A concise animal allegory illustrates the difficulty of achieving true freedom (5.157-60): <\/p>\n
\nnec tu, cum obstiteris semel instantique negaris
\nparere imperio, ‘rupi iam uincula’ dicas;
\nnam et luctata canis nodum abripit, et tamen illi,
\ncum fugit, a collo trahitur pars longa catenae. 160<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n159<\/strong> et tamen \u03b1VXRW<\/em> : at tamen P<\/em> : ast tamen GLN<\/em> : tamen C<\/em><\/p>\n
Braund translates the last two lines “Even when a bitch breaks the knot after a struggle, a long section of chain still trails from her neck”. I don’t quite see the “when” in the Latin, and it seems to me that ut<\/em> for the first et<\/em> in 159 would provide better sense at very small cost. Now the first clause means “even supposing<\/em> a bitch breaks the knot after a struggle”: a hypothetical is good here. As the OLD<\/em> notes (s.v.<\/em> 35), this concessive use of ut<\/em> is often matched with tamen<\/em> in the main clause, and that is exactly what we have after the comma. It also requires the subjunctive, so we must alter abripit<\/em> to abripiat<\/em> and then delete the second et<\/em> to save the meter. However, that actually removes another small problem: the variants listed in the apparatus, particularly the unmetrical reading of C, point to interpolation. Once abripiat<\/em> had lost its second a<\/em>, et<\/em> and at<\/em> and ast<\/em> were variously inserted to mend the meter, while C or its ancestor left it unmended. <\/p>\n
My final text: <\/p>\n
\nnam ut luctata canis nodum abripiat, tamen illi,
\ncum fugit, a collo trahitur pars longa catenae. 160<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A concise animal allegory illustrates the difficulty of achieving true freedom (5.157-60): nec tu, cum obstiteris semel instantique negaris parere imperio, ‘rupi iam uincula’ dicas; nam et luctata canis nodum abripit, et tamen illi, cum fugit, a collo trahitur pars … Continue reading