Ancient Greek

PXB

New Member

In a sentence such as

"There are very many fish in this river, but they are not easy to take"

Does the Greek language permit such a literal translation of the English in the second clause to:

οἱ δὲ ῥᾴδιοι οὐκ εἰσὶ λαμβάνειν

or, must the sentence be understood as "but they are not easily taken" first?
 

PXB

New Member

thanks Oups

Could someone explain why τοῖς is used twice in this expression:

τέλος δὲ ἐν τοῖς διακοσίοις ἔτεσιν τοῖς πρὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν
 

Imber Ranae

Ranunculus Iracundus

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thanks Oups

Could someone explain why τοῖς is used twice in this expression:

τέλος δὲ ἐν τοῖς διακοσίοις ἔτεσιν τοῖς πρὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν

Repetition of the article is common in Greek. When nouns are marked with an article, there are two patterns in which an attributive adjective or an adverb/prepositional phrase equivalent to an attributive adjective may be added to the noun: [article] [attribute] [noun] or [article] [noun] [article] [attribute]. Actually, sometimes even just [noun][article][attribute] is used, but you'll notice that in all cases the attribute must immediately follow an article, which is something called the 'attributive position'. If it isn't in that position it must be predicative instead. Determiners like possessive and demonstrative pronouns don't necessarily follow these rules, however.

So in your phrase, the repeated article is τοῖς, the noun is ἔτεσιν, and there are two attributes, the first being the adjective διακοσίοις after the first article, and the second being the prepositional phrase πρὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν after the second. It could just as easily have been written τέλος δὲ ἐν τοῖς πρὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν διακοσίοις ἔτεσιν.
 
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Imber Ranae

Ranunculus Iracundus

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No problem.
 

PXB

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Could anyone translate?

Ἀλκαῖος δ' αὐτός, εὐλαβούμενος ὅπως μὴ οἱ κατ᾿ οἶκοϝ ὡς ἐϝ μάχῃ τεθνηκότα αὐτὸν κλαύσονται
 

Aurifex

Aedilis

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Could anyone translate?

Ἀλκαῖος δ' αὐτός, εὐλαβούμενος ὅπως μὴ οἱ κατ᾿ οἶκοϝ ὡς ἐϝ μάχῃ τεθνηκότα αὐτὸν κλαύσονται
It's not a complete sentence, and a couple of Greek letter ν's have reproduced incorrectly, but the sense appears to be:
"But (or "and") Alcaeus himself, taking care lest those at home should weep for him as having died in battle..."
 
 

Matthaeus

Vemortuicida strenuus

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is that F-looking character the digamma?
 

Aurifex

Aedilis

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Location:
England
It looks like one, but I've no idea what digammas would be doing in place of terminal ν's.
 

PXB

New Member

Aurifex thank you, and the correction of the ν's

Would appreciate any ideas on this:

Ἀλκαῖος Μελανίππῳ ἀνδρὶ ἑταίρῳ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ πάθος ἀγγέλλει εἴτε διὰ ἐπιστολῆς εἴτε καἰ δι' ᾠδῆς τοιῷδέ πως τρόπῳ
 

Aurifex

Aedilis

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Location:
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The Greek roughly means: "Alcaeus reports what he (has) suffered to his companion Melanippus in the following fashion, either by letter or in an ode." It looks to be based on Herodotus. May I ask where you got it from?
 

PXB

New Member

Hi Aurifex

Thank you for your kind efforts. I understood the demostrative pronoun τοιόσδε to mean "such / such as is to be mentioned",
πως to mean "in some way / somehow" and so in translation we have "somehow in such a way". I am confused as there seems to be some redundancy in τοιῷδέ πως τρόπῳ in the sense that one word should be left out, what do you think?

The textbook I am using is Deigma (first edition 1916) written by two most learned men: C. Flamstead Walters and R.S. Conway. I decided to avoid the modern text books and go back to learning the language in the manner of 100 years ago, when so many seemed to pick it up without great difficulty...that's the theory anyway!
 

Aurifex

Aedilis

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Location:
England
Your confusion is understandable; the force of Greek enclitics, and particles generally, is notoriously difficult to translate at times. Of πως specifically, LSJ says "freq. after other advbs. of manner...sometimes merely to qualify their force, when it cannot be always rendered by any one English equivalent".

You are very near the mark actually. You can leave the word πως out, as I did, or you can squeeze it in somehow by saying "in some such way" or "in the following kind of way", though the first of these solutions doesn't strike me as particularly idiomatic and the second sounds a little too colloquial. The English "in the following way", without further qualification, is fairly non-committal, and satisfactorily conveys, I think, the idea of the original Greek that what follows is an approximation of what was in the message, rather than a verbatim recounting of it.
 
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