…quam gratiam mali pro beneficiis reddere soleant
My gut tells me that the above moral of the story is something like “favors are often repaid with evil.” But the word “soleant” has me especially confused. I see the hints given as “be in the habit, accustomed to” and even “charcoal.”
Could someone give me an accurate translation of the phrase? much appreciated.
soleo - Wiktionary suggests “accustomed, used to, in the habit of”, so the phrase probably means “how the wicked [are accustomed to] repay favors”
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The full sentence: Haec fabula ostendit quam gratiam mali pro beneficiis reddere soleant.
It works out like this:
This story shows what gratitude (quam gratiam) the evil men (mali) are accustomed (soleant) to render (reddere) for / in exchange for favors (pro beneficiis).
That Latin could also have been written gratiam quam rather than quam gratiam. That would give us a plain relative clause, “This story shows the gratitude which evil men are accustomed to render in exchange for favors.”
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Gratias ago tibi utrumque. The breakdown of the sentence was especially helpful.
Please notice that “quam” is an adverb that is often found with a superlative. It means “how (much), so much, as much…(as possible)”, after a comparative it means “than”. The translation seems to fit the context. However, the ending -am (gratiam) and the word form “quam” are not a sign of agreement in case here. I don’t think the word order could be changed. So “what gratitude” equals “how much gratitude”, IMHO.