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Puer morbo gravi laborat, sed mater sperat medicamentum morbum levare et eum mox sanari.

Puer morbo gravi laborat, sed mater sperat medicamentum morbum levare et eum mox sanari.
The boy suffers from a serious illness, but mother hopes the medicine will relieve the illness and that he will soon be healed.
FromLesson 12inHardcore Latin
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Questions & Answers about Puer morbo gravi laborat, sed mater sperat medicamentum morbum levare et eum mox sanari.

Why is morbo gravi in the ablative, and what does that construction mean with laborat?

With laborare (to toil / to suffer), Latin often uses an ablative to express what someone is suffering from or what is weighing on them. So morbo gravi laborat literally means he suffers from a serious illness.
Here morbo is ablative singular of morbus, and gravi is ablative singular agreeing with it.

Why do we get morbum later in the accusative (morbum levare) if we already had morbo earlier?

They have different grammatical roles:

  • morbo gravi (ablative) = the illness he is suffering from (used with laborat)
  • morbum (accusative) = the direct object of levare (to relieve the illness)
    So the same noun appears twice, but in two different case functions.
What’s going on with mater sperat medicamentum ... levare—why is medicamentum accusative instead of nominative?

Because sperat introduces an accusative-and-infinitive construction (often called indirect statement, though with verbs of hoping it’s very common too).
So instead of medicamentum levat (the medicine relieves), Latin puts:

  • medicamentum = accusative “subject” of the infinitive
  • levare = infinitive verb
    This corresponds to English the mother hopes that the medicine will relieve the illness.
Is sperat followed by an infinitive because it’s like hopes to..., or is it more like hopes that...?

In this sentence it’s more like hopes that..., because the hope is about a whole proposition with its own subject (medicamentum).
Latin commonly uses Accusative + Infinitive after verbs like sperare to express what is hoped, expected, believed, etc.

Why do we have two infinitives: levare and sanari?

They are two coordinated infinitive clauses under sperat: 1) medicamentum morbum levare = that the medicine will relieve the illness
2) eum mox sanari = and that he will soon recover / be healed
The conjunction et links the two things the mother hopes for.

Why is sanari passive (or looks passive)? What does sanari mean here?

Sanari is the present passive infinitive of sanare. With health, the passive often has an intransitive sense in English:

  • sanare (active) = to heal (someone)
  • sanari (passive) = to be healed, to get well, to recover
    So eum ... sanari means that he will recover / be healed, not that he will heal someone else.
Who does eum refer to, and why is it accusative?
Eum refers back to puer (the boy). It is accusative because it is the accusative “subject” of the infinitive sanari in the same accusative-and-infinitive pattern: (she hopes) him to recover = she hopes that he will recover.
Could Latin have repeated puerum instead of using eum?
Yes. Latin could say ... et puerum mox sanari, but eum is very common to avoid repetition. The meaning remains the same; eum just makes the sentence smoother.
What does mox modify, and why is it placed where it is?
Mox means soon and it modifies sanari (recover/be healed). Latin adverbs are flexible in placement; putting mox right before sanari makes the time reference feel closely tied to the recovery.
Does sed always mean a strong contrast like English but, and what is the contrast here?

Sed is the normal word for but, marking a contrast. Here the contrast is:

  • negative situation: the boy is suffering from a serious illness
  • hopeful counterpoint: but the mother hopes the medicine will help and he will recover