Delphi Complete Works of Varro

by Marcus Terentius Varro

  86. The old numbers have their Regularities, because they all have one rule, two acts, three grades, and six decades, all of which show regular internal correspondences. The rule is the number nine, because, when we have gone from one to nine, we return again to one and nine; hence both ninety and nine hundred are of that one and the same nine-containing nature. So there are numbers of eight-containing nature, and going downwards they arrive at those which are merely ones.

  87. The first act is from one to nine hundred, the second from one thousand to nine hundred thousand. Because one and thousand are alike unities, both are called by a name in the singular; for as we say’ this one ‘and’ these two,’ so we say ‘this thousand’ and ‘these two thousands,’ and after that all the other numbers in the two acts are likewise plural. The unitary grade is found in both acts, from one to nine; the denary grade extends from ten to ninety; the centenary grade from hundred to nine hundred. Thus from the three grades, six decades are made, three in the thousands, and three in the smaller numbers. The ancients were satisfied with these numerals.

  88. To these, their descendants added a third and a fourth act, imposing names which started from deciens ‘million’ and deciens miliens ‘thousand million’; and though the names were not formed by logical relation with the lower numerals, still their formation is not in conflict with the Regularity about which we are writing. For inasmuch as deciens is used as a neuter singular like mille, so that both words are without change of form for the various cases, we shall use deciens unchanged as nominative and as genitive, even as we do mille; and none the less shall we set before mille the signs of nominative and of genitive plural, because mille is also in the other number — and so also shall we speak of’ these deciens’ in the same cases.

  89. When a noun is the same in the nominative though it has more than one meaning, in which instance they call it a homonymy, Regularity does not prevent the oblique cases from the same starting form in which the homonymy is, from being dissimilar. Therefore we say Argus in the masculine, when we mean the man, but when we mean the town we say, in Greek or in the Greek fashion, Argos in the neuter, though in Latin it is Argi, masculine plural. Likewise, if the same word denotes both a noun and a verb, we shall cause it to be inflected both for cases and for tenses, with different inflection for noun and verb, so that from Meto as a noun, a man’s name, we form gen. Metonis, acc. Metonem, but from meto as a verb, ‘I reap,’ we form the future metam and the imperfect metebam.

  90. They find fault when from the same utterance two or more word-forms are derived, which they call synonymns, such as Alcmaeus and Alcmaeo, and also Geryon, Geryoneus, Geryones. As to the fact that in this class certain speakers interchange the case-forms wrongly — they are not finding fault with Regularity, but with the speakers who use those case-forms unskillfully: each speaker ought to follow, in his inflection, the case-forms which attend upon the nominative which he has taken as his start, and he ought not to make a dative Alcmaeoni and an accusative Alcmaeonem when he has said Alcmaeus in the nominative; if he has mixed his declensions and has not followed the Regularities, blame must be laid upon him.

  91. They find fault with Aristarchus for saying that the names Melicertes and Philomedes are not alike, because one has as its vocative Melicerta, and the other has Philomedes; and likewise with those who say that lepus ‘hare’ and lupus ‘wolf’ are not alike, because the vocative case of one is lupe and of the other is lepus, and with those who say the same of socer ‘father-in-law’ and macer ‘lean,’ because in the declensional change there comes from the one the three-syllabled genitive soceri and from the other the two-syllabled genitive macri.

  92. Although the answer to this was given above when I spoke about the kinds of wool, I shall make here some further statements: the likenesses of spoken words rest not only upon their form, but also upon some attached strength and power which is usually hidden from our eyes and ears. Therefore we often say that two apples that are identical in appearance are not alike, if they are of different flavour; and we say that some horses of the same appearance are not alike, if by breed they are different on the sire’s side.

  93. Therefore in buying human beings as slaves, we pay a higher price for one that is better by nationality. And in all these matters we take the points of likeness not merely from the appearance, but also from other factors, as in horses their age, in asses the kind of colts that they beget, in fruits the flavour of their juice. If therefore one proceeds in the same way in deciding whether words are alike, he is not to be found fault with.

  94. Wherefore as the pronoun is sometimes taken as an aid to distinguish the resemblances, so we take some case-form, as in nemus ‘grove’ and lepus ‘hare,’ lepus being shown by it to be masculine and nemus neuter: therefore they go in different directions and the plurals are lepores and nemora. So also, if anything else whatsoever is taken from outside to enable a thorough examination of the problem of likeness to be made, it will not be too far from the natural qualities: for you cannot even see whether two magnetic stones are alike or not, unless you have brought close to them from outside a particle of steel, which like magnets attract to a like degree, and magnets different in strength attract with different powers.

  95. That which concerns the Regularity of nouns has, I think been so cleared up that material for answering all objections can be drawn from these sources.

  We now come to the logical system of verbs; this has four parts: tenses, persons, kinds, and divisions. As they find fault with respect to each and every part, I shall make answer to the objections one by one.

  96. First as to their saying that the Regularities are not preserved in the tenses, when they give perfect legi ‘I have read,’ present lego ‘I read,’ future legam ‘I shall read,’ and others in just the same way: they are wrong in finding fault with those forms like legi as denoting completed actions and the other two, lego and legam, as denoting action only begun; for the same verb which has been taken from the same kind and the same division, can be paraded through the tenses of non-completion, like discebam ‘I was learning,’ disco ‘I learn,’ discam ‘I shall learn,’ and the same of completion, thus didiceram’ I had learned,’ didici ‘I have learned,’ didicero ‘I shall have learned.’

  From this one may know that the logical system of verbs is consistent with itself, but that those who try to speak the verbs in their three tenses, do this in an ignorant way; 97. that likewise those do so ignorantly who find fault because we say amor ‘I am loved,’ amabor ‘I shall be loved,’ amatus sum ‘I have been loved’; for, they say, in one and the same series there ought not to be one verb made up of two words while the other two verbs are each of one word. Yet if you would put down verb-forms from a division of one kind, they would not differ from one another; for all the forms denoting incomplete action are alike single, and the forms of completed action are in all verbs double, quite like one another: such as amabar, amor, amabor, and amatus eram, amatus sum, amatus ero.

  98. Wherefore likewise they do ill to cite ferio ‘I strike,’ future feriam, perfect percussi; because the proper order is ferio, feriam, feriebam, and percussi, percussero, percusseram. And in this fashion answer can be made to the one who finds fault in the matter of the other tenses.

  99. They make a similar mistake who say that all verbs ought to change the radical syllables in both divisions, or no verb should — as in pungo ‘I prick,’ future pungam, perfect pupugi, and tundo ‘I pound,’ tundam, tutudi; for they are comparing unlikes, namely verbs of the incomplete phase with the completed. But if they were comparing only the incomplete, then all the stems of the verb would be seen to be unchangeable, as in pungebam, pungo, pungam, and on the other hand changeable, if they instanced the completed, as in pupugeram, pupugi, pupugero.

  100. Likewise they do ill to compare fui ‘I was,’ sum ‘I am,’ ero ‘I shall be’; for fui is a form of completed time, whose series is consistent with itself in all its parts, as it should be, namely fueram, fui, fuero. O
f the incomplete, that which is now pronounced sum used to be spoken esum, and the series is consistent in all its persons, because they used to say present esum es est, imperfect eram eras erat, future ero eris erit. In this same fashion you will see that the other verbs of this kind preserve the principle of Regularity.

  101. Besides, they find fault with Regularity in this matter, that certain verbs have not the three persons, nor the three tenses; but it is with lack of insight that they find this fault, as if one should blame Nature because she has not shaped all living creatures after the same mould. For if by nature not all forms of the verbs have three tenses and three persons, then the divisions of the verbs do not all have this same number. Therefore when we give a command, a form which only the verbs of uncompleted time have — when we give a command to a person present or not actually present, three verb-forms are made, like lege ‘read (thou),’ legito ‘read (thou)’ or ‘let him read,’ legat ‘let him read’: for nobody gives a command with a form denoting action already completed. On the other hand, in the forms which denote declaration, like lego ‘I read,’ legis ‘thou readest,’ legit ‘he reads,’ there are nine verb-forms of uncompleted action and nine of completed action.

  102. For this and similar reasons the question that should be asked is not whether one kind disagrees with another kind, but whether there is anything lacking in each kind. If to these there is added what I said above about nouns, all difficulties will be easily resolved. For as the nominative case-form is in them the source for the derivative cases, so in verbs the source for other forms is in the form which expresses the person of the speaker and the present tense: like scribo ‘I write,’ lego ‘I read.’

  103. Wherefore, if it has happened in verbs as it does happen in nouns, that in the pattern the starting-point is lacking or belongs to a different kind, we give the same arguments here which we gave there, with suitable changes in application, as to why and how Regularity is none the less preserved. And as in nouns the word will have its own peculiar starting-point and in the oblique cases there will be a change to some other pattern, on the assumption of which it can be more easily seen from what the word-forms are derived (for it happens that the nominative case-form is sometimes ambiguous), so it is in verbs, as in this verb volo, because it has two meanings, one from wishing and the other from flying; therefore from volo we appreciate that there are both volare ‘to fly’ and velle ‘to wish.’

  104. Certain critics find fault, because we say pluit ‘rains’ and luit ‘looses’ both in the past tense and in the present, although the Regularities ought to make a distinction between the verb-forms of the two tenses. But they are mistaken; for it is otherwise than they think, because in the past tense we say pluit and luit with a long U, and in the present with a short U; and therefore in the law about the sale of farms we say ruta caesa ‘things dug up and things cut,’ with a lengthened u.

  105. Likewise certain persons find fault, because they think that active sacrifico ‘I sacrifice’ and passive sacrificor, active lavat ‘he bathes’ and passive lavatur, are the same: but whether this is so or not, has no effect on the principle of Regularity, provided that he who says sacrifico sticks to the future sacrificabo and so on in the active, through the whole paradigm, avoiding the passive sacrificatur and sacrificatus sum: for these two sets do not harmonize with each other.

  106. In Plautus, when he says:

  The fish, I really think, that bathe through all their life, Are in the bath less time than this Phronesium, lavari ‘are in the bath,’ with final I instead of E, does not attach to lavant ‘bathe’: Regularity refers lavari to lavantur, and whether the error belongs to Plautus or to the copyist, it is not Regularity, but the writer that is to be blamed. At any rate, lavat and lavatur are used with a difference of meaning in certain matters, because a nurse lavat ‘bathes’ a child, the child lavatur ’is bathed’ by the nurse, and in the bathing establishments we both lavamus ‘bathe’ and lavamur ‘are bathed.’

  107. But since usage approves both, in the case of the whole body one uses rather lavamur ‘we bathe ourselves,’ and in the case of portions of the body lavamus ‘we wash,’ in that we say lavo ‘I wash’ my hands, my feet, and so on. Therefore with reference to the bathing establishments they are wrong in saying lavi ‘I have bathed,’ but right in saying lavi ‘I have washed’ my hands. But since in the bathing establishments lavor ‘I bathe’ and lautus sum ‘I have bathed,’ it follows that on the other hand from soleo ‘I am wont,’ which is in the active, one ought to say solui ‘I have been wont,’ as Cato and Ennius write, and that solitus sum, as the people in general say, ought not to be used. But as I have said above, Regularity exists none the less for these few inconsistencies which occur in speech.

  108. Likewise, they present as an argument against the existence of Regularity the fact that like forms are not derived from likes, as from dolo ‘I chop’ and colo ‘I till’; for one forms the perfect dolavi and the other forms colui. In such instances something additional is wont to be taken to aid in the making of the other forms, just as we do in the tiny art-works of Myrmecides: therefore in verbs, since the likeness is often so confusing that the distinction cannot be made unless you pass to another person or tense, you become aware that the words before you are not alike when passage is made to the second person, which is dolas in the one verb and colis in the other.

  109. Thus in the rest of the paradigm of the verbs each follows its own special type. Whether in the second person the paradigm of verbs has in the final syllable AS or ES or ĬS or ĪS, is of importance for distinguishing the likenesses. Wherefore the mark of Regularity is in the second person rather than in the first, because in the first the unlikeness is concealed, as appears in meo ‘I go,’ neo ‘I sew,’ ruo ‘I fall’; for from these there develop unlike forms by the change from first to second person, because they are spoken thus: meo meas, neo nes, ruo ruis, each one of which preserves its own type of likeness.

  110. Likewise, many find fault with Regularity in connexion with the so-called participles; wrongly: for it should not be said that the set of three participles comes from each individual verb, like amaturus ‘about to love,’ amans ‘loving,’ amatus ‘loved,’ because amans and amaturus are from the active amo, and amatus is from the passive amor. But that which Regularity can offer, which the participles have, each in its own class, is case-forms, as amatus, dative amato, and plural amati, dative amatis; and so in the feminine, amata and plural amatae. Likewise amaturus has a declension of the same kind. Amans has a somewhat different declension; because all words of this kind have a regular likeness in their own class, amans, like others of its class, uses the same forms for masculine and for feminine.

  111. About the last argument in the preceding book, that Regularity does not exist for the reason that those who have written about it do not agree with one another, or else the points on which they agree are at variance with the words of actual usage, both reasons are of little weight. For in this fashion you will have to reject all the arts, because in medicine and in music and in many other arts the writers do not agree; you must take the same attitude in the matters in which they agree in their writings, if none the less nature rejects their conclusions. For in this way, as is often said, it is not the art but the artist that is to be found fault with, who, it must be said, has in his writing failed to see the correct view; we should not for this reason say that the correct view cannot be formulated in writing.

  112. As to the man who uses as ablatives monti ‘hill’ and fonti ‘spring’ while others say monte and fonte, along with other words which are used in two forms, one form is correct and the other is wrong, yet the person who errs is not destroying the Regularities, but the one who speaks correctly is strengthening it; and as he who errs in these words where they are used in two forms is not destroying logical system when he follows the wrong form, so even in those words which are not spoken in two ways, a person who thinks they ought to be spoken otherwise than they ought, is not destroyi
ng the science of speech, but exposing his own lack of knowledge.

  113. The considerations by which we might think that the arguments could be refuted which were presented against Regularity in the preceding book, I have touched upon briefly, as best I could. Even if by their arguments they had achieved what they wish, namely that in the Latin language there should be Anomaly, still they would have accomplished nothing, for the reason that in all parts of the world both natures are present: because some things are like, and others are unlike, just as in animals there are unlikes such as horse, ox, sheep, man, and others, and yet in each kind there are countless individuals that are like one another. In the same way, among fishes, the moray is unlike the sea-bass, the sea-bass is unlike the sole, and this is unlike the moray and the codfish, and others also; though the number of those resemblances is still greater, which exist separately among morays, among hakes, and in other kinds of fish, class by class.

  114. Now although in the derivations of words a great number develop from unlike words, still the number of those in which likenesses are found is even greater, and therefore it must be admitted that the Regularities do exist. And likewise, since general usage permits us to follow the principle of Regularity in almost all words, it must be admitted that we ought as a body to follow Regularity in every way, and individually also except in words the general use of which will give offence; because, as I have said, the people ought to follow one standard, the individual persons ought to follow another.

  115. And this is not astonishing, since not all individuals have the same privileges and rights; for the poet can follow the Regularities more freely than can the orator. Therefore, since this book has completed the exposition of what it promised to set forth, I shall bring it to a close; and then in the next book I shall write about the form of inflected words.