I suspect that Verdi just manages to snatch the gold medal from Mozart on this one:
[i] Mozart: with
Latin text (Chapelle Royale)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKJur8wpfYM
[ii] Verdi: with English
subtitles (Metropolitan Opera)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6cogix3cwQ
Diēs īræ, diēs
illa │ The day of wrath, that day,
Solvet sæclum in favīllā │ will dissolve the world in ashes
Teste Dāvīd cum Sibyllā │ by the testimony of David together with the Sibyl.
Quantus tremor est
futūrus │ How great is the quaking going to be
Quandō iūdex est ventūrus │ when the Judge is about to
come,
Cūncta strictē discussūrus │ intending to investigate all
things strictly
Vocabulary
favilla, -ae
[1/f]: (hot / glowing) ashes
Sybilla, -ae
[1/f]: sybil; referring to a number of Mediterranean prophetesses and, in
particular, to the Cumaean sybil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumaean_Sibyl
saeclum, -ī [2/n]
= saeculum, -ī [2/n]: (here) the world; worldliness
testis, -is
[3m/f]: witness
Grammar: future active participle
We’re focussing on
the words in bold ending in: -ūrus
This is a future
active participle, translating as something is about to or going
to happen or somebody is intending to do something. Some
translations will give a simple future tense but the future active participle usually
implies near future which, of course, the diēs īrae itself
dramatically conveys.
The future active
participle has the same endings and agrees and declines in the same way as any
other 1st / 2nd declension adjective: -ūrus,
-ūra, -ūrum
It is formed from
the 4th principal part of the verb i.e. either the perfect passive
participle or the supine:
portō, portāre,
portāvī, portātus
-ūr- is
inserted before the -us (-a, -um) ending
> portāt¦ūr¦us,
-a, -um: about to carry
discutiō,
discutīre, discussī, discussus: (Late / Mediaeval meaning) examine
> discussūrus,
-a, -um: about to examine
If a supine is
listed (either because the verb has no perfect passive participle or the
dictionary simply uses the supine as the standard way of indicating the 4th
principal part), it makes no difference: change the -um to -us and
insert -ūr- before the ending:
veniō, venīre,
vēnī, (supine) ventum
> ventūrus,
-a, -um: about to come
The verb sum,
esse has neither a perfect passive participle, nor a supine, and so it is
the future active participle that is listed as the 4th principal
part:
sum, esse, fuī,
(future active participle) futūrus, -a, -um: about to be (going
to be / intending to be)
The ending -ūrus
is very obvious when reading the language, and is easy to remember since it is in
the English derivative future.
The future active
participle is most commonly found with different tenses of sum, esse
to state that somebody is, was or will be going to do
something.
Quantus tremor
est futūrus │ How great is the quaking going to be
Quandō iūdex est
ventūrus │ when the Judge is about to come,
Cūncta strictē discussūrus
│ (and is / who is) going to investigate all things
strictly
Present: mansūrus sum:
I am going to stay
Imperfect: mansūrus
eram: I was going to stay
Future: mansūrus erō: I shall be going to stay; it can sound a little clumsy although, in spoken English, we would use it in a contracted form e.g. “I’ll be going to see him later”. However, when translating, we could equally convey the idea with a present progressive ‘I’m going to…’ since the English present progressive can convey both a present and a future concept.
In general,
translations such as “I (was) intend(ing) to…”, “I (was) mean(ing) to …” and
other similar phrases can convey the future active construction.
Periphrastic
constructions
This construction
with sum, esse is known as periphrastic, a term which does
come up in grammar books and refers to a verb form which requires more than one
word to express the idea.
Compare:
habitābam =
English: I used to live; English requires more than one word to express
that idea i.e. it is periphrastic. The Latin, however, is not
periphrastic since it only uses a single word.
Similarly:
habitābō =
English: I shall live; again, the English construction is periphrastic
whereas the Latin is not.
You have already
seen periphrastic constructions although they have not been defined as such:
laudātus sum /
eram / erō: I was (have been) / had been / will have been praised; those
passive constructions in Latin are periphrastic since they use two words to
convey the idea.
Below are examples
using the future active participle with different tenses of sum, esse.
Most of them are from Cicero’s letters; I have indicated those that are not. I
have translated some of them very literally in order for the precise meaning of
the future active participle to be clear.
Present
Astūtē nihil sum
āctūrus. │ I am not going to act cunningly
… praeter ūnum L.
Sullam, quem imitātūrus nōn sum │ … apart from L. Sulla, whose
example I do not intend to follow [= literally: whom I am not going
to imitate]
Quid tū igitur sēnsūrus
es? │ What then will your view be? [ = are you going to
feel]
"Quid
ergō," inquis, "factūrus es”?│”What, therefore,” you
say “are you going to do?”
Tū, sī ūnō in
locō es futūrus, crēbrās ā nōbīs litterās exspectā │ Expect frequent
letters from me, if you are settled [ = if you are going to be in one
place]
etiamsī reditūrus
ille est │ even if he is going to return
Cōnsulēs praesidia
omnia dēductūrī sunt aut in Siciliam itūrī. │ The consuls are
going to bring in all their garrisons or (will) go into
Sicily.
Lūdī enim Antī futūrī
sunt │ For there are going to be games at Antium
Imperfect
epistula, quam dē
nocte datūrus eram │ the letter which I was going to
dispatch last night
nec rogātūrus
eram │ nor was I going to ask
Sī domum tuam
expugnātūrus, captā domō dominum interfectūrus eram … (Livy)
If I had been
going to attack your house, and the house having been captured, (been
going to) kill the owner …
persecūtūrus erat Gnaeum
│ he meant to [was going to] pursue Pompey
Arma quae ad mē missūrī
erātis │ The arms which you were going to send to me
Future
illō ipsō diē, quō
ad Siccam ventūrus erō │ on the very day that I will be
going to arrive at Sicca’s place [very literal: a neater English would, of
course, be “on the very day that I’m going to arrive” but the Latin does
show the future active participle with the future of sum]
Mergite mē,
flūctūs, cum reditūrus erō. (Martial) │ Drown me, waves, when I’m
returning home [ = literally: I shall
be going to return]
… nē quem
exercitum, quī cum populō Rōmānō sociīsve bellum gestūrus erit,
rēx per fīnēs rēgnī suī eōrumve (Livy) │ … no army which shall purpose to
wage war with the Roman people or its allies …
sī in urbem versus
ventūrī erunt, mihi scrībēs (Trajan to Pliny) │ if they are going
to return to Rome [ = literally: will be going to come …], you will write to
me.
Latin tutorial
(slightly edited)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgRkmrGPFmo
Image: dies
irae, print by James Rosenberg after the Wall Street Crash, October 29th
1929
