Plinii Epistula VIII.7
Commentary by Jacques Bailly

C. PLINIUS TACITO SUO S.

1 Neque ut magistro magister neque ut discipulo discipulus — sic enim scribis -, sed ut discipulo magister — nam tu magister, ego contra; atque adeo tu in scholam revocas, ego adhuc Saturnalia extendo — librum misisti. 2 Num potui longius hyperbaton facere, atque hoc ipso probare eum esse me qui non modo magister tuus, sed ne discipulus quidem debeam dici? Sumam tamen personam magistri, exseramque in librum tuum ius quod dedisti, eo liberius quod nihil ex me interim missurus sum tibi in quo te ulciscaris. Vale.

Another fawning letter to his literary friend Tacitus reporting that he will send comments on Tacitus' book (perhaps a different book from the book of Tacitus mentioned similarly in Pliny Epistula 7.20).

Text from theLatinLibrary.com.

Commentary

1 Neque ut magistro magister neque ut discipulo discipulus — sic enim scribis -, sed ut discipulo magister — nam tu magister, ego contra; atque adeo tu in scholam revocas, ego adhuc Saturnalia extendo — librum misisti.

Structure of first sentence:
atque adeo: "or rather," "nay rather," or "and moreover": atque adeo appends an important addition or correction.


2 Num potui longius hyperbaton facere, atque hoc ipso probare eum esse me qui non modo magister tuus, sed ne discipulus quidem debeam dici? Sumam tamen personam magistri, exseramque in librum tuum ius quod dedisti, eo liberius quod nihil ex me interim missurus sum tibi in quo te ulciscaris. Vale.

num: indicates that this is going to be a question, one that expects 'no' as an answer. | longius hyperbaton: refers to the sentence he just wrote. hyperbaton, a Greek-derived word, first occurs in Latin in Pliny (here only) and Quintilian (only a few times). It refers to unusual word order or a transposition of elements, but here it seems to mean something like "jumbled-up run-on sentence." | hoc ipso: abl. of means, referring to the longius hyperbaton just mentioned. | probare eum esse me: probare complementary infinitive dependent on potui. Then a further acc. + inf. eum esse me depends on probare. eum is predicate accusative, me is the subject of esse. | qui non modo magister tuus, sed ne discipulus quidem debeam dici: non modo ..., sed ne ... quidem the sense requires "not only not ... but not even ... ," but logically that seems to need another non. The text is correct, however, because, as Lewis & Short put it (entry non), " When the verb of the second clause is the common predicate of both clauses, the second non is omitted in the first clause." debeam subjunctive in a relative clause of characteristic, primary sequence, on which the complementary infinitive dici depends. | exseram ... ius: exsero means "stick out," "stretch out" in a literal physical sense, but here, it is figurative, and hence "I shall stretch out a ius" means "I shall avail myself of the right...." The prepositional in librum tuum must be "adjusted" into good English: we say "a right over something" instead of "a right in something," but quite often neither "over" nor "in" and neither in nor super are meant in their literal physical meanings. The take-home lesson is that prepositions are highly idiomatic, and one must "adjust" them into proper idiomatic English or Latin. | eo liberius: liberius comparative adverb modifying exseram. eo ablative of degree of difference: literally something like "more freely to the degree" or "more freely by this much," but more smoothely in good idiomatic English "all the more freely" (which, when you think about it, would be just as hard to explain to a non-native English speaker as eo liberius is for us non-native Latin speakers to grasp logically). | quod: not a relative pronoun here. | missurus sum: periphrastic future, equivalent to a regular future. | in quo ... ulciscaris: relative clauses of characteristic take what mood?

Vocabulary

adeo (see note ad loc.)

adhuc, still, til now

atque, and

contra, the reverse, conversely, vice-versa

discipulus, -i, m., pupil, student

exsero, exserere, exserui, exsertum, take out, thrust out; uncover, reveal; make use of, avail oneself of

extendo, extendere, extendi, extentum, lengthen, extend

hyperbaton, n., transposition of words, unusual word order

interim, meanwhile

ius, iuris, n., right, privilege

liber, libera, liberum, unrestricted, free

liber, libri, m., book

magister, magistri, m., teacher, master

persona, -ae, f., role, character part

probo (1), prove, demonstrate

revoco (1), call back

Saturnalia

schola, -ae, f., school

sumo, sumere, sumpsi, sumtum, take

ulciscor, ulcisci, ultus sum, avenge oneself, take vengeance on