Text (During his journey home, Odysseus also passes the island of the sirens, who lure sailors to the shore with their songs and then kill them. In order to be able to listen to the singing without danger, Odysseus has his men tie him to the mast and orders them to obstruct their ears. He himself listens:) "Salve, Ulixes, imperator et rex! Te, victorem magni belli Ithacaeque regem, salutamus; et victori et regi iustum honorem tribuimus. Tu militibus Graecis bene suasisti, tu multos labores sustinuisti. Tu es summus cunctorum ducum et imperatorum, et beatus est ille senex, Laertes pater tuus. Magnum erit gaudium patrisque matrisque, si te integrum salutabunt, si Ithaca rege servato gaudebit! Proinde appropinqua et ausculta, nam nobis nihil ignotum est: Narrabimus tibi de viris claris, quos superavisti; non ignoramus te magnam multitudinem hominum prostravisse. Cunctae regiones sunt plenae tuae laudis." Dum virgines sic cantant, Ulixes comites vocat; nam diutius auscultare studet. Illi autem remos ducere pergunt. --------------------------- Reading vocabulary you needn't learn: auscultare: to listen cantare: to sing remos ducere: to row Vocabulary
| salve! | Be greeted! Hello! (to one person) | L2: salutare |
| salvete! | Be greeted! Hello! (to several people) | |
| pergere (perrexi) | to continue, proceed, go on | |
| consul, consulis m | consul | consul |
| dictator, -oris m | dictator | dictator |
| imperator, -oris m | commander in chief, emperor | L9: imperare |
labor, -oris m |
hardship, exertion, work |
labour |
| victor, -oris m | winner | victory |
| honor, -oris m | honour, esteem, public office | honour |
| mater, matris f | mother | alma mater |
| pater, patris m | father; (plural:) fathers, senators |
L9: patria |
| comes, comitis m | companion, friend, comrade | comrade |
| miles, militis m | soldier, warrior | military |
| laus, laudis f | praise, glory, fame | L8: laudare |
| regio, -onis f | region; direction | region |
| homo, hominis m | human | human |
| multitudo, -dinis f | amount, multitude | multitude |
| virgo, virginis f | girl, (young) woman | virgin |
| dux, ducis m | leader, commander in chief | I: duce; L20: ducere |
| rex, regis m | king | L17: regnum |
| senex, senis m | old man | senile |
Practise the vocabulary of this lesson by matching it. Grammar This lesson introduces another major declension: the Consonantic Declension. It is called Consonantic Declension because most of its nouns end in a consonant in the Nominative Singular. In some other cases (e. g. homo) you have a vowel at the end but the vowel isn't kept. The Genitive form of these nouns is difficult to predict because it usually involves a change in the word stem (e. g. from laus to laudis). That is why you'll always find the Genitive form next to the Nominative form in a Latin dictionary. Besides it's a good way to find out to which declension the noun belongs. When studying the nouns of this declension for a longer time, you'll see patterns, which make them easier to learn, e. g. -or tends to become -oris ; -tudo -> tudinis; -es -> -itis etc. This irregularity only exists for the Nominative; the Genitive always ends in -is and you can form every other case based on the Genitive form (substract -is to get the word stem and add whatever case ending you want). Here's a table of the case endings of the Consonantic Declension. The other two columns show you the endings of the masculine O-Declension and the forms of qui, for comparison. You'll find that qui is somewhere between the two.
| Cases | Consonantic Decl. | qui | Masc. O-Decl. |
| Nominative Sg. | victor- | qui | amic-us |
| Genitive Sg. | victor-is | cuius | amic-i |
| Dative Sg. | victor-i | cui | amic-o |
| Accusative Sg. | victor-em | quem | amic-um |
| Ablative Sg. | victor-e | quo | amic-o |
| Nominative Pl. | victor-es | qui | amic-i |
| Genitive Pl. | victor-um | quorum | amic-orum |
| Dative Pl. | victor-ibus | quibus | amic-is |
| Accusative Pl. | victor-es | quos | amic-os |
| Ablative Pl. | victor-ibus | quibus | amic-is |
Since these endings are quite different from the ones you learned before, there's a new problem with Adjectives: you can no longer know which Adjective goes with which noun just by looking for a noun with the same ending, you'll have to actually compare cases, just like you had to do for the pronouns to a lesser extend. Combination like "laeto victori" will take some getting used to. That's I won't introduce much new grammar till lesson 36 and revise on the Consonantic Declension instead. One more peculiarity of this declension: The words look exactly the same, no matter whether they're masculine or feminine. If you're in doubt about whether an adjective (which still has to adapt to the noun's gender) is related to a Consonantic noun, you can look up the gender in the vocabulary (m = masculine; f = feminine; n = neuter) or a dictionary. Or you can learn by heart some rules like the one that nouns that go -or -> -oris are masculine. Normally you don't need to know the gender though, because there is no way a clause can have two different Nominative or Accusative nouns for example. Exercise Put the word "imperator" through this scheme: Genitive -> Plural -> Dative -> Ablative -> Singular -> Accusative -> Plural -> Nominative Singular (If you don't understand what is asked, see lesson 7 for an example of this exercise type) Information on Odysseus Information on Laertes Information on the Sirens Information on Odysseus at the Sirens Exercise answers: imperator, imperatoris, imperatorum, imperatoribus, imperatoribus, imperatore, imperatorem, imperatores, imperator