2c. Content of Unseen Translation (H443/01) - Learners will be required to: — OCR A-Level Latin

This criterion asks you to turn a passage of narrative prose you have never seen into clear English. Read the whole passage first to fix the storyline and who does what to whom, then work sentence by sentence. Identify each verb and its subject, note the case and function of nouns, and resolve subordinate clauses before writing. Narrative prose rewards attention to connectives and tense sequence: keep past events in past English and mark time shifts such as pluperfect or future. Render names and places consistently, and give a natural English sentence rather than word-for-word substitution. Where a word is unknown, use context, word-building and the surrounding grammar to infer meaning, then keep going. Leave no blank gaps; a partial, coherent rendering earns more than an empty line.

This criterion asks you to render a passage of unseen Latin verse into English. Verse compresses grammar and bends word order, so begin by scanning for the main verbs and their subjects, then attach the cases and clauses to them. Poets delay words, split phrases and omit verbs; supply the missing sense in English without inventing content. Watch metre-driven word placement: an adjective may sit far from its noun, so match endings rather than position. Keep the meaning of images and epithets, and render them so an English reader grasps the picture. Decide whether to echo the verse form or write prose English; clear accurate prose that conveys the sense is the priority. Read the whole passage first to catch the argument or scene, then translate clause by clause, and finally check that your English preserves the same agents, actions and sequence as the Latin.

Scanning two lines of verse means marking each syllable as long or short and grouping the syllables into feet so the metre can be named. Work syllable by syllable: a syllable is long if it contains a long vowel or a diphthong, or if its vowel is followed by two consonants (including x and z, but not a stop plus liquid such as b + r). Otherwise it is short. Mark the quantities above the line, then divide into feet from the start, resolving the final foot last. In a dactylic hexameter each foot is a dactyl (long–short–short) or a spondee (long–long); the two lines need not share the same pattern. In an elegiac couplet the hexameter line is followed by a pentameter, whose feet differ, so scan each line on its own terms.

This row sets the prescribed authors for the Unseen Translation paper: the prose passage comes from Livy and the verse passage comes from Ovid. Use it to direct your reading preparation. Build familiarity with Livy's historical prose style, including long periodic sentences, indirect statement and ablative absolutes, and with Ovid's verse, including hexameter or elegiac rhythm, mythological narrative and vivid description. Read widely in both authors so unfamiliar vocabulary and constructions become recognisable. In the examination, translate the Livy prose and the Ovid verse as set; do not substitute other authors.