Ovid, Fasti ii. 83-92 (Hallam’s Edition).
Heading and Author.—The heading will probably suggest to you the well-known story of Arion and the Dolphin, and the name of the author, Ovid, will lead you to expect a beautiful version of the legend.
Read the Passage carefully.—As you read, notice all allusions that help you to the sense of the passage. Thus the first line (which you can no doubt translate at once) tells of the fame of Arion, and the succeeding lines describe the charm of his music.
The Form of the Passage: Elegiac Verse.—Scan[9] as you read, and mark the quantity in the verse of all finals in -a. You will see the value of this, as you translate.
You can now begin to translate, taking one complete sentence at a time.
[I.] Quod mare non nōvit, quae nescit Ărīŏnă tellūs?
(i.) Vocabulary.—You will know all the words here, but observe nōvit = knows, not knew, for nōvi means I have become acquainted with, I have learned, and [Symbol: therefore] I know; and notice also the important cognates from the √γνο-, γνω-, -gna, -gno, γι-γνώ-σκω = I learn to know, cf. our know, ken, can, con—νό-ος (mind), -gna-rus = know-ing; no-sco (= gno-sco).
(ii.) Translation.—This sentence contains no subordinates; the two finite verbs, nōvit, nescit, are both principal.
Next, the form of the sentence, with the question-mark at the end, shows that mare must be the subject of nōvit, and tellus of nescit. (Ărīŏnă cannot be nominative, for the suffix -a is the usual Greek 3rd decl. Acc. Sing., where Latin has -em.) Also quod and quae are clearly interrogative and adjectival; so translate:—
What sea does not know, what land is ignorant of Arion?