Key to Reading Unit 2

All possible meanings of the imperfect are not given; for example, in 6 we could also translate you were living. In a broader context the correct choice would be obvious.


1. Barca stirs up the inhabitants of Spain.
   
   
2. We show the women of Gaul to the sailors.
   
   
3. You often used to conquer the inhabitants of Sicily.
   
   
4. The farmer of Sicily is always in taverns.
   
   
5. Why do ask for stories, O poets?
   
   
6. You used to live in Italy but we were in Britain.
   
   
7. Why are you fighting, O Barca? We are not stirring up Spain.
   
   
8. You ask for friendship, O farmer, but the poet is refusing [it].
   
   
9. I often used to tell stories about the islands of Greece.
   
   
10. At first we used to show money to the inhabitants of the islands and now we are hoping for friendship.
    
    
11. You were in Spain but where do you live now, O sailors?
    
    
12. You were always fighting with the inhabitants of the island.
    
    
13. We were fighting in Sicily but the daughters of the inhabitants refused [their] friendship.
    
    
14. I used to walk with the women of Italy but now I always walk with the farmers of Spain.
    
    
15. Where are the poets? They were on the street with the women of Greece.
    
    
16. Experience teaches.
    
    
17. You are writing on water.
    
    
18. They are silent, they are praising enough. (i.e. out of jealousy they are saying nothing). (Terence, Eunuchus 476; Terence (d. 159BC) is one of the two surviving writers of Roman comedy, the other being Plautus)
    
    
19. Fortune, not wisdom, rules life.
    
    
20. You are panicking before the trumpet (i.e. before the signal for the battle to start).
    
    

(c) Gavin Betts 2000