thou

THOU

tu (personal pronoun); usually omitted in Latin except for sake of emphasis or distinction; but (1) If two actions of the same person are distinguished the pronoun is usually expressed with the first. (2) When two actions are related of a person which seem inconsistent with each other (e.g. “You who did this also did that”) the first may have qui; the second is with the second person (e.g. qui magister equitum fuisse tibi viderere...is per municipia coloniasque Galliae...cucurristi Cic. Phil. 2 20).

thou: tu: the pron. is not expr. except for emph.: L. Gr. §§ 357, 615: the emph. forms are tute (tute ipse, Cic.), tete, tutemet, tibimet, the suffix -met being more freq. employed with the pl.: sometimes, though rarely, the pron. vos is used with a sing. subs.: Cic. Deiot. 10, 29: Virg. Aen. 9, 525: also, by a singular idiom, the voc. adj. agrees with the nom. tu in Pers. 3, 28. Occasionally tu is replaced by other pron. in the poets: exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor, Virg. Aen. 4, 625 (= thou, my particular, yet unknown avenger): at nunc aeterna silentia lethes ille canorus habes, Stat. S. 2, 4, 9 (= t., the famous bird of song): cf. Tib. 4, 3, 1 and 2: but the supposed use of is for tu in Cic. Phil. 2, 30, 76, rests on a false reading. Tu, not vos, is the ordinary pron. of address in Latin: hence there is no phr. corresponding to "thou and thee" any one: Erasm. coined the v. tuisso, 1: the Romans in similar circumstances used pater, frater, filius, as terms of familiarity: see Hor. Ep. 1, 6, 54, and Orell. ad loc.: after thy fashion, tuatim, Pl. Am. 2, 1, 4.