The Consul Who Would Not Turn Aside: Cum-Clause Judgement in Unseen Prose
An NCEA Level 3 candidate is translating a 32-word adapted prose passage for an unseen translation assessment. The passage reads: 'Cum legati adessent et pacem peterent, consul tamen iter suum non mutavit; namque hostes, antequam responsum daretur, castra oppugnaverunt.' The candidate first renders the opening as 'When the envoys were present and seeking peace...' and loses two marks. The teacher says the clause is not temporal here and points to two signals in the sentence. The candidate must revise the translation and explain the choice in a short commentary. The assessment rewards grammatical justification, not just a fluent English version. There is no glossary; the candidate must use mood, connectives, and narrative sequence to decide the clause type. The passage is set in a military crisis, and the consul's decision is the turning point.
1. Identify the type of cum clause and translate the opening clause. Justify your choice with two signals from the sentence.
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The clause is concessive: 'Although the envoys were present and seeking peace...' The mood is imperfect subjunctive (adessent, peterent), which rules out a plain factual 'when' with the indicative. More decisively, the main clause has tamen ('nevertheless'), a contrast marker that pairs naturally with 'although', not with a neutral temporal 'when'. The following namque explains the consul's refusal by the enemy's pre-emptive attack, so the sentence is organised around a contrast between peace-seeking envoys and a consul who does not change course. 'When' is not impossible grammatically, but it leaves tamen unmotivated. The concessive reading also fits the narrative turning point: the consul's stubbornness is the point.
2. Explain how translating the cum clause as 'when' would change the characterisation of the consul and the logic of the narrative.
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A temporal 'when' makes the consul merely sequential: envoys arrive, then he does not change route. That sounds like a neutral report and leaves tamen ('nevertheless') dangling. A concessive 'although' sets up an expectation - envoys seeking peace should move a commander - and then defeats it. The consul becomes obstinate or calculating, not merely unmoved. The namque clause then reads as the consequence: because he delayed a reply, the enemy attacked. The temporal reading weakens the causal chain by making the attack look like a separate event; the concessive reading makes the consul's refusal the pivot on which the camp's danger turns.
3. Translate 'antequam responsum daretur' and explain the mood of daretur.
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'before a reply was given' (or 'before any reply could be given'). Daretur is imperfect passive subjunctive. With antequam, the subjunctive presents the event as prospective or anticipated from the standpoint of the main narrative, not as a plain fact. The passive removes the agent: no one is named as responsible for the delay, which sharpens the contrast with the consul's inaction. An indicative 'before a reply was given' would report the event more flatly; the subjunctive keeps it inside the moment of expectation, just before the attack.