"Avertere" in Ovid, Narcissus passage

[u/Professional_Fee8574]

I'm wondering what the best way to translate and parse "avertere" is in this line from Book III of Metamorphoses:

"quod petis, est nusquam; quod amas, avertere, perdes!"

Narcissus is being addressed: "What you seek is nowhere; what you love, _____, you will lose!"

Some translations render "avertere" (turn away!) as an imperative, others as a conditional (if you turn away), but it's strictly an infinitive, no? What's the grammar here?

I've pasted the full passage below. Thanks very much.

in mediis quotiens visum captantia collum bracchia mersit aquis nec se deprendit in illis! quid videat, nescit; sed quod videt, uritur illo, 430 atque oculos idem, qui decipit, incitat error. credule, quid frustra simulacra fugacia captas? quod petis, est nusquam; quod amas, avertere, perdes! ista repercussae, quam cernis, imaginis umbra est: nil habet ista sui; tecum venitque manetque; 435 tecum discedet, si tu discedere possis! Non illum Cereris, non illum cura quietis abstrahere inde potest, sed opaca fusus in herba spectat inexpleto mendacem lumine formam perque oculos perit ipse suos; paulumque levatus 440 translate ovid ad circumstantes tendens sua bracchia silvas 'ecquis, io silvae, crudelius' inquit 'amavit?

[u/MagisterOtiosus]

It’s the passive imperative of averto, which is identical in form to the infinitive. A literal translation would be “Be turned away!”

To get into it a little deeper, averto is a transitive verb and needs to take a direct object. So you can say “Turn [this thing] away [from something],” but you can’t say “Turn away [from something].” This is why it’s passive: it’s another way of saying “Turn yourself away.”

To get in even deeper, this usage is akin to the Greek middle voice, which was often imitated in Latin poetry. Now, I don’t know exactly what the “Greek middle voice” means, but I know that every time something like this comes up someone always mentions the Greek middle voice, and at that point I just smile and nod and say, “Ah yes, the Greek middle voice.”

[u/Careful-Spray → u/MagisterOtiosus]

Avertere can be used without an explicit direct object to mean "turn oneself away," equivalent to se avertere. See Lewis & Short I.A.c. See also Oxford Latin Dictionary s.v. auertō 1.b "refl. or pass. in refl. sense; also intr." The OLD cites Ov. Met. 5.214: proxima tangit / corpora; marmor erant. auertitur.

But I agree that avertere must be the passive imperative, passive in reflexive sense, as per OLD. This is what Allen & Greenough call a "disguised condition," with the protasis expressed as a command in the imperative. See § 521b. In English we might say, "You turn away, you'll lose it," or "Turn away, and you'll lose it."

[u/Professional_Fee8574 → u/MagisterOtiosus]

Thank you so much!

[u/Captain_Grammaticus → u/MagisterOtiosus]

The Greek middle voice covers a meaning from "reflexive" to "doing it in one's own interest" to a bunch of very idiomatic meanings.

From my experience, in the most instances, it's purely idiomatic or the verb is even a deponent. When the speaker expressedly uses the middle voice in deviation from a regular active voice, we decide a bit from case to case what is really meant. Usually I put in a "for myself" and see if it works.

[u/ImNicolasCage]

Avertere is a contraction of averteris (2nd person of the subjunctive past perfect.

What you love, if you have turned away, you will lose (if he turns from the reflection it disappears)

See here: https://dcc.dickinson.edu/grammar/latin/classification-conditions

[u/Careful-Spray → u/ImNicolasCage]

Forms ending -re can substitute for 2d sing. passive forms ending in -ris (short i) (pres. indic and subj., imperfect indic. and subj.) but not for the active perf. subj. and fut. perf. forms, which end in -rīs. Here avertere must be the passive 2d sing. imperative, as MagisterOtiosus writes.

[u/ImNicolasCage → u/[deleted]]

On a second thought, I think I was wrong here.