I have been writing a good deal of Latin poetry, recently. This is a short hendecasyllabic poem that illustrates three kinds of conditional clauses in Latin:
Sī tū Rōmam ieris forum vidēbis,
Nam sī Rōmam adeam velim id vidēre.
Sed sī īrēs ibi nōn iam apud mē adessēs.If you go to Rome, you will see the forum,
For if I should go to Rome, I would want to see it.
But if you were going there, you would no longer be with me.
Meter and Scansion
The meter is Phalaecian hendecasyllabics (x x — u u — u — u — x), such as Catullus uses in several of his poems. The first two and last syllables can be either long or short (this is called an anceps, indicated by the “x” in meter summary). The first two syllables in each of my lines is long. The last syllables of the first two lines are short, the final syllable is long.
Lots of ellison is needed to make it scan right (especially the third line). The first line sounds like “sī tū Rōm- ierīs forūm vidēbis” (elision between Romam and ieris). The second line sounds like “nām sī Rōm- adeām vel- īd vidēre”. The third line is a little more extreme, sounding like “sēd s- īrēs ibi nōn i-apūd m- adēssēs”.
Grammar
The first line contains a conditional clause that does not commit to the reality of the condition. In Latin this is communicated by the indicative mood in both protasis (“if”) and apodosis (“then”) clauses. So here I’ve used the future perfect indicative of eo (si … ieris – literally, “if you will have gone”, but translated more idiomatically “if you go”) and the future indicative of video (videbis – “you will see”).
The second line contains a conditional clause where the condition is hypothetical. Latin typically does this through the use of a present subjunctives in both clauses. I here use the present subjunctive of adeo in the protasis (si … adeam – “if I should go”) and the present subjunctive of volo in the apodosis (velim – “I would want”).
The third line contains a conditional clause where the condition is consciously contrary to fact. Latin does this through imperfect subjunctives in the two clauses. I’ve used the imperfect subjunctives of eo (si ires – “if you were going”) and of adsum (non … adesses – “you would [not] be here”).
The prose version
This began life as a simpler prose exercise to practice the three kinds of conditionals.
Sī Rōmam adierō, forum Rōmānum vidēbō.
Sī Rōmam adeam, colossēum videndī cupiam.
Sī Rōmam adīrem, hīc tēcum nōn iam adessem.If I go to Rome, I will see the Roman forum,
If I should go to Rome, I be desirous of seeing the Colosseum.
If I were going to Rome, I would no longer be here with you.
As I worked on it, though, I seemed like each line was almost the right length for a poetic line. Since it was likely that many of my verb forms were going to need to have isolated short vowels, dactylic hexameter was out (short vowels always come in pairs in dactylic hexameter). Phalaecian hendecasyllabic meter, however, seemed suitable.
My hope is that either form might prove useful in teaching conditional clauses to my students in the future.
Bite-Sized Exegesis 