H&Q translation help

[jtommell]

Just a couple of questions early on here:
Unit I Exercises
7. [face=SPIonic]e)n tais a)goraij ta\s tw=n anqrwpwn yuxaf o( (/Omhrof tois bibliois paideuei.[/face]
[face=Arial]"Homer's books teach the men's souls at the market place"[/face]
and
Unit II, Drill III
4. [face=SPIonic]oi( Qeoi\ logoif to\v (/Omeron e)/paideusan[/face]
[face=Arial]"The gods sent their words to Homer"

1. am i on the right track with how i translated these and
2. if i am correct with the first translation is it common that one's "soul" is educated in which case why didn't the god's send their words to Homer's soul? or is this simply the style that H&Q chose -- which i am led to believe by it's omission in the second, just curious.

thank you[/face]

[chad]

hi, sorry i've never used h&q, but it looks like they're saying
"homer instructs, with/using words, mens' minds in the agora", and
"the gods trained homer with/through words".

if the first line meant "homer's books teach...", the "books" would be the subject, and so in the nominative case, so you'd expect to see a [face=SPIonic]ta/[/face] somewhere (since books are neuter). and homer would then be in the genitive... "the books of homer".

but instead they've put homer as the subject, and books in the dative case. so homer (does something) in/with/through books.

in the 2nd example too, "words" is in the dative, so you've got the gods trained homer and then the "with/through words" idea.

it looks like you've translated the rest of it right tho, although other people here using h&q might give more useful advice.

cheers, chad.

[jtommell]

excellent, thank you -- i guess i missed that. I must have been trying to break up the memorization reaching for wierd little nuances. Back to my charts.

take care,
jason