Here is a set of declensions of 3 high frequency* Latin nouns (aurum, aura, and auris) you may want for reference when reading The Aeneid. You may also find this helpful when reading antique maps of the world before Australia was discovered, since you may find strange sentences on the maps about the incredible size "of the ears of the parrots" that uses one of these three au- words: "psitacorum aurium."
A highlighted form shows a case that may be confused with a case of one of the other nouns. Note that macrons (long marks) are provided, although this clue will probably be missing from your text:
Auris - ear 3rd Declension
auris -is f
Nom. auris
Gen. auris
Dat. aurī
Acc. aurem
Abl. aure
Plural
Nom. aurēs
Gen. aurium
Dat. auribus
Acc. aurēs
Abl. auribus
Aurum - gold 2nd Declension
aurum -i n
Nom. aurum
Gen. aurī
Dat. aurō
Acc. aurum
Abl. aurō
Plural
Nom. aura
Gen. aurōrum
Dat. aurīs
Acc. aura
Abl. aurīs
Aura - breeze, air 1st Declension
aura -ae f
Nom. aura
Gen. aurae or aurāï
Dat. aurae
Acc. auram
Abl. aurā
Plural
Nom. aurae
Gen. aurārum
Dat. aurīs
Acc. aurās
Abl. aurīs
When translating Virgil or Vergil's Aeneid you get a workout in distinguishing one word from another similar-looking one.
If the confusing word is a verb, you can supply a meaning based on first guess, then finish the sentence and tell from context if your guess was right. You should know pretty much who did the action of the verb and with perhaps a quick look at your verb paradigms, what the tense is, even if you don't supply precisely the right verb. For instance, it won't make too much difference if you switch the meaning of reduco "bring back" with that of deduco "bring out".
collectasque fugat nubes, solemque reducit.
... puts to flight the gathered clouds, and brings back the sun. Aen. 1.142
It's not so easy with nouns, since some of the more confusing forms of nouns span different declensions, as in aurum 'gold', aura 'breeze', and auris 'ear'. You may not even know which case the noun is, so you won't know whether it's doing the acting or is being acted upon.
- Your first instinct -- other than to pull out a translation -- may be to look for words that modify the noun, since the adjective may show the necessary clues -- like case, number (singular or plural), or gender.
That may be all you need, but there may not be an adjective, or there may be two possible nouns it modifies.
- Scanning the lines may work if the trouble lies in the length of a vowel, but what if that's not the trouble?
-
Sometimes you just have to make guesses and see if it makes sense. If one doesn't work, try another. If one doesn't seem any better than another,
- Re-check your cases.
Don't know what the different Latin forms mean? See Latin Cases.
For our words:
- auris Nom. and Gen. S. (ear) = Dat. and Abl. Pl. (gold or breeze) - Look for a long i to make it gold or breeze or something plural. Look for something feminine to make it breeze.
- aurī Dat. S. (ear) = Gen. S. (gold) - Look for context - e.g., verbs that take a direct and indirect object for ear.
- aura Nom. and Acc. Pl. (gold) = Nom. amd Abl. S. (breeze) - Look for something plural to make it gold or long a to make it the ablative of breeze.
*Auris occurs 17 times in the first 6 books of the Aeneid; aurum, 37 times; and aura, 45 times, according to "Vocabulary in Aeneid I-VI," by George H. Lucas; Classical Journal (1948) pp. 108-121. Other similar words are aerius (4 times) and aureus (13 times).
Also see: Sol, Solium, Solus, Solum.
