Expert: Maria - 1/26/2011

Question
Hello?

I have a question of a well-known Latin saying.

Amantium irae amoris integratio est.

I think above sentence violates concord of number and as irae is plural, est should be sunt. Please let me know, if any exceptions.

Thanks.

Answer
FOLLOW UP

Hello,

I want to formulate another  hypothesis about the concord “est” instead of “sunt”.
Here it is: it could be a “concordatio ad sensum” (agreement according to the sense) which can be used in Latin when the predicate nominative - i.e. “integratio” in this phrase - is placed immediately before the verb - “est” in this context.

So, Terence could have used such a “concordatio ad sensum” and then the verb “est” agrees with the predicate nominative “integratio” instead of the subject in the nominative plural “irae”.

We find such an “ad sensum” construction in Livy too where we read e.g.:“Gens universa Veneti appellati sunt” (History of Rome, book I, chapter 1) where the plural verb “appellati sunt” agrees with the plural predicate “Veneti” instead of  the subject “Gens universa” which is in the nominative singular.

Best regards,
Maria
____________________________________________________________________________________________

Hello,

you are right:  the correct quotation from Terence’s Andria, act III, scene 3, line  25,  should be “Amantium ira amoris integratio est” (literally, “The anger of lovers is the renewal of love”).

The subject “ira” (literally, ‘the anger’) should be in fact in the nominative singular, not in the nominative plural “irae”, since  the verb of the sentence is “est”  in the 3rd.person singular agreed with “ira”.

I think that  the nominative plural “irae” we  find even in some texts of this Terence’s comedy can be a mistake in copying made by the amanuensis monk who in the early Middle ages was employed to copy Terence’s manuscript.

Best regards,
Maria
______________________________________________________________________________
Note that:

-Amantium (genitive masculine plural of the participle  present AMANS from AMO, I love) = of lovers

-ira (subject in the nominative singular, 1st.declension)= literally,"the anger".Also "the quarrels" in English.

-amoris = gentive singular of AMOR, love) = of love

-integratio ( predicate in the nominative singular, 3rd.declension) = the renewal

-est (3rd.person singular, present indicative of SUM, I am) = is

Terence, Latin in full Publius Terentius Afer (born ca. 195 BC- died ca.159 BC) was a great Roman comic dramatist.