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Anne Bradstreet wrote “To My Dear Children” when ________________.  

Reading participle constructions: introduction After looking at the formation of participles in the previous quiz, we’ll be looking in this quiz at how the participle is used in complete and complex sentences. For the purpose of this exercise, we’ll be reading the Chapter 23 story in 38 Latin Stories, called “Watching the Orator at Work”. Read this story aloud to yourself to begin to practice pronunciation and get a sense of the structure of the sentences. You can compare your pronunciation to this audio file:

Cortes is writing this letter to ____________.

Ōrātor animōs audientium tangit. Which of the words in the sentence does audientium agree with?

Dē ōrātōre, etiam sī tū nōn adsidēns et attentē audiēns, sed ūnō aspectū et praeteriēns eum aspēxeris, saepe iūdicāre poteris. This leaves the sī clause. This also has the 2nd person singular as its subject; note the tū at the beginning of the sentence, signaling the 2nd person singular verb at the end of the clause (aspēxeris). What are the participles in this clause? Select all correct! 

Nunc surgit magnus ōrātor, causam dictūrus… True or false: the participle dictūrus agrees with the noun ōrātor.

iūdicēs omnia illīus verba audīre cupientēs silentium significant. What kind of participle is cupientēs in this sentence?

Ubi cupit eōs metū aut misericordiā movērī, metū aut misericordiā oppressī terrentur aut flent. What is the form of movērī in this sentence?

Nunc surgit magnus ōrātor, causam dictūrus… Why is causam in the accusative case?

Dē ōrātōre, etiam sī tū nōn adsidēns et attentē audiēns, sed ūnō aspectū et praeteriēns eum aspēxeris, saepe iūdicāre poteris. By any account, this is a tricky sentence. Once we have separated out the main clause (Dē ōrātōre saepe iūdicāre poteris) we still have a long sī-clause with lots of participles. It is helpful to see these participles as a kind of list, with each small participle construction separated by a conjunction. The tū at the beginning of the sentence “flags” the verb in the clause at the end (aspēxeris); in this instance, it’s useful to translate this first. This leaves us the participles, which broken up by the conjunctions, aren’t quite as intimidating. This means we might be able to translate the sentence like this: main clause: Dē ōrātōre saepe iūdicāre poteris sī clause: etiam sī tū aspēxeris nōn adsidēns et attentē audiēns sed ūnō aspectū [not a participle; ablative of manner!] et praeteriēns