Dear Aganthyr. You said you were looking for people who could take academic discussion with you… Well, why do you think there aren’t any of them here on
?
I’m ready to take it. Let me try. I know ancient history a little because of my profession, so I think I can try…
Mira enim fuit cupiditas veteribus occupandi insulas,credo, ut quaererent tanquam secessus, loca tranquilliora.
Primo:
"Mira enim fuit cupiditas veteribus occupandi insulas"
litterally means:
"The desire of the old ones/veterans was incredible/extraordinary to occupate the islands"
You typed that ‘old men = ancient men, because in Swedish "old men" has a strong direction to senior citizen or retired people.’
You’re right we are talking about “veteribus†– coming from “vetus, veteris†– old, elderly so also ‘senior’ or even ‘retired person’.
Not ‘ancient’! The equivalent of ‘ancient’ is ‘antiquus’…
Secundo:
You said ‘I was just "trapped" by the word "occupandi". I didn’t want to have it to an "invasion" or "military action", more to "take over" och just dwell etc, like the English "occupy" second meaning (live)’.
Occupandi – gerundium in genitive, so cupiditas+occupandi = (literally) the desire of occupying/ taking over/ seizing.
I think that In this context the word is a military one. Can you imagine taking over foreign country(island) without any military activity? Which country would allow it? It doesn’t have to be aggressive action, but I suppose that it was to be military one.
But, I don’t know any larger context of the sentence. If you do, please tell me it. Maybe you are right and it was only about “desire of possessingâ€, only “a dream†of the old people to live on an island.
Well, have you got any further questions? I like discussing a lot. I also sometimes miss it here. I don’t know why people sometimes avoid discussing. But be sure that not all of them. Here on
you can find quite big number of translators who could and would like to take the ‘academic discussion’ with you…
Welcome to
. Hope you will like it!
Избранные переводы