11

I know "flevit" means "wept" and "amare" means "to love", but the Greek text is "ἔκλαυσεν πικρῶς", which means "wept bitterly".

If I parse the Latin text literally, it'll be "wept to love". What is the relation between "to love" and "bitterly" and why it was translated like this?

kigawas
  • 213
  • 2
  • 4

1 Answers1

14

Amāre indeed means to love, being the infinitive of the verb amo. Here, however, the word being used is amārē which is an adverb that is derived from the adjective amarus which means bitter. L&S mentions (II.C) 3 adverbs from amarus that mean bitterly. amare is one of them.

As far as I can see there is no etymological relation between amarus and amo.

d_e
  • 11,021
  • 2
  • 21
  • 40