Cum ad villam pervenissent, puella et mater negaverunt iter difficile fuisse, quia vicus rectus erat.

Because this is a cum-clause in past narrative. In Latin, cum meaning when, since, or although often takes the subjunctive when it gives the circumstances around the main action.

Here, cum ad villam pervenissent means something like when they had arrived at the house/farm.

The tense is pluperfect subjunctive because the arriving happened before the main verb negaverunt.

• pervenissent = 3rd person plural, pluperfect subjunctive active
• from pervenire = to arrive, reach

So the sequence is:

• first: they had arrived
• then: they denied

Because ad with the accusative shows motion toward a place.

• ad villam = to the house/farm
• in villa = in the house/farm

Since the sentence is talking about arriving at a place, Latin uses ad + accusative.

Also, villam is accusative singular of villa.

Villa does not always mean a fancy modern villa. In Latin it often means a country house, farmhouse, or estate.

So in this sentence, ad villam could mean:

• to the farmhouse
• to the country house
• to the estate

The best choice depends on the wider story.

The subject is understood from the context: puella et mater.

Latin often leaves out subject pronouns or even unstated subjects when they are obvious. So pervenissent means they had arrived, and the reader naturally understands that the girl and mother are the ones who arrived.

Because Latin usually uses an indirect statement after verbs of saying, thinking, knowing, and denying.

After negaverunt = they denied, Latin does not normally use a finite that-clause the way English does. Instead, it uses:

• an accusative subject
• plus an infinitive

So:

• iter = the subject of the indirect statement, in the accusative
• difficile = predicate adjective
• fuisse = infinitive

That whole phrase means that the journey had been difficult.

This is a very common Latin construction called the accusative and infinitive.

Because in an indirect statement, the subject of the infinitive goes into the accusative.

So in iter difficile fuisse:

• iter is the logical subject of fuisse
• but because it is inside indirect statement after negaverunt, it appears in the accusative

A useful thing to notice is that iter is a neuter noun, and its nominative and accusative singular look the same. So the form iter could be either nominative or accusative, but here its job is accusative.

Because difficile agrees with iter, which is neuter singular.

The adjective is:

• masculine/feminine: difficilis
• neuter: difficile

Since iter is a neuter noun, the adjective must also be neuter:

• iter difficile = a difficult journey

Inside the indirect statement, difficile is the predicate adjective with iter.

Because the journey’s being difficult happened before the denying.

In indirect statement, Latin uses different infinitive tenses to show time relative to the main verb:

• esse = to be, contemporaneous with the main verb
• fuisse = to have been, earlier than the main verb

So:

• negaverunt iter difficile fuisse = they denied that the journey had been difficult

The difficulty belongs to the journey that was already completed by the time they denied it.

Quia introduces a reason: because.

So quia vicus rectus erat gives the reason for the denial:

• because the street/lane was straight

After quia, Latin normally uses the indicative when the reason is presented as a fact.

That is why we get:

• erat = indicative imperfect of esse

Because erat describes a continuing state in the past.

• erat = was in the sense of an ongoing condition
• fuit = was in the sense of a completed fact or event

Here the sentence is describing what the road/street was like during the journey: it was straight. That is background description, so the imperfect is natural.

Vicus can mean different but related things depending on context, including:

• a village
• a district or quarter
• a street or row of houses
• sometimes a lane or small roadway in simplified reading contexts

In this sentence, because of rectus = straight, it is probably being used in the sense of street, lane, or something similar. That is why the idea is that the route was easy because the way ahead was straight.

If you were expecting via for road, that is a very reasonable thought. Latin vocabulary can overlap, and school texts sometimes use a word in a slightly broader sense than the first dictionary meaning you learned.

It has three parts:

1. Cum ad villam pervenissent

   • subordinate cum-clause
   • gives the time/circumstances

2. puella et mater negaverunt iter difficile fuisse

   • main clause
   • includes an indirect statement

3. quia vicus rectus erat

   • subordinate clause of reason
   • explains why they denied it

So the sentence is built like this:

• When they had arrived at the farmhouse,
• the girl and mother denied that the journey had been difficult,
• because the road/lane was straight.