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- "Mustelam nostram tibi tradim…
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643
I have a theory that one of the course developers is a fan of "Wind in the Willows" in which the villains are weasels (& ferrets & stoats) who live in the Wild Wood, under the protection of the great god Pan. Here is their song (performed by many Monty Python-ers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_TbgMUx9OA . ;>) According to another Duolinguist, it is a reference to Pliny the Elder, who wrote about weasels.
711
if you're a weasel, try not to be handed over to Pliny: it's not going to end well...
Historia Naturalis - mostly Book VIII.
Ovid was also into weasels, though at least he didn't use them in Traditional Roman Medicine...
Metamorphoses - Book IX.
816
OK. I can't resist this. Q. How do you tell the difference between a stoat and a weasel. A. A weasel is weasily distinguishable because a stoat is stotally different.
Stoat is the "Mustela erminea" by the way. In French, we call it "hermine" (old French "ermine") it gave, of course, the "ermine skin", used to make royal fur coats.
They say on Wikipedia that it's called "mus Ponticus" in "Latinitate communi" langage or "sive erminea".
So "mus ponticus" =mouse of from the Pont-Euxin, thus something like "Turkish mouse", they probably didn't make any difference between mouse and stoats/weasels.
"Sive" looks like civet/civette, but they don't seem to be related. I don't rind the meaning of "sive" in Latin in this context.
A weasel is not the name of an animal, but the name of a family: the mustelidae. There are several weasels.
The Roman weasel could be the stoat (same family), or the Mustela altaica, or another one...
799
"sive" is not the name of an animal; it only means "or" in Latin. Thus the sentence can be translated to "mus ponticus... or erminea". By the way, the ermine is the national emblem of Britanny, like the eagle in Germany or the rooster in France.
243
I like to think of the old nursery rhyme "Pop! goes the weasel" when I see tradimus and mustela in the same sentence. One interpretation is this. Cockney rhyming slang "weasel and stoat" = "coat", and to pop something is to pawn it. So maybe we are putting our coat in pawn to fund the weekend's foray to the local caupona?
95
You are right! It can be nominative plural or dative singular and you can tell it only when you have it in a sentence. My tip: always try to find a verb first. Here we have 'tradimus' so the subject is 'nos' (we). If you want, now try to translate this sentence: Mustelae nostrae nobis te tradunt. :)
363
Why not replace "hand over" with "give"? We give our weasel to you. Would make sense, I gave my pet animal to my sister.