Breakdown of Nautae e portu cras proficiscentur, si tempestas bona erit.
Questions & Answers about Nautae e portu cras proficiscentur, si tempestas bona erit.
Here nautae means the sailors.
The ending -ae is the nominative plural ending of a first-declension noun. Since nautae is the subject of proficiscentur, it has to be in the nominative plural:
- nauta = sailor
- nautae = sailors
So Nautae ... proficiscentur means The sailors ... will set out.
In Latin, grammatical declension and biological sex do not always match in the way an English speaker might expect.
Nauta is a first-declension masculine noun. That is completely normal for certain words referring to male professions or roles, especially ones borrowed from Greek or formed in old patterns. Other examples include:
- agricola = farmer
- poēta = poet
- pirāta = pirate
So even though nauta uses first-declension endings, it is usually masculine in meaning.
Portu is ablative singular.
It appears after the preposition e meaning or , and takes the . So: