Breakdown of Le roi vit le puissant héros, auquel il dit son secret.
il
he
voir
to see
son
his/her/its (son, sa, ses)
le roi
the king
le secret
the secret
dire
to say, to tell
auquel
to which / at which (auquel, à laquelle, auxquels, auxquelles)
le héros
the hero
puissant
powerful
Questions & Answers about Le roi vit le puissant héros, auquel il dit son secret.
Does vit mean "lives" here?
No, in this literary context, vit is the passé simple (historic past) of voir (to see), meaning "saw". It looks exactly like the present tense of vivre (to live), so you have to use the context of the sentence to tell them apart. In everyday French, you would simply use the passé composé and say a vu.
Is dit in the past or present tense?
It is in the passé simple (he said), but you wouldn't know it just by looking at the word! The form il dit is completely identical in both the present tense and the passé simple. You have to rely on the earlier verb vit (saw) to know the whole story is taking place in the past.
Why use auquel instead of just à qui?
The verb dire requires the preposition à (dire un secret à quelqu'un). To say "to whom", we combine à with the relative pronoun lequel, forming the contraction auquel. You could actually use à qui here since the hero is a person, but auquel fits the formal, literary feel of the sentence perfectly.
Why is puissant placed before the noun instead of after?
While most adjectives follow the noun in French, placing puissant (powerful) before héros gives it a poetic or dramatic emphasis. This stylistic choice perfectly matches the fairy-tale tone of a king telling a secret to a powerful hero.
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