Avia eam consolatur et dicit patrem intra paucos dies venturum esse.

Because avia is the subject of both verbs in the sentence: consolatur and dicit. In Latin, the subject of a finite verb is normally in the nominative case.

So:

• avia = the grandmother
• she is the one doing the consoling
• she is also the one doing the saying

Eam is the direct object of consolatur, so it must be in the accusative case.

The verb consolor, consolari means to comfort or to console, and the person being comforted is put in the accusative:

• avia eam consolatur = the grandmother comforts her

A learner might expect a dative because English sometimes uses to with emotional ideas, but Latin uses the accusative here.

Because consolatur is from a deponent verb.

A deponent verb has:

• passive-looking forms
• but active meaning

So consolatur is grammatically passive in form, but it means she comforts, not she is comforted.

This comes from:

• consolor, consolari, consolatus sum = to comfort

Here:

• consolatur = she comforts / she is comforting

Consolatur is:

• 3rd person singular
• present tense
• indicative mood
• from the deponent verb consolor

So it means:

• she comforts
• she is comforting

The subject is avia, so consolatur means the grandmother comforts.

Because Latin often uses indirect statement instead of a that-clause.

In English, we say:

• she says that father will come

In Latin, after a verb of saying, thinking, knowing, hearing, and so on, the usual construction is:

• accusative subject + infinitive

So:

• dicit patrem ... venturum esse

literally works like:

• she says father to be about to come

but natural English is:

• she says that father will come

Latin does not need a separate word meaning that here.

Because in Latin indirect statement, the subject of the reported clause goes into the accusative.

This is one of the most important Latin constructions:

• main verb of saying/thinking/etc.
• then an accusative subject
• then an infinitive

So in:

• dicit patrem venturum esse

patrem is not the direct object in the English sense. It is the subject of the infinitive venturum esse inside the indirect statement.

In other words:

• dicit = she says
• patrem venturum esse = that father will come

Within that reported clause, patrem is the person who is going to come.

Venturum esse is the future active infinitive of venio.

Latin forms the future active infinitive like this:

• future participle + esse

So from venio:

• future participle: venturus, -a, -um = about to come, going to come
• future infinitive: venturum esse = to be about to come

Because it appears in indirect statement after dicit, it is translated naturally as:

• that he will come

So:

• patrem venturum esse = that father will come

Because the future participle must agree with patrem, which is masculine singular accusative.

Agreement rules:

• patrem = masculine, singular, accusative
• therefore the participle must also be masculine, singular, accusative
• that form is venturum

Compare:

• pater venturus est = father is going to come
• dicit patrem venturum esse = she says that father will come

The change from venturus to venturum happens because the noun has changed case.

Because venturum by itself is just a participle, not a full infinitive. To make the future active infinitive, Latin normally uses:

• venturum esse

This is the standard way to express future time in indirect statement.

So:

• venturum = about to come as a participle
• venturum esse = to be about to come as an infinitive

And after dicit, that gives the sense:

• she says that he will come

Intra is a preposition that takes the accusative and means within, inside, or in less than depending on context.

Here it is temporal:

• intra paucos dies = within a few days

So the idea is that the father will come before many days have passed.

Forms here:

• intra
  • accusative
• paucos dies = accusative plural

Because dies is the object of the preposition intra, and intra takes the accusative.

So:

• intra diem = within a day
• intra paucos dies = within a few days

Even though dies belongs to the fifth declension, it still has an accusative plural form dies.

They are similar, but not identical.

• intra paucos dies = within a few days, meaning at some point before a few days are over
• post paucos dies = after a few days, meaning once a few days have passed

So:

• intra paucos dies veniet = he will come sometime during the next few days
• post paucos dies veniet = he will come after those few days have gone by

Et simply joins the two verbs with the same subject:

• avia eam consolatur
• et dicit ...

So the grandmother does two things:

1. she comforts her
2. she says that father will come within a few days

Latin word order is flexible, but this is a very straightforward way to connect the two actions.

Yes, but this is the normal and most classical construction after a verb of saying.

Latin sometimes uses other patterns, especially in later Latin, but in standard classical prose, after dicit you usually expect indirect statement:

• accusative + infinitive

So dicit patrem intra paucos dies venturum esse is exactly the sort of structure a learner should get used to.

Latin word order is much freer than English word order because the endings show the grammatical relationships.

This sentence could be rearranged in several ways without changing the basic meaning, for example:

• dicit patrem venturum esse intra paucos dies
• dicit intra paucos dies patrem venturum esse

But the given order is very natural:

• patrem introduces the subject of the indirect statement
• intra paucos dies gives the time expression
• venturum esse comes at the end, where infinitives often stand

Latin often places the infinitive or main verbal idea late in the clause.

Eam is the feminine singular accusative form of is, ea, id, the common third-person pronoun/adjective.

Since the sentence is already talking about a known female person from the context, Latin can simply say:

• eam = her

It is accusative because it is the object of consolatur.

So:

• ea = she
• eam = her

Grammatically, patrem just means father in the accusative singular. Whether English says father, the father, or her father depends on context.

Latin often leaves relationships understood from the situation. If the context makes it clear whose father is meant, English may naturally supply that:

• she says that her father will come

But the Latin word itself is simply patrem.

The biggest point is the indirect statement after dicit.

A learner should spot:

• dicit
• then patrem in the accusative
• then venturum esse as the infinitive

That combination means:

• she says that father will come

So this sentence is a very good example of two common Latin features at once:

1. a deponent verb: consolatur
2. an accusative-and-infinitive indirect statement: patrem ... venturum esse