Sagae Thessalae 1 Flashcards
ac dum urbem perarrans tenuato viatico paupertati meae fomenta quaero, medio in foro senem conspicio.
And while wandering through the city, my travel money having diminished, I’m looking for remedies for my poverty and catch sight of an old man in the middle of the forum.
iuvenis ego Mileto profectus ad spectaculum Olympicum, cum haec etiam loca provincae clarae visitare cuperem, peragrata tota Thessalia Larissam perveni.
As a young man having set out from Miletus to the Olympic Games, since I wanted to visit these places of the famous province as well, I travelled through the whole of Thessaly and reached Larissa.
insistebat lapidem magnaque voce praedicabat, si quis mortuum custodire vellet, magnum praemium accepturum esse.
He was standing on a stone and proclaiming with a loud voice that if anyone wanted to guard a dead man, he would receive a great prize.
et cuidam praetereunti ‘quid hoc’ inquam ‘audio? hic mortui solent aufugere?’
I say to the passer-by as he goes past ‘What’s this I hear? Are the dead here accustomed to run away?’
‘tace,’ respondit ille. ‘nam puer et satis peregrinus es, meritoque nescis in Thessalia te esse, ubi sagae ora mortuorum semper demorsicant, quae sunt illis artis magicae supplementa.’
‘Be quiet,’ the man replies, ‘for you are a boy and a mere foreigner, and naturally you do not know that you are in Thessaly, where witches always bite pieces out of the faces of the dead which are for them extra ingredients to their magic art.’
contra ego ‘quali custodela’ inquam ‘opus est?’
In reply I say ‘What sort of protection is needed?’
‘iam primum’ respondit ille ‘ totam noctem eximie vigilandum est apertis et inconivis oculis semper in cadaver intentis, nec acies usquam devertenda est, cum illae pessimae sagae latenter arrepant, forma in quodvis animal conversa.
First of all’, he replied, ‘you must stay awake for the whole night, your eyes open and unsleeping always fixed on the corpse, nor must you ever turn away your gaze when really evil witches creep up secretly, their shape changed into some animal.
‘nam et aves et canes et mures, immo vero etiam muscas, induunt.’
‘For they take the form of birds and dogs and mice and indeed even flies.’
