Why don’t we analyse some text from Metamorphoses?
There is first an introduction, and then the first nested story, both of which we can skip over.
Let’s start when Lucius, our protagonist, arrives in the town of Hypata in Thessaly, seeking his acquaintance Milo in Section 21 of Book 1.
Note that Loeb prints without macrons to mark vowel length. This often leaves more ambiguity.
n. nominative ac. accusative v. vocative g. genitive d. dative ab. ablative
Apuleius: Ego vero quod primum ingressui stabulum conspicatus cum accessi, et de quadam anu caupona ilico percontor.
Hanson: I went up to the first inn I spotted after entering the town and immediately made inquiries of an old lady who was the innkeeper.
Apuleius: “Estne” inquam “Hypata haec civitas?” Annuit. “Nostine Milonem quendam e primoribus?”
Hanson: “Is this town Hypata?” I asked. She nodded. “Do you know someone named Milo, one of your foremost citizens?”
Apuleius: Arrisit, et “Vere” inquit “primus istic perhibetur Milo, qui extra pomerium et urbem totam colit.”
Hanson: “Foremost is the right word for your Milo,” she replied, “since he lives outside the city-limits and the whole town.”
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15
- | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | -
Ego | vero | quod | primum | ingressui | stabulum | conspicatus sum, | accessi, | et | de | quadam | anu | caupona | ilico | percontor.
I n.| specifically | that n. | first n.adj. | entrance d. | inn n. | that I saw (?) n. | I reached | and | about | from | an old woman ab. | landlady ab. | on the spot | I inquired - |
“Estne” | inquam | "Hypata | haec | civitas?" | Annuit. | "Nostine | Milonem | quendam | e | primoribus?"
“Is,” (Q) | I asked (said) | “Hypata n. | this | town?” n. | She nodded. | “(Do you) know (?) | Milo ac. | someone / a man ac. | from | the foremost?” d. - |
Arrisit, | et | “Vere” | inquit | "primus | istic | perhibetur | Milo, | qui | extra | pomerium | et | urbem | totam | colit."
She laughed, | and | “Indeed,” | she said, | "foremost n.adj. | your | the people name | Milo, n. | he who | outside | the city limits ac. | and | town (city) ac. | whole ac. | lives. (inhabits).
We can already get some sense of idiom.
Compare Hanson’s “from an old lady who was the innkeeper” to Apuleius’ brief quādam anū caupōna, which could be more tightly translated as “from the old landlady”.
quādam anū caupōna literally glosses as “from (that woman) the old-woman–landlady”, a very redundant sentence in an only lightly gendered language like English. Hanson is content to let lady alone indicate gender in his phrase.
In English, the closest words we have to anus (old woman) are crone (gendered but negative), elder (neutral but ungendered), and grandmother (a bit “folksy”). Note that anus =/= ānus (ring, anus). The most accurate single-word translation is perhaps elder-woman, but that isn’t natural in modern English.