Interea ad templum non æquæ Palladis ibant
Crinibus Iliades passis. Virgil.
In the mean time the Trojan woman went to the temple of unfriendly Pallas with their hair about their ears.
How odd they must have looked. Here we take occasion to remind schoolboys never to lose an opportunity of giving a comic rendering to any word or phrase susceptible thereof, which they may meet with in the course of their reading. To say “crinibus passis”,—“with dishevelled hair” would be to give a very feeble and spiritless translation. Vir is literally construed man; some school-masters will have it called hero,—we propose to translate it cove. So dapes may be rendered grub, or perhaps prog; aspera Juno, crusty Juno; animam efflare, to kick the bucket; capere fugam, to cut one’s stick, or lucky; confectus, knocked up; fraudatus, choused; contundere, to whop, &c. &c.
The Ablative Case after the Verb.
Every verb admits an ablative case, signifying the instrument, or the cause, or the manner of an action, as
Pulvere nitrato Catilina senatum subruere voluit:
Catiline wished to blow up the Parliament. Catiline was a regular Guy.
A noun of price is put after some words in the ablative case, as
Ovidius solidis duobus fibulas siphonem ascendere fecit: