O Tempora! CCXXXVI by Basil

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Other Crosswords
By popular demand (of one person) – a popup bonus blog of this weekend’s Latin puzzle. I found this comparatively easy but was finally defeated by having to check 20ac, so a technical DNF (Decus Non Fecit?).

This one was notable for a few bona fide fully Latinate cryptic clues at 19ac, 23ac, 16dn. In my mind this proves that Latin crosswords have reached full maturity and we should expect to see a sprinkling of Latin clues in the normal 15x15s, in much the same way that there’d be an occasional straight quotation in the clues of the Good Old Days. Let’s hope so!

ACROSS
1 Old age; “cruda deo viridisque ____” in Charon’s case: Aen 6.304 (8)
SENECTUS – “But the god’s old age was fresh and green”. Let’s hope we all age as gracefully as the grim ferryman.

5 Dea, cantatrix fortasse (4)
DIVA – another word for a goddess, that should suggest to the English-speaking solver a cantatrix or singer.

9 Column; pars exercitus potius quam templi (5)
AGMEN – as the clue says, this is a military column, not one holding up a temple roof.

10 I will call [you] out, eg ad militiam (7)
EVOCABO – first person future indicative of EVOCARE, to call out.

11 Skill; “____ Amatoria” Ovid’s controversial poem (3)
ARS – FOI. Prize for the first person to come up with the Latin for that acronym.

12 I travel, make a journey (4,5)
ITER FACIO

13 A roof, covering, even a house (6)
TECTUM

15 Stellis, sideribus (6)
ASTRIS – perhaps reached PER ARDUA?

17 These guys are very quick (9)
CELERRIMI – masculine, plural, superlative of CELER

19 Animal se celans in oleastro (3)
LEA – hidden in {o}LEA{stro}. A female LEO.

20 Ingentia, immensa, monstra (7)
IMMANIA – the only one I had to look up, just to check it wasn’t a mistake and the answer was IMMENSA too. I wish the clue had contained IMMANIA and IMMENSA had been the answer.

21 Denarii, fortasse, vel asses (5)
NUMMI – tasty tasty lucre

22 Nympha Callisto ____ facta est, tum constellatio (4)
URSA – there’s clearly a good story behind this that I should look up at some point.

23 Thread (gen); stand by your threats? (8)
STAMINIS – or STA MINIS [stand! | to/for/by/with/from the threats]

DOWN
1 They were standing:” [the souls] ____ orantes primi transmittere cursum” Aen 6.313 (7)
STABANT – “they stood begging to be the the first to make the crossing”, continuing our Charonic theme

2 Lucus, arbores paucae (5)
NEMUS – a grove

3 They fell silent; (shortened form at) Aen 2.1 (12)
CONTICUERUNT – the shortened form will doubtless be CONTICUERE, which weaselly poets often employed for metrical reasons.

4 Use (sing. imperative): Turnus surrendering to Aeneas
“ ____ sorte tua” Aen 12.932 (5)
UTERE – which, as you can see. “Make use of your opportunity.” As you can readily see, UTOR takes the ablative case.

6 Ira afficior (7)
IRASCOR – “I become akin to Mr Grumpy”

7 Rogo, precor, veneror (5)
ADORO

8 Admission, acknowledgement (acc) (12)
CONFESSIONEM

14 We till (arva) or worship (deos) (7)
COLIMUS – lovely that the word is applied to both the life-giving earth and the gods in heaven.

16 Late epic poet, he stands before justice (7)
STATIUS – STAT [he stands] before IUS [justic]

17 In a gathering, meeting, coming together; or in flagrante? (5)
COITU – an ITUS is a going, a COITUS is a going together, get your minds out of the gutter you plebeians.

18 “____ obscuri sola sub nocte” Aen 6.268: they were on the way [to Hades (5)
IBANT – they were engaged in COITUS on the way to Hades, or maybe that’s just a Christian thing.

19 Lux, quae tenebras amovet; item, oculus (5)
LUMEN – light either literal or the poetical ones in your face

13 comments on “O Tempora! CCXXXVI by Basil”

  1. Crowsman, prolific setter for the Australian Crossword Club, set a half-Latin 15 x 15 in the monthly magazine in October 2016. Traditionally the first puzzle each month is an easier half-and-half; half straight clues, half cryptic clues (all the other puzzles are cryptic). Crowsman set a “half-et-dimidium”, English-language clues – as many of the above seem to be – but Latin answers.
  2. I don’t normally attempt it until I’ve popped out and bought the newspaper (obvs along with essential supplies, honestly officer), had lunch and done the non-cryptic xword, polygon, cryptic quintagram, codeword, chess (maybe)and jumbo xword (non-cryptic more often than cryptic) but hardly ever the frustratingly baffling (sisyphean?) Mindset. But gratias. You may have got a ball rolling.
      1. Thanks. I’ve already chucked out the last issue with, I think,one outstanding. Cyclops’ idiosyncratic clueing (ie anagrams that seem to exist only in a parallel alternative spelling universe) often makes PE harder than the hardest Times. It’s like the lower fifth form, obsessed with sex and politics, going ‘Yah boo!’ to the snooty upper sixth.
        1. I’ve never done a Private Eye puzzle but Cyclops also sets as Brummie in the Guardian, where his puzzles always contain a couple of words I don’t know as well as some wordplay that is often less than precise (by Times standards). I certainly find him one of the harder Guardian setters, though he seems to leave the smut to others.
          1. How do you know Cyclops is a ‘he’? Cryptic crossword setters are a strange breed and as their trade involves deception, misdirection and other acts of cunning, the setter in question might as well be a Scottish woman of indeterminate age, although I would hazard it is over 25.
  4. I wouldn’t have got a few here- immanis, for one. Somewhere (wardrobe, attic?) is a Lewis and Short (but no Liddell and Scott) that I somehow lugged around from home to London (UCL) and from digs to halls of residence building up muscles and resentment. Now: online, Google Translate…Sic transit.
  5. 22a Callisto, changed into a bear by Hera after hanky panky with Zeus, ended up as the constellation ursa major. I have forgotten the Latin but remember the myths. Keep it going, V.
  6. Is it possible to download and print ‘O Tempora!’ ?

    I have a fried in Italy who may enjoy doing it.

    Paul

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