (both ending
in -a).
ingens:
presumably acc. sg. f., since E. uses the word as such once elsewhere.
For her, ingens has number but not case. Thus, out of 20 occurrences
of the word, in only one is sg. ingens or pl. ingentes not
found. Alternatively, some take ingens here to be adv. modifying
simillimam ("an immensely good likeness").
ipsi:
"the locals"
tanti . . ac si ["as if"]:
a correlation unique to Late Latin. For "clauses of comparison" such
as that here, see Allen and Greenough 524 and the note on ac si
in 19.7 below.
de margarita esset:
sc. facta. Note the collective singular margarita, as
often with the name of a material (e.g., "the house was built of stone").
The construction of de margarita is abl. of material (Allen and
Greenough 403.2), like de tali marmore below.
cuius Aggari:
the antecedent is repeated after the relative; cf. quae civitas
in 19.1 above.
parebat:
"it was clear" (VL for CL apparebat). In CL, pareo means
"obey," because a servant "appears" when called.
de contra:
"as you faced it." A prep. combined with an adv.: cf. usque in hodie
in 19.1 above.
satis: "rather," "quite," "very"
antequam videret Dominum:
in temporal clauses introduced by antequam, priusquam,
dum,
etc., the subjunctive replaces the indicative in VL. The designation of
Christ as Dominus originates in the New Testament, where the Greek
equivalent of Dominus (Kyrios) is similarly used.
credidit . . .quia esset:
in Late Latin, indirect statement takes the form of a noun clause introduced
by quod, quoniam, or quia; the verb is usu. subjunctive,
as it is here. Cf. the Classical construction at the beginning of the bishop's
welcome in 19.5.
filius Dei:
a Biblical expression that E. uses only here.
iuxta:
adv.
filii ipsius:
here ipse is a third personal pron. ("of his son").
Magni:
a corruption of Syriac Ma nou, who was king A.D. 50-57.
et ipsa:
"it too"; pleonastic restatement of similiter.
gratiae:
partitive gen. with aliquid (Allen and Greenough 346.a.3) and
denoting either concrete "beauty" or abstract "kindness."
perintravimus:
a clear example of the partiality of VL to compounds. E. is especially
fond of the prefix per (lit. "thoroughly"), which soon reappears
in perlustres and pergirarent below.
in interiori parte:
place where substituted for place to which, as already in 19.2 above.
Abl. sg. comparatives ending in -i are rare before Seneca (died
A.D. 65) and are condemned by the grammarian Charisius, E.'s contemporary.
piscibus pleni:
the use of the abl. with plenus is an innovation dating to the
late Republic; the indigenous construction is plenus with gen.
vel . . . aut:
"both . . . and"; the expansion of or to cover the meaning "and"
is a generalization from cases in which or and and
serve
equally well. For example, in a sentence like "the infinitive and the gerund
are the correct forms to use," one could just as well say "the infinitive
or the gerund is the correct form to use." In corresponsions like aut
. . . aut or vel . . . vel, the same conjunction is normally
repeated; variation such as that found here is rare in all periods, but
least so in Late Latin.
perlustres:
"translucent"
aliam aquam penitus non habet nunc:
"does not now have any other water supply at all." CL would have
omnino
or prorsus instead of penitus.
de palatio exit:
note the use of de even when the verb is combined with ex-
(note on de civitate in 19.4 above).
ac si:
equivalent to quasi in CL; a Vulgarism fist found in the continuations
of Caesar's commentaries. Above in 19.6, ac si introduces a clause
of comparison.
retulit:
for CL rettulit. E. uses a regularized form, since it conforms
to the usual rule for adding prefixes to verbs; the Classical form is a
contraction of re- plus the obsolete pf. tetuli.
ad Dominum:
one of the major syntactical innovations in VL is the replacement of
the gen., dat., and abl. cases of nouns and pronouns with prepositional
phrases. Here ad Dominum does duty for the Classical dat. Domino,
which, however, reappears in Aggaro in the next clause.
Ananiam:
the Greek name Ananias declined as a first-declension Latin
noun (gender m.).
transacto ergo aliquanto tempore:
creates an anacoluthon by restating the essence of posteaquam .
. . in ipsa epistola.
Persi:
for Classical Persae, which is found below in 19.9-12. VL likes
to eliminate such discrepancies between form (first declension) and gender
(masculine).
girant:
phonetic spelling of the Greek loan word gyrant ("encircle").
civitatem istam:
another example of a demonstrative pron./adj. used as a definite article.
ferens:
VL prefers porto to fero (hence its survival in the Romance
languages as the verb for "carry"), CL vice versa. Correspondingly, Caesar
avoids porto and its compounds, while E. uses fero only 4x.
Here, portans ad portam would offend the ear.
promiseras:
plupf. instead of an expected pf. This usage is called a "transferred
pluperfect" and is found most often in informal Latin, esp. in relative
clauses with the verb dico, as in 19.16 below. We do something similar
in English when we say things like, "I had expected you to arrive an hour
ago."
ne aliquis hostium ingrederetur:
"that no one of the enemy enter." Here E. uses a jussive noun clause
with the verb promitto, but elsewhere she reverts to the Classical
construction of acc. + fut. inf. The Classical insistence on
quis
and avoidance of aliquis after si, nisi,
ne,
and num have lapsed by E.'s day, and she does not use
quisquam
at all; but cf. quis, followed by alicuius, in 19.17 below.
tenens . . . rex:
nominative absolute, a construction unique to Late Latin and usu. employing
a pres. act. part., as here.
manibus levatis:
"with raised hands." Beginning with Seneca the Elder (fl. A.D. 15),
levare manus (or palmas) becomes the standard expression
for this idea; in CL, tollere manus.
ad subito:
"of a sudden"; another example of the Vulgar mannerism of appending
prepositions to adverbs.
foras civitatem tamen:
"but only outside the city." In general, particles like tamen
function much more freely in VL than in CL, which treats tamen as
an adversative particle ("nevertheless"). Here, though, it is restrictive
("at least"). As for the Classical adv. foras, in VL it also functions
as a prep. and essentially replaces extra. Accordingly, the French
and Spanish advv. meaning "outside" are both derived from foras.
prope plicarent:
"were drawing near." Like the unattested verb *arripare ("to
put to shore"), whence English arrive, plicare ("fold") originates
in the jargon of sailors, for whom folding the sails signified drawing
close to shore. E.'s use of plicare to mean "approach" would appear
to be unparalleled, and yet it must have been common parlance, for it is
preserved in Spanish as llegar and in Portuguese as chegar.
On the other hand, the compd. applicare is used in this sense from
the A.D. 300s on, and ever more often with the passage of time.
usque tertium miliarium:
lit. "as far as the third milestone," as if the verb were still plicarent.
Thus, de civitate essent ("were away from the city") creates a slight
anacoluthon. Prepositional usque instead of usque ad belongs
to popular speech and becomes frequent in Late Latin, usu. following its
object.
essent:
CL would have abessent.
in miliario tertio:
"at the third milestone," i.e., "at a distance of three miles."
qua parte in civitate ingrederentur:
"in what region to enter the city" (a deliberative subjunctive expressed
indirectly, for which see Allen and Greenough 575.b). Since "place where"
commonly replaces "place to which" in VL, it is a purely academic question
whether civitate is abl. sg. or acc. sg. spelled phonetically. The
omission of in with qua parte is not uncommon even in CL.
per giro:
phonetic spelling of per gyrum ("roundabout"). By now the suppression
of -m in VL is familiar; the final vowel -o is due to the
convergence in VL of short u and long o, the former evolving
into the latter.
clusam:
a back formation synonymous with clausam ("shut off") and created
out of the compd. concludo.
hostibus:
"by their armies." All words for "enemy" in the Romance languages are
derived from inimicus.
in miliario tamen tertio:
"if only at a distance of three miles," tamen being restrictive.
Next, after quam, it is untranslatable and due to E.'s fondness
for attaching tamen to relatives, though here the remoteness of
the antecedent civitatem could also be a contributing factor.
mensibus aliquod:
abl. of duration of time (Allen and Greenough 424.b). Though exampled
in Caesar, this is primarily a Vulgar construction that E. uses 28x opp.
only one example of the acc. of duration. The indeclinable adj. aliquot
is found with a final -d on inscriptions as early as Augustus' Res
gestae. The reverse substitution in other cases (e.g., aput,
illut)
would seem to indicate that in certain cases, final -d and -t
after vowels had merged into the same phoneme.
siti:
i-stem case ending of abl. sg. (Allen and Greenough 76); abl. of means.
occidere:
the usual verb for "kill" in everyday Latin (hence its survival in
Romance languages like Italian) but avoided by purists like Caesar, for
whom the verb of choice is interficio.
monticulum:
strict grammar would require monticulus, which is here assimilated
to the case of the relative pronoun. When this occurs, the arrival of the
main clause is commonly indicated by a demonstrative pronoun referring
to the antecedent, as happens here with ipse. As a diminutive form,
monticulus
belongs to a class of words whose ubiquity in VL is reflected in the derivation
of many Romance nouns from diminutives, e.g., French
soleil ("sun")
from Latin soliculus, not sol. For E., "hill" is 6x colliculus,
but collis only twice.
in illo tempore:
even when, as here, the abl. noun is modified by an adjective, poetry
and informal prose tend to use a prep. in the construction known as "abl.
of time when or within which" (Allen and Greenough 423, 424.a). This is
esp. the case in Late Latin, which uses an abl. without a prep. to express
duration
of time (cf. 19.10 just above).
fecerunt ei decursum:
"caused it to run down," ei being dat. sg. f. referring to ipsam
aquam. She could have written fecerunt ut ea decurreret, but
in VL, abstract nouns proliferate at the expense of verbs. Cf. faciens
iter for iens in 19.1 above.
contra ipso loco:
a phonetic spelling of ipsum locum that reflects the suppression
of final -m and the convergence of short u and long o.
Cf. per giro in 19.10 above.
posita habebant:
instead of the Classical plupf. posuerant. In VL, the perfect
functions as a preterite exclusively; otherwise, all three perfect tenses
in the active voice are replaced by a periphrasis consisting of a form
of habere and a pf. pass. part. modifying the direct object. In
the next sentence, though, E. writes averterant.
ergo:
with little inferential force, like so in informal English narratives.
qua:
adv. "when," as is clear from the expression diebus qua that
E. uses more than once. She uses qua in this sense often (e.g.,
in 19.17 below), but, in general, few writers do.
hii:
most likely a hypercorrect misspelling of ii (there being no
phonetic clue to the presence or absence of the letter h in VL).
For the nom. pl. m. of hic, E. writes hi 6x, and her misspelling
here is paralleled by hisdem for isdem 5x.
in eo loco:
"in this place" (eo is "deictic"). CL would have in hoc loco,
but the semantic distinctions among the demonstratives
hic, iste,
ille, and is were largely erased in VL.
iusso:
for CL iussu. VL routinely transfers fourth-declension forms
to the second declension.
a semel:
"all at once"; cf. ad subito in 19.9 above. The Vulgate has
de semel, and Gregory of Tours (538-594) writes ad semel.
gratia Dei:
"by the grace of God." Though it translates a Greek phrase that is
frequent in the New Testament (e.g., Romans 5:15), gratia Dei in
its abl. use here is surprisingly uncommon.
nec ipsi haberent vel una die quod biberent qui obsedebant civitatem:
"those who were besieging the city didn't have anything to drink for
even one day."
nec ipsi:
in popular speech, neque/nec is found reduced to the status
of a synonym of non; nevertheless, nec ipsi gives
the impression of being a fixed expression, since E. uses it elsewhere
as well.
vel una die:
abl. of duration of time, vel being intensive "even" (Allen
and Greenough 291.c).
quod biberent:
relative clause of characteristic (Allen and Greenough 535.a).
obsedebant:
a spelling that may be due simply to the convergence of the vowel short
i
with long e, as in 19.6 above. Alternatively, a mass of evidence
indicates that everyday speech tends to resist compounding, since isolating
a compd. from its constituent elements phonetically (opsideo differs
from ob + sedeo) obscures its derivation and, hence, its
meaning. It is no doubt for this reason that Americans persist in retaining
the aspirate in forehead despite the preference of their dictionary
to the contrary. The same tendency is apparent in the Romance languages,
where Spanish sobar ("knead," "massage"), for example, presupposes
Latin *subagere rather than subigere.
sicut tamen et:
"as also." Just as after the relative pron. quam in 19.10 above,
tamen here is untranslatable and due to E.'s proclivity for attaching
it to subordinating words such as relatives. Nevertheless, here too, the
remoteness of the words to which sicut refers (illa autem aqua
. . . siccata est) could be a contributing factor.
nec qualiscumque humor:
"any water of any sort at all." VL replaces ne . . . quidem
with nec. As E. uses aqua throughout this passage, it appears
to carry the specialized meaning "water supply." That may be the reason
why "water" here is humor, not aqua.
usque in hodie:
pleonastic after postea numquam.
Ac sic:
"and so"; cf. et sic in 19.5 above.
qui hoc promiserat futurum:
esse with futurum is lacking, as is usu. the case when
a fut. inf. is predicate of an indirect statement. The detail related here,
that God had promised the rout of the Persians, is generally thought to
be a late addition to the legend of Abgar. See Gingras, pp. 206-7.
Persida:
Greek acc. sg., though in this case prob. Latin Persidam written
phonetically, since E. does not know Greek. It is common in VL for third-declension
Greek masculines and feminines to be taken into Latin in their acc. sg.
form (-a ending) and transformed into first-declension Latin nouns.
Similarly, it is the acc. sg. of Latin nouns that is generally supposed
to be preserved in the Romance languages, though here linguistic borrowing
is not a factor.
voluerunt venire et expugnare:
a periphrasis equivalent in sense to venerunt et expugnaverunt.
In the vast majority of cases (15 out of 17), E. substitutes such a periphrasis
for a verb formed from the third principal part, perh. because that form
is often irregular or otherwise difficult. The finite verb most often used
in such periphrases is coepi.
expugnare:
"attack," which would properly be oppugnare. Esp. in Late Latin,
the difference in meaning between these compdd. of pugno was often
blurred.
Illud:
referring to the indirect statement to follow.
eo quod . . . fuerit:
indirect statement expressed by means of a noun clause, as previously
in 19.6 above. The frequent combination of abl. eo ("on account
of this") and the conjunction quod ("the fact that") has led to
both words' together being treated as a single conjunction meaning "that."
In the travelogue section of her work, E. uses eo quod more often
than any of the other conjunctions (quod, quia, and quoniam)
that introduce indirect statement.
hii fontes:
proleptic subject of eruperunt ("when these springs burst forth").
ante sic:
"previously," i.e., before the time indicated in the preceding
ubi-clause.
The force of sic is unclear. It may answer ubi, or perh.
it means something like "just as there always had been."
fuerit:
both its meaning (time before eruperunt) and the temporal sequence
(secondary) would lead one to expect plupf. fuisset.
Quod palatium:
connective relative adj., for which see Allen and Greenough 308.f.
quasi:
"quite," "rather," "somewhat," modifying
editiori.
in editiori loco:
the comparative sense of the comparative is much attenuated, as already
in 19.4 above. With the i-stem comparative cf. interiori in 19.7
above.
quotiensque:
with the meaning of quotienscumque ("as often as"). This usage
is colloquial and obsolete in Classical prose, but it occurs in technical
prose such as handbooks and legal texts, and in Late Latin generally, it
is widespread. E. has previously written quotienscumque in 19.13
above.
fabricabantur:
VL for CL aedificabantur. Similarly, E.'s "buildings" are fabricae
and never aedificia, though "build" is 2x aedifico, otherwise
usu. facio.
postmodum quam:
CL would have postea quam, which in fact is found below in 19.16.
in eo loco:
with the same meaning as in 19.12 above.
archiotipa . . . patre posita:
all three words are phonetic spellings of acc. sg.
ita tamen ut:
"but designed in such a way that"
ad me:
instead of the dative case, as already in 19.8 above.
dixeram:
"transferred" plupf., as already in 19.9 above.
fecit orationem:
the verb oravit replaced by an all-purpose verb combined with
an abstract noun; see the note on faciens iter in 19.1 above.
ipsas epistolas:
the letter from Abgar to Christ and Christ's reply. Throughout E.'s
travels, pertinent texts (usu. of Scripture) are commonly read aloud at
the site of a religious landmark.
benedicens nos:
leads us to expect a third active verb after fecit and legit;
but in what follows, E. suddenly switches to the passive voice. In CL,
benedico
is treated as two independent words and construed accordingly, i.e., with
the dative. The compounding and transitivization of benedico belong
to Christian Latin, in which the meaning of the verb becomes highly specialized.
iterato: pleonastic after denuo.
qua:
adv. "when," as already in 19.12 above.
custodiatur:
"the custom is observed"
lugubris:
"in mourning"
sed:
instead of sed et, which E. uses 8x as a coordinating conjunction
("and also"). It is a remnant of the expression non modo . . . sed etiam
("not only . . . but also"), which was perceived as equivalent to "both
. . . and."
nec:
instead of CL ne, after which the indefinite pron. would be
cuius,
not alicuius (see 19.9 above).
eiciatur:
"be carried out," not "be thrown out." In Late Latin the meaning of
iacio, at least in compounds, was commonly weakened to "take," "carry,"
"lead," etc. The ultimate cause of this semantic shift lies in the proclivity
of VL for forceful words and expressions (i.e., for hyperbole and overstatement).
vel:
"and"; see 19.7 above.
ipsius:
third personal pron.
pulchra . . . facta:
acc. sg. f.
etiam . . . et:
pleonasm. In E.'s travelogue, these words are 4x juxtaposed in the
collocation etiam et.
ad illum palatium superiorem quod:
the use of quod would seem to indicate that E. considers illum
and superiorem to be neuter forms. Such cases as this illustrate
how the neuter nouns in the second declension (e.g., palatium) were
transformed into masculines, the ultimate result being the extinction of
the neuter gender in the Romance languages. The process was accelerated
by the fact that in the singular, second-declension masculines and neuters
are identical in all forms exc. the nominative.
primitus:
VL favors adverbs ending in -iter and -itus. This particular
example E. uses 7x, but only in the travelogue section of her work.
si qua:
"whatever," lit. "if any." After si, nisi,
ne,
and num, the interrogative pron. (quis) and adj. (qui)
are indefinite rather than interrogative in meaning. In the case of the
adj., all irregular forms ending in -ae are regularized to
qua (but not nom. pl. f. quae, which is not irregular). See
Allen and Greenough 149, 310.a.
monstravit nobis:
sc. ea.
Illud:
looks forward to the following result clause.
satis:
same meaning as in 19.6 above.
grato:
nom. sg. n. gratum spelled phonetically, there being no evidence
of adv. grato.
sive . . . sive:
"both . . . and"; cf. vel . . . aut in the same sense in 19.7
above.
ad Dominum . . . ad Aggarum:
see 19.8 above. Datives depending on nouns (e.g., "a gift for my friend")
were common in informal Latin, but they also occur in Early Latin, in poetry,
and even in so fastidious a writer as Tacitus.
acciperem michi:
such expressions are the prototype of the reflexive verbs that abound
in the Romance languages (e.g., "je me lave les mains" in French).
licet:
"although" (Allen and Greenough 527.b)
in patria:
last referred to but not identified in 19.5 above.
exemplaria ipsarum:
the earliest Latin translation known was written by Rufinus in A.D.
403.
gratius:
comparative here, but positive at the beginning of the section, with
little difference in meaning between the two; cf. 19.4 and 19.14 above.
et ibi:
"there also," in addition to her homeland.
de ipso:
cf. ab ipso sancto with the same verb in the previous sentence;
for an explanation, see the note on de civitate in 19.4 above.
ne . . . forsitan:
"just in case" (si forte in CL). She expresses the misgiving
that her own copies of the letters may be abridged or incomplete.
in patria:
phonetic spelling of in patriam? "Place where" substituted for
"place to which" (19.2 above)? Since acc. patriam and abl. patria
were homonyms, the question is largely academic.
Unde:
in VL, adverbs often replace combinations of prep. + demonstrative
or relative pron. Here, unde carries the sense of ex quo.
This usage is colloquial in origin and in Late Latin becomes widespread.
It survives in the Romance languages, e.g., French "la maison dont
la porte est bleue" = "the house the door of which is blue,"
dont being derived from Latin de unde.
legitis:
either fut. legetis misspelled (see on archiotepam in
19.6 above) or a "future present" (see on ostendimus tibi
in 19.5 above).
animae meae:
objective gen. (Allen and Greenough 348) depending on dominae,
the literal meaning of which is here intact. E. uses domina alone
as a form of address 7x; that is preserved in Italian donna ("woman")
and Madonna (lit. "my lady"), in French madame, and in English
dame, for example.