Today is a catch-up day to review any lesson(s) you missed this past week and/or to work on whatever kind of practice is most useful to you, reviewing the 2nd- and 3rd-conjugation imperatives. (Next week, we'll finish up with the rest of the imperatives!)
Meanwhile, here are the lessons from this week, plus previous weeks, and you'll find the review slideshow before:
And here's a slideshow with all the sayings from the week... and their cats! Read them out loud while you watch. You can read them once with the English to remind you of the meaning, and then once more with a cat!
I also made a printable crossword PDF with this week's sayings as the prompts; screenshots below.
The focus for today's lesson is more of those 3rd-conjugation imperatives. Here's a round-up of the 3rd-conjugation imperatives you have seen so far:
fugit. flees. ~ fuge! flee!
regit. rules. ~ rege! rule!
vivit. lives. ~ vive! live!
eligit. choose. ~ elige! choose!
noscit. knows. ~ nosce! know!
carpit. plucks. ~ carpe! pluck!
induit. puts on. ~ indue! put on!
arripit. grabs. ~ arripe! grab!
adspicit. looks. ~ adspice! look!
prospicit. looks ahead. ~ prospice! look ahead!
respicit. looks back. ~ respice! look back!
And here is a little slideshow (with cats) of the words you have seen before:
And here are today's proverbs:
1. Vive hodie.
Live today.
vive HO-die.
You haven't seen the adverb hodie before, but you know the root word: dies.
You can pair this one up with two of the sayings from yesterday for some all-around life advice:
Carpe diem.
Vive memor mortis.
2. Da et accipe.
Give and receive.
da et AC-cipe.
The imperative accipe, "receive, take" is the root of English "accept." You haven't seen this word before, but you have seen other compounds from the root verb capit. When compounded, the cap- switches to cip- as you saw already with decipit.
The words come from the Biblical wisdom book known as Ecclesiasticus, and also by the name Sirach. Here is the King James translation of the verse: Give, and take (Da et accipe), and sanctify thy soul; for there is no seeking of dainties in the grave. All flesh waxeth old as a garment: for the covenant from the beginning is, Thou shalt die the death.
3. Pelle timorem.
Dispel fear.
pelle ti-MO-rem.
The imperative pelle, "drive away, dispel," is the root of English words like "dispel" and "repel." You've seen the verb repellit already.
You can find these words in a poem by the philosopher Boethius. The meter is "adonic" and consists of short 5-syllable lines. This saying, Pelle timorem, is an adonic line, a dactyl followed by a trochee. (For those of you who have studied Latin meter already, you'll recognize this as the most common ending of the dactylic hexameter line.)
4. Elige viam optimam.
Choose (the) best way.
E-lige viam OP-timam.
You've seen all the words in this saying already! Compare the saying you saw yesterday:
Mediam viam elige. Just like in English, the Latin word via can mean a physical pathway or road, but also the "way" that you anything.
5. Aut disce aut discede.
Either leave or retreat.
aut disce aut dis-CE-de.
The conjunction aut means "or." When used in combination aut... aut..., it is equivalent to English "either... or..."
The imperative disce means "learn!" and it is the root of English words like "discipline" and "disciple."
The imperative decede means "get out! leave!" and you can see the ced- root in English words like "recede" and "proceed." The Latin verb decedit is at the root of English "deceased."
As you might have guessed, this is a motto that has been adopted by some schools, and as such it has its own article at Wikipedia: Disce aut discede.
The focus for today's lesson is more 3rd-conjugation imperatives, so to get started, here's a review of the 3rd-conjugation imperatives you have seen already:
fugit. flees. ~ fuge! flee!
regit. rules. ~ rege! rule!
eligit. choose. ~ elige! choose!
noscit. knows. ~ nosce! know!
induit. puts on. ~ indue! put on!
And here is a little slideshow (with cats) of the words you have seen before that will appear, in one form or another, in today's sayings:
And here are today's proverbs:
1. Carpe diem.
Pluck (the) day.
carpe diem.
The imperative carpe means "pluck!" in the sense of plucking a piece of fruit from a tree when it's ripe. This Latin verb is actually related to English "harvest" because they both come from the Indo-European root kerp-.
The word diem is the accusative form of dies.
This famous saying comes from a poem by Horace; you can find out more at the Wikipedia: Carpe diem article.
2. Finem respice.
Regard (the) end.
finem RE-spice.
The word finem is the accusative of finis.
The imperative respice means "look back! regard!" and it is the root of English "respect." The verb is a compound re-spicit, "back-looks," i.e. looks back at, regards. You have seen this prefix before in the verb repugnat, "fight back."
The "end" here as the sense of the goal, the final outcome. So, as you are working on a project, keep your goal in mind.
The imperative arripe means "grab! seize!" and it is also a compound: ad-ripit, "toward-grabs," i.e. grabs and takes. You've seen this prefix before in the compound ad-dit, "to-gives," i.e. "adds." Notice how before the following -r- the prefix ad- turns into ar-. The idea here is that while occasion or opportunity is something abstract, you can "grab" it as if it were something physical: grab it while you can!
4. Vive memor mortis.
Live mindful of-death.
vive memor mortis.
The adjective memor means "mindful," and you can see this root in English "memory." This adjective takes a genitive complement, and mortis is the genitive form of mors, death. The adjective agrees with the subject of the verb, you. So, the idea is that as you live, you should be mindful of death.
This is a type of saying known as memento mori; you can find out more at Wikipedia: Memento mori.
Here is this week's vocabulary review: the slides have the English translations, plus links back to the original posts if you want to review the notes... along with the cats!
These are the instructions for how to use the slideshow as a quiz, and here's a link to the full-size show. Remember: the goal is just to repeat, repeat, repeat. So, if you want to use this as a quiz, filling in the blank, you can do that, or you can just rely on the other slides to prompt you to read out loud, with and without the English prompt. Repeating out loud is the way to learn these words, and hopefully the cats will help you remember them too!
If you want to do even more reviewing, here's are the review slideshows from Week 21, Week 20, and Week 19. The more you review, the better!
The focus for today's lesson is something new: this time it is the imperative form of the 3rd-conjugation verbs. You may be surprised... the ending again is -e. Here are a few 3rd-conjugation verbs with their imperative forms so you can see how that works:
capit "takes" ~ cape "take!"
comedit "eats" ~ comede "eat!"
currit "runs" ~ curre "run!"
quaerit "seeks" ~ quaere "seek!"
vivit "lives" ~ vive "live!"
If you are curious: the difference between the e imperative for the 3rd conjugation and the 2nd conjugation is that the e for the 2nd conjugation is a long e and the 3rd conjugation is a short e, so they would be pronounced a little bit differently, but the difference does not affect the word stress. As English speakers, we are very aware of word stress, while vowel length is not a regular feature of our language the way it was for Latin. (Instead of long vowels, we have diphthongs instead, which is not quite the same as a pure vowel pronounced longer.) Later on, however, when we get to the infinitive forms of the verbs, then the difference between long e of the 2nd conjugation and short e of the 3rd conjugation will affect the word stress, so I'll have more to say about it then.
To get ready for today's proverbs, here is a little slideshow (with cats) of the words you have seen before:
And here are today's proverbs:
1. Aleam fuge.
Flee (the) die.
A-leam fuge.
You already know the words in this saying.
Remember Iacta alea est...? ("The die is cast.) Now you have aleam, the accusative form of alea.
The imperative fuge is from a verb you know already: fugit.
This saying tells you to avoid gambling! It is one of the famous "Sayings of Cato," which you can see online here: Cato's Monostichs (i.e. Cato's "one-liners").
The noun iracundiam is the accusative of iracundia, "bad temper, rage." You haven't seen this noun before, but you've seen the root word: ira.
The verb rege is the imperative form of a verb you know already: regit.
This is another one of the monostichs of Cato.
3. Mediam viam elige.
Choose (the) middle way.
ME-diam viam E-lige.
The adjective mediam is the accusative of media, "middle." This is the feminine form of the adjective; you have seen the masculine and neuter forms already: medius and medium. This feminine accusative adjective agrees with the feminine accusative noun: viam.
The verb elige means "choose, select." This verb is the root of English "elect." This is another saying that warns against extremes: instead of one extreme or the other, choose the middle way. It's the safe choice!
4. Nosce tempus.
Know (the) time.
nosce tempus.
The verb nosce means "know! recognize!" You can see this root in the English word (borrowed from Italian) "cognoscenti."
The noun tempus is in the accusative case. Because tempus is a neuter noun, the nominative and accusative forms are the same, but since "you" is the subject of the verb (the subject of an imperative verb is always "you"), that means it is the accusative object of the verb.
The "time" here means the right moment, the time of opportunity. The word tempus has a wide range of meanings in Latin as you can see from the Latin dictionary: tempus.
The noun pellem is the accusative form of pellis, "skin." You can see this root in English "pellicle."
The verb indue means "put on, don." You can see this root in English "indument."
The idea here to be courageous, putting on the lion's skin as if you were the hero Hercules, who regularly wore a lion's skin. Specifically, he wore the skin of the famous lion of Nemea; killing that lion was one of the labors of Hercules. You can find out more at Wikipedia: Nemean lion.
The focus for today's lesson is the imperative form of 2nd-conjugation verbs: they end in e. That's no surprise, because e is the theme vowel for that conjugation. Here are a few 2nd-conjugation words to refresh your memory, along with the corresponding imperative form:
docet. teaches. doce! teach!
gaudet. rejoice. gaude! enjoy!
manet. remains. mane! remain!
ridet. laughs. ride! laugh!
videt. sees. vide! see!
You'll learn some new 2nd-conjugation verbs in today's sayings, and here is a little slideshow (with cats) of the other words in today's sayings that you have seen before:
And now here are today's sayings:
1. Cave canem.
Beware (of the) dog.
cave canem.
The verb cave means "beware!" and it takes an accusative object: canem is the accusative form of canis. The Romans actually used this the way we do in English to warn people about a dog on the premises. Because so many cultures do this, there's even a Wikipedia article: Beware of dog. This Roman mosaic is featured in the article, along with other signs from other cultures that warn "beware of dog!"
The verb mulge means "milk!" and it is a cousin of the English word "milk," both of which come from the Indo-European root h₂melǵ-.
The metaphor here is to milk the cow that is present, milk the cow that you have. Literally, it applies to milking cows, but metaphorically it refers to any kind of resource or opportunity: you have to milk the opportunity that is available to you. Don't wait: milk what you've got now!
4. Polypi mentem obtine.
Have (the) mind (of an) octopus.
PO-lypi mentem OB-tine.
The word polypi is the genitive of polypus, which is a Greek word adopted into Latin: poly-pus, "many-foot." In this saying, it refers to an octopus.
The word mentem is the accusative form of mens.
The verb obtine, "gain! get! have!" gives us English "obtain."
The idea here is that an octopus had elaborate defense systems, being cunning and sly; they are able to change their color and even their texture as camouflage. You can find out more at Wikipedia: Octopus camouflage. So, this saying advises you to be like the octopus: use your cunning to get out of trouble!
5. Quietum ne move lutum.
Don't move mud (that is) still.
qui-E-tum ne move lutum.
The adjective quietum gives us English "quiet," in the sense of "still, at rest" (not quiet in the sense of silent). This is a neuter accusative adjective agreeing with the neuter noun lutum. You haven't seen this adjective before, but you have seen a related noun: quies.
The verb move, "move!" is being negated here with ne, which creates a negative imperative: ne move, "don't move!"
The word lutum is a neuter noun, so the nominative and accusative forms are the same. The subject of the verb is "you" (an imperative verb always has "you" as its subject), so that means quietum lutum is in the accusative, the object of the verb.
This proverb is similar in meaning to one you had last week: Canem sopitum ne excita. When a dog is sleeping, don't wake it, and when the mud is just sitting there, nice and still, don't stir it up!
![Wikipedia article: Beware of dog](<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Casa_del_poeta_tragico%2C_mosaico_del_cave_canem.jpg/250px-Casa_del_poeta_tragico%2C_mosaico_del_cave_canem.jpg"/>){kind=link}