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the Singular Use of NOS1 in Virgil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

W. S. Maguinness
W. S. Maguinness
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
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Extract

Following the example of the late Professor R. S. Conway, who in the Transactions of the Cambridge Philological Society, vol. v, part i (1899), discussed ‘The Use of the Singular Nos in Cicero's Letters’, I examined Catullus’ employment of the idiom in an article published in Mnemosyne, series iii, vol. vii, fasc. 2 (1938), pp. 148–56. While the usage of Catullus exemplified various of Conway's indisputable types of the singular nos, such as the Plural of Authorship and the Plural of Proprietorship, my observations did not confirm his main thesis of a ‘projective’ use, which L. C. Purser reviewing his rnonograph called ‘a Pluralis Dignitatis or Fiduciae, not to say Adrogantiae’, in direct contrast to the orthodox pluralis modestiae. I found that, where the use of nos related to a state of mind of the writer or speaker, not merely to circumstances of his environment, the usage in Catullus was either a pluralis modestiae or one of several derivative types. My examination of Virgil seems wholly to confirm the conclusions reached concerning Catullus, whose types of singular nos I classified as follows: (a) the Plural of Proprietorship (see Conway, op. cit., pp. 15 and 33 ff.); (b) the Traveller's Plural (see Conway, ibid., pp. 10 and 70); (c) the Local Plural (see Conway, ibid., pp. 10, 69, and 70); (d) the Plural of Authorship (see Conway, ibid., pp. 12, 18, 33); (e) the Social and Domestic Plural (see Conway, ibid., pp. 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 18, 40 ff.); (/) the pluralis modestiae (see Kϋhner-Stegmann, Ausfiihrliche Lateinische Grammatik, vol. ii, part i (1912), pp. 87–9); (g) the Plural of Pleading or Requesting; (h) the Plural of Pathos or Self-pity. Of these (a), (b), (c), and (e) are a product of circumstances of environment and relate to a group of which the speaker or writer is a member; (d), (/), (g), and (h) express an attitude or state of mind. Virgil's examples of the usage fall into six of these categories, (b) and (c) being absent. For the purposes of the present study I shall, in order to indicate more clearly the connexion between (a) and (e), and the subjective character of (d), number the six Virgilian categories as follows: (i) the Plural of Proprietorship; (ii) the Social and Domestic Plural; (iii) the Plural of Authorship; (iv) the pluralis modestiae; (v) the Plural of Pleading or Requesting; (vi) the Plural of Pathos, Self-pity, or Complaint.

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 35 , Issue 3-4 , October 1941, pp. 127 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1941

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References

page 127 note 1 Nos is to be taken throughout as referring t o all forms of the first person plural, viz. nos, noster, and the verbal forms in -mus and -mur. No poem in the Appendix Vergiliana has been included in this study.

page 127 note 2 C.R., vol. xiv (1900), pp. 138–40Google Scholar.

page 127 note 3 To select a few bad examples from the presumably most widely used of the delinquents, the Loeb translator uses the English plural in translating Aen. ii. 651, iii. 325–7, v. 742, vi. 465, and x. 19.

page 128 note 1 Perhaps (iv).

page 128 note 2 Also a complaint (vi).

page 128 note 3 Also (v).

page 128 note 4 Lines 631–2 show that nostris is here singular.

page 129 note 1 The correspondence of haec otia to the pic ture of repose in lines 1–2 introduced by tu leads me to regard nobis as singular.

page 129 note 2 Also (v).

page 129 note 3 SeeMnemosyne, series iii, vol. vii, fasc. 2 (1938), pp. 150–1Google Scholar, and cf. Cicero, in Catilinam, IV. x. 21, an ideal example of this type of pluralis modestiae.

page 130 note 1 (g) and (h) corresponded to the present (v) and (vi).

page 131 note 1 Cf. Catullus, vi. 16, Iv. 1 and 25, and lxvii. 7 and 18.

page 131 note 2 Nobis confirms Page's contention that this line is a complaint.

page 131 note 3 If Moeris is Menalcas’ servant, these are true plurals. They also belong to (i).

page 131 note 4 Like Aen. vi. 342 perhaps true plural. But see Mnemosyne, loc. cit., p. 155, and cf. Catullus, lxv. 8.

page 131 note 5 These may be true plurals. Page, in his summary of lines 50–69 and in his note on line 69, shows that he has not made up his mind.

page 131 note 6 Perhaps true plural.

page 132 note 1 The translators write ‘we', but is not nos evidently Aeneas?

page 132 note 2 Also (i).

page 132 note 3 See p. 131, n. 4.

page 132 note 4 Perhaps true plural.