u/Brave-Spring8298

▲ 1 r/latin

Hi everyone! I'm currently attempting to create a line or two of Latin based off of a poem with my semi limited grammatical skills. My goal is for the sentence to end with an exclamation basically asking " [how could he have possibly done that], divine lyre or not!" (aka '[with a] divine lyre or no divine lyre'

My question is, is it grammatically confusing/incorrect (at least for the purposes of more standard than slang latin) to write "[cum] divina lyra aut nulla"? (excuse the lack of macrons)

Specifically, do I need to restate the 'lyra,' with the possible issue of it being 'with not a divine lyre' (as in, 'divina lyre aut nulla lyra' or something), or does the 'aut' split it up enough? (and to that point; to my knowledge aut is used for explicitly one or the other, but is there a better usage than that here?)

Or, unless I should use a different word/phrase than 'aut nulla,' (non cum lyra?) is it alright to keep it as is to have it be two separate things: divine lyre or no [divine lyre]?

Hope this makes sense, and also hope that this isnt too horribly wrong, but if it is I'd appreciate the help! Thanks!

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u/Brave-Spring8298 — 15 days ago