Help with a line from Euripides' Alcestis

[Indra]

Hello, I am struggling to understand a line spoken by Herakles in the Alcestis of Euripides and wonder if anyone can throw some light on it for me.

Alcestis is doomed to die on her husband Admetus' behalf. Herakles arrives as she is dying. He knows that Alcestis has offered her life in place of Admetus, but the latter does not want to tell Herakles that she has died and equivocates by saying τέθνηχ᾽ ὁ μέλλων καὶ θανὼν οὐκ ἔστ᾽ ἔτι. I take this to signify ‘being doomed she is in effect dead and is no more’.

Herakles replies χωρὶς τό τ᾽ εἶναι καὶ τὸ μὴ νομίζεται - Perseus-Tufts gives the translation as "Existence and non-existence are deemed to be separate things." I don't see how they get there. I am guessing that he means life and death are separate things, you can't be both.

I'd be most grateful for any explanation of the line.

[jeidsath]

Indra, since this is your first post, can give the meaning of the following parts of that sentence? In order for us to get an idea of your Greek level.

1) χωρὶς
2) τὸ εἶναι
3) τὸ μὴ νομίζεται

4) And what are καί and τε doing in the sentence?

[mwh]

jeidsath’s 3) might throw you off. Take χωρις and νομιζεται together.

[jeidsath]

Yes, mwh's breakdown is much better:

χωρὶς νομίζεται
τὸ εἶναι
τὸ μὴ [εἶναι]

[bedwere]

Actually Indra's first post is in the Open Board.

[C. S. Bartholomew]

David Kovacs' rendering sounds sort of existential. I'm not complaining I regularly consult Kovacs when reading Euripides. The text here is spare, not wasting words. Eons ago I asked Carl Conrad if a study of ellipsis in Tragedy would be worthwhile and his answer was "this is poetry" which seemed to be a sort of indirect way of saying "why waste your time on that."

[Indra]

jeidsath’s 3) might throw you off. Take χωρις and νομιζεται together.

Thanks to you and Jeidsath for that, I have managed to get there at last. Had not realised τὸ μὴ provided the nice little bit of symmetry I was looking for. Herakles comment presumably refers back to Admetus' evasive statement some lines earlier when asked if Alcestis is alive, he says ἔστιν τε κοὐκέτ᾽ ἔστιν - and Herakles tells him he's speaking in riddles. Thus the comment which I have rendered as "Being alive and not being alive are generally thought [two] separate things." I imagine that Herakles was being somewhat sardonic, which doesn't come across from the dry Loeb translation.

I found CSB's comment most interesting. Also although I know Shakespeare isn't supposed to have known the Greek dramatists, I couldn't help wondering about (as jeidsath put it) τὸ εἶναι
τὸ μὴ [εἶναι] - Thank you all for your help.

[mwh]

Yes Indra that’s it. Here’s what I wrote earlier but didn’t post pending your reply.

You have two items, A τε και B, “being” and “not (being)”, existence and non-. [τὸ εἶναι and τὸ μὴ (εἶναι) “articular infinitives.”] They’re considered “apart,” “separately,” i.e. they’re considered two separate things.
As much as to say “Well, is she alive or is she dead? There’s generally thought to be a difference.” He’s being a bit sarky. Heracles is by tradition a bluff character, and he believes in calling a spade a spade.

There’s a grammatically similar (and similarly snarky) line in Sophocles: χωρὶς τό τ᾽ εἰπεῖν πολλὰ καὶ τὸ καίρια, “Saying many things and (saying) to-the-point things (are) separate,” i.e. “Speaking at length is one thing, speaking to the point quite another.”(See http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-foru ... t=64996for discussion.)
There ἐστίν “are” is understood, while here we have νομίζεται “are considered.”

Admetus would say, along with Bill Clinton and the early Greek existential philosophers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4XT-l-_3y0