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The vocative

The vocative is the case of direct address ("O soul"), set off by commas and often preceded by o.

It has the same form as the nominative except in the 2nd-declension singular: -us becomes -e (Brute, domine), -ius becomes -i (fili, Antoni), and meus becomes mi. Plural vocatives are the same as the nominative.

Signals: o before it, commas around it, and a 2nd-person verb or an imperative nearby: te afficis, o anima "you disgrace yourself, O soul".

A noun at the head of a sentence that looks like an address may be in another case: in Ignominia, ignominia … te afficis, ignominia is ablative ("with disgrace"); the person addressed is o anima.

Examples

  • Ignominia, ignominia, inquam, te afficis, o anima 2.6You are disgracing yourself, disgracing yourself, I say, O soul
  • Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagiTityrus, you who lie back under the cover of a spreading beech (Virgil, Eclogues 1.1)

In the text 18

  • II.6 Ignominia, ignominia, inquam, te afficis, o anima.anima is vocative: Marcus addresses his own soul, so te here means 'yourself'.
  • IV.23 Quicquid tibi convenit, o Munde, convenit et mihi.Munde is the vocative of mundus: nouns in -us of the 2nd declension make their vocative in -e. Marcus speaks to the world itself, and Gataker gives it a capital, as he does to Natura below. convenit "it suits, fits" takes the dative: tibi "(suits) you", mihi "(suits) me"; et here means "also".
  • IV.23 fructus instar id est omne mihi, quod tempestates tuae, o Natura, ferunt.Natura is vocative; in the 1st declension it has the same form as the nominative, and only o and the commas show that Nature is being addressed. From here on te "you" is Nature, and so feminine.
  • IV.23 O urbs amica Cecropis, inquit ille: tu vero non dicturus es, O urbs amica Jovis.A line of the comic poet Aristophanes, who calls Athens "dear city of Cecrops" after its legendary first king. inquit ille "says that man": ille, as often, stands for a writer well enough known not to need naming. urbs and amica are vocative: the poet is speaking to the city.
  • V.7 Atheniensium votum erat, Plue, plue, chare Jupiter, super Atheniensium arva et prata.chare Jupiter is vocative, "dear Jupiter": the same form as the nominative for Jupiter, while chare has the vocative ending -e of charus. charus is Gataker's spelling of carus "dear". Jupiter, the Greek Zeus, is the sky-god who sends rain.
  • V.36 ad rostra ubi declamitans fueris, an oblitus es, homo, haec quidnam sint?
  • VII.17 quid igitur facis hic, o phantasia?o phantasia is a vocative: Marcus turns and speaks to an impression that has come into his mind. Gataker keeps the Greek word phantasia: in Stoic language, the picture a thing makes in the mind before the mind has judged it. English "fancy" and "fantasy" come from it.
  • VII.44 Parum recte censes, mi homo, si hominem, qui vel ullius sit usus, existimas mortis vitaeque discrimen in numero aliquo habiturum;parum recte "too little rightly" is a polite way of saying "wrongly". mi homo "my man" is a vocative, mi being the vocative of meus: Socrates' half-friendly, half-ironic address to his critic.
  • VII.45 Sic enim se revera habet, viri Athenienses;"Men of Athens": the usual address to the Athenian assembly or to a jury, and Socrates' address to his judges all through the Apology. Both words are vocative plural, the same in form as the nominative.
  • VII.46 Verum, o bone vir, illud videris, annon aliud quid generosum esse bonumque existat, quam servare et servari.
  • IX.3 ut dicere liceat, Propere accedas o mors; nequando etiam ipse obliviscar mei.
  • IX.29 id agas, o homo, quod nunc te poscit natura.
  • X.1 Ecquando futura es, o anima, bona, simplex, una, nuda, corpore te ambiente dilucidior?o anima "O soul" is a vocative, naming the one addressed; in the 1st declension it looks like the nominative. The adjectives after it look the same in either case, but they belong with futura es as its predicate: "will you, O soul, be good, simple, one, bare?" The soul is "one" when it is undivided, and "bare" when it is stripped of everything that is not itself.
  • XI.6 cum viderint non posse haec aliter transigi, et quod perferant ea etiam illi qui exclamant, Eheu, Cithaeron.A cry from Sophocles' Oedipus the King: Oedipus, having blinded himself, calls on Mount Cithaeron, where he had been left to die as a baby, and asks why it took him in. Even the great sufferers of tragedy endure their lot, and the audience is meant to learn from them. Cithaeron is vocative: the mountain is addressed.
  • XI.15 quid facis, mi homo? quid praedicere opus est? res ipsa appareat,mi homo "my man" is a vocative, mi being the vocative of meus: the same half-friendly, half-ironic address as in 7.44. Marcus turns from describing the man to speaking to him.
  • XI.18 Noli sic agere mi fili; ad aliud nati sumus.Both words are vocative: mi is the vocative of meus, and fili of filius, since nouns in -ius have the vocative in -i. The Greek says "child": you speak to him as a father would.
  • XI.18 mihi quidem noceri nequit. sed ipse laederis, mi fili.
  • XII.36 In hac magna civitate versatus es, homo. quid tua refert, si quinque duntaxat annos?homo, set off by a comma, is a vocative, "man!"; the Greek begins with this address. hac magna civitate "this great city" is the world, the city of gods and men (as in 4.4). versatus es is the perfect of the deponent versor "live, spend one's time": "you have lived as a citizen here".