Femina dives pauperi feminae panem dat, et pauper ei magnas gratias agit.

Because dives is an adjective whose nominative singular form is the same for masculine and feminine. So:

• femina dives = rich woman
• vir dives = rich man

The adjective still agrees with femina in gender, number, and case, but its visible form does not change here.

Both words belong together and both are in the dative singular:

• pauperi = to the poor
• feminae = woman

So pauperi feminae means to the poor woman.

Latin could sometimes use the adjective alone, but adding feminae makes it explicit that the person is a woman.

The ending -ae can indeed mean different things, including:

• dative singular
• genitive singular
• nominative plural

But here the verb dat means gives, and with dare the person receiving something normally goes in the dative. Also, pauperi is clearly dative singular, so feminae matches it.

So in this sentence pauperi feminae must mean to the poor woman.

Because panem is the direct object, the thing being given.

With dare:

• the thing given goes in the accusative
• the person receiving it goes in the dative

So:

• panem = bread as the thing given
• pauperi feminae = to the poor woman

Latin uses case endings more than word order to show this.

In the first clause:

• femina dives is nominative, so it is the subject
• dat = gives

In the second clause:

• pauper is nominative, so it is the subject
• agit = does / gives / renders in this idiom

So the rich woman gives bread, and the poor woman gives thanks.

Because Latin often uses an adjective by itself as a noun when the meaning is clear from context. This is called a substantive use of the adjective.

So pauper here means something like:

• the poor woman
• or more literally, the poor one

Because the first clause already mentioned a poor woman, the meaning is clear.

Because pauper is one of those adjectives whose nominative singular form is the same for masculine and feminine.

So:

• vir pauper = poor man
• femina pauper = poor woman

This is similar to dives in femina dives.

Ei is the dative singular form of the pronoun is, ea, id. Here it means to her.

It refers to the rich woman from the first clause. The poor woman is thanking her.

It is dative because the idiom is:

• gratias agere alicui = to give thanks to someone / to thank someone

So ei means to her.

Because gratias agere is a standard Latin idiom meaning to give thanks or simply to thank.

Literally, it is something like:

• gratias = thanks
• agit = does / gives / renders

But you should learn gratias agere as one expression meaning to thank.

Because the idiom is normally gratias agere, with gratias in the plural.

So Latin says to give thanks, not usually to give thank.

That is simply the normal way Latin expresses this idea.

Because magnas agrees with gratias:

• gratias is feminine accusative plural
• magnas is also feminine accusative plural

So magnas gratias agit means she gives great thanks, or more naturally in English, she thanks her very much.

Latin has no articles like English the or a/an.

So a word like femina can mean:

• a woman
• the woman

The context tells you which is meant. In this sentence, English usually uses the because both women are specific.

Because Latin word order is much freer than English word order. The endings already show what each word is doing.

English depends heavily on position:

• The woman gives bread to the poor woman

Latin can move parts around more easily because:

• femina dives is clearly the subject
• pauperi feminae is clearly dative
• panem is clearly accusative
• dat is the verb

So the sentence can sound natural in Latin even though it does not follow the normal English order.