energetic utterance creates an assumption in favor of a similar interpretation of the remaining cases; and the probability of the correctness of this assumption is still further established by the fact that the present tense, as has been shown above, is almost exclusively confined to commonplace prohibitions, in which energetic prohibition of the particular act involved would be without point, and frequently absurd. Let us see, then, how far it seems natural to assume energetic utterance as characteristic of these remaining instances: Epid. 595 ubi noles, ne fueris pater, 'when you don't want to be my father, for Heaven's sake don't!' This is the reply of Acropolistis to Periphanes' threat that he will kill her if she ever calls him father again. Energetic threats, whether seriously meant or not, always invite energetic replies. Prohibitions which are thus used in replying to dire threats and in the translation of which one naturally puts the emphasis upon the prohibition itself (e. g. 'Don't do that!' or 'Don't do that!') never, I believe, take the present tense, while numerous examples of the perfect tense in such prohibitions have been cited above. Truc. 606 istuc ne responsis. This involves a threat prompted by a defiant reply to the speaker, who is very angry and threatens to cut the former into bits if he adds another word. The words really mean 'Don't you give me such an answer as that, or, if you do, take the consequences.' Failure to comply will thus involve disaster to the person addressed. A prohibition which in this way involves a threat of disaster that will befall through failure to comply with it, never takes the present tense, so far as I have noticed; and this again is in strict accord with my theory. Pers. 572 ne sis ferro parseris. If the speaker does not persuade the person addressed to act upon his advice, his deeply laid plot will come to nothing, and heavy loss will result. The ne... parseris may perhaps be used as an expression calculated to impress the person addressed, a procurer, with the exceptional value of the girl that the speaker wants him to buy. Every line of this speech is extravagant in tone. Excitement is not present, but energetic and extravagant utterance abounds along here at every turn. Trin. 704 id me commissurum ut patiar fieri ne animum induxeris. The words of both Lesbonicus and Lysiteles along here seem to me brimful of emotion. See my comments below on this passage. Asin. 839 ne dixis istuc.-Ne sic fueris, 'for Heaven's sake, don't be so!' Epid. 723 ne attigas, 'don't touch me!' This is the surly reply of Epidicus, who thus shows his resentment at having been unjustly bound. Pseud. 79 Eheu.-Eheu? idquidem hercle ne parsis, 'for Heaven's sake, don't be backward about asking for that!' Poen. 553 nos tu ne curassis. Not merely in 541, but again in 571, the advocati are accused of being exceedingly angry, and both times on account of their spiteful language. Bennett would contend, then, that the advocati may fly into an angry passion, and use spiteful language, twice inside of three or four minutes, and that during the other two or three minutes there is "no vestige" of such a mood or tone. The tone of the advocati from the beginning of the scene has been for the most part surly. Ib. 993 ne parseris, 'show him no mercy!' i. e. 'get out of him all the particulars.' Asin. 467 caue supplicassis. uttered with emotion. Bennett himself regards this as How far the assumption of energetic utterance in these 15 instances seems unnatural or impossible must be left to the judgment of my readers. To me it seems neither unnatural nor impossible. If, however, in any one of these passages such an assumption were to be regarded as impossible, then it might be set down as an exception to the rule, which would, to my mind, in no way destroy the validity of the general distinction I have drawn. It will be noticed that I have in the above classification concerned myself solely with the instances of ne and caue. The other instances cited by Bennett are not instances of ne, or caue, and have been shown to have wholly distinct characteristics. In 'The Latin Prohibitive' I laid the utmost emphasis upon the fact that my theory applied only to prohibitions expressed by ne and caue, and that instances of the perfect subjunctive with nec, ne... quidem, etc., lay entirely outside of its range of application. Curiously enough, my theory has been taken completely out of my hands, extended so as to cover phenomena to which I said in the most emphatic language it could not possibly apply, and then instances of these latter phenomena have been cited against me as though opposed to my own theory. I am more than ready to admit that most of the instances of nec, ne ... quidem, nihil, nullum, numquam, with the perfect subjunctive, are at all periods of the literature dis ne... 1 Whatever explanation be adopted for the perfect subjunctive after nec, quidem, nihil, numquam, etc., it is an indisputable fact that its use with these words differs in a very marked degree in almost every respect from its use with ne; e. g. (1) with me, it is never used in dignified, deferential address; with the other particles, it is very common in such address; (2) with me, it is seldom used with verbs indicating purely mental action (at least before the end of the Augustan period); with the other particles it is used chiefly with just such verbs; (3) with ne, it is entirely unknown to many productions in which with the other particles it is common. Even if all the instances with nec, ne... quidem, etc., were to be recognized as true volitives, my theory would still hold good for ne as distinguished in use from the other particles. tinctly opposed to Bennett's extension of my theory. But this does not, so far as I can see, affect the validity of my conclusions regarding the force of ne with the subjunctive. Bennett inadvertently misrepresents me on p. 65, unless he is still to be understood as limiting his remarks to Plautus. I did not say that verbs of mental action are never found in prohibitions expressed by ne and caue with the perfect subjunctive. My words (The Latin Prohibitive,' pp. 152-153 [20-21]) were: "in the whole history of the Latin language, from the earliest times down to and including Livy, there are to be found in prohibitions expressed by ne with the perfect subjunctive only two, or at most three, verbs denoting mere mental activity." I did say that no such instances occur in Plautus, and I still believe that to be true. None of the instances cited by Bennett (p. 65) belong to the class of phenomena of which I was speaking. Induxeris and feceris are not 'verbs' of mental activity, and his other examples are not instances of ne or caue. Animum with induxeris forms, to be sure, an expression (though not a 'verb') of mental activity, and should have been referred to by me as a kindred phenomenon. The expression caue flocci feceris does not refer to the mere mental act of forming a low or high estimate (see remarks above on these passages), and flocci facere is therefore quite different in character from putare, existimare, metuere, sperare, etc., etc. As the use of the perfect subjunctive with nec (neque), nihil, ne ... quidem, numquam, etc., is not included in my theory regarding its use with ne, consideration of Bennett's critique of my interpretation of these passages is reserved for another paper. H. C. ELMER. CORNELL UNIVERSITY. The Treatment of Nature in the Poetry of the Roman Republic, by KATHARINE ALLEN. (Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, Philology and Literature Series, vol. I, pp. 89–219.) With this dissertation of Miss Allen's and Mr. H. R. Fairclough's suggestive monograph on the attitude of the Greek tragedians towards nature, it would seem as if the claims of the ancients in this particular sphere were in a fair way to being vindicated, and the Philistines who are prone to regard nature as a wholly modern discovery discomfited. While Miss Allen has not so rich a field as her predecessor on the Greek side, and perhaps not so skilful a hand, she has succeeded in getting together a very considerable amount of interesting and valuable material. She gives a detailed treatment of all the poets from Livius Andronicus to Varro Atacinus, with the exception of the writers of comedy. Her method is in the highest degree systematic. In the case of each poet, sky, sea, streams, mountains, etc., are treated in succession, and under each one of these heads the artist's use of simile and metaphor, the special aspects that he represented, the epithets he used, the type of feeling and appreciation of nature that he manifested, are set forth with copious and for the most part happy illustrations. Especially striking are some of the passages quoted from the early dramatists, and students of Latin literature, to say nothing of the ever-increasing army of students of literature in English, will feel indebted to Miss Allen for drawing forth so many gems, albeit broken, from the dark unfathomed caves of the editions of fragmenta. Indeed, the number of good lines found among the reliquiae of these pioneers in Latin literature is surprisingly large, e. g. the verse cited from Ennius, p. 98: lumine sic tremulo terra et cava caerula candent, or the shepherd's description of the first ship in Accius, p. 116. Lucretius, naturally enough, forms the pièce de résistance, and some forty pages out of a total of one hundred and twenty are devoted to him, most of the passages being quoted in illustration of his appreciation-if so mild a word can be used of the Lucretian pavia-of the grander aspects of nature. Among the quotations from Catullus, most noticeable perhaps are the lines in the Peleus and Thetis describing the waves of the sea increasing as the morning breeze freshens, p. 192: post vento crescente magis magis increbescunt, From Cinna is quoted the couplet te matutinus flentem conspexit Eous et flentem paulo vidit post Hesperus idem. At the end of the treatment of each poet a summary and general view of his attitude towards nature is given, and the whole concludes with a survey of the period. Miss Allen's work shows signs of an unusually sober judgment, and her estimates of the different poets considered are for the most part sound. Perhaps the only criticism that need be made is that she is disposed to exaggerate the difference between the ancient and the modern attitude towards nature. That there is a difference, a very great difference even, no one will deny; but it is going too far to say that while the Latin poets of this period appreciated the various aspects of nature objectively, they had not, except in rare instances, sympathy with nature. The subjective view of nature so frequently found in modern poetry is, to be sure, less prominent in ancient, but it is there. It is exemplified, for example, in the couplet cited above from Cinna, and can be easily established for Catullus by reference to the thirty-first, the address to Sirmio, and the forty-sixth: iam ver egelidos refert tepores etc. Miss Allen's soberness of judgment, indeed, has the faults of its virtues, and, what is certainly unusual in a doctor's dissertation, she is inclined to be somewhat pessimistic about her subject and to insist upon her authors' limitations. The irreverent sometimes say that searching Latin authors for examples of syntactical phenomena tends not to enthusiasm, and so perhaps a pilgrimage through the Latin poets in search of purple patches may result in some weariness of spirit. GORDON LAING. |