Questions regarding Blackie's Greek Dialogues.

Here you can discuss all things Ancient Greek. Use this board to ask questions about grammar, discuss learning strategies, get help with a difficult passage of Greek, and more.
Post Reply
Julius
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2018 7:20 pm
Location: Paris

Questions regarding Blackie's Greek Dialogues.

Post by Julius »

Hi! Nice to meet you all, I'm new to this forum and was hoping someone could lend me a hand with some doubts I have. I've begun reading Blackie's Greek-English Dialogues but I'm having some trouble interpreting some passages. For example in page 16:

What does ᾐθρίαζε mean exactly?

In the LSJ I find:
αἰθριάζω: clear the sky, ἀέρα Arist.Pr.941a4:—also = αἰθριάω

αἰθριάω: expose to the air, cool, clear up, of the sky, “ὡς δ᾽ ᾐθρίασε” Babr.45.9.
I think I'm missing something, the context does not ad up to me. In the dialogue they're talking about how today the breeze is mild and how the warmth will make the grass grow and compare it to yesterday's weather saying that it was a clear hard frost. How is a clear (or cool) sky a clear hard frost? Or maybe is the English translation that I don't understand?

On the same page μελῳδήματα αὐτομάτως παρεμβάλλων ἥσυχα is translated as In snatches humming quiet tunes.
παρεμβάλλων : Insert, interpolate

αὐτομάτως: ἀπὸ ταὐτομάτου
I guess I can somehow see how the παρεμβάλλω might be interpreted as "humming". But I really cannot phantom where the "in snatches" comes?

What about of the αὐτομάτως? How is it reflected on the translation?

In the same page 16 I also have trouble with the ἐπικληθήσομαι (from ἐπικαλέω?), the form only comes up in Ex.29.44-5 apparently but I think it means something quite different there.
καὶ Ααρων καὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς αὐτοῦ ἁγιάσω ἱερατεύειν μοι. καὶ ἐπικληθήσομαι ἐν τοῖς υἱοῖς Ισραηλ καὶ ἔσομαι αὐτῶν θεός,

User avatar
jeidsath
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 5332
Joined: Mon Dec 30, 2013 2:42 pm
Location: Γαλεήπολις, Οὐισκόνσιν

Re: Questions regarding Blackie's Greek Dialogues.

Post by jeidsath »

Julius wrote:What does ᾐθρίαζε mean exactly?

In the LSJ I find:
αἰθριάζω: clear the sky, ἀέρα Arist.Pr.941a4:—also = αἰθριάω

αἰθριάω: expose to the air, cool, clear up, of the sky, “ὡς δ᾽ ᾐθρίασε” Babr.45.9.
I think I'm missing something, the context does not ad up to me. In the dialogue they're talking about how today the breeze is mild and how the warmth will make the grass grow and compare it to yesterday's weather saying that it was a clear hard frost. How is a clear (or cool) sky a clear hard frost? Or maybe is the English translation that I don't understand?
First, remember that Blackie's Greek is a translation of the English, not the other way around.

And I think that you can see from the context of Babrius 45 why he took the sense he did for αἰθριᾶν. Whether or not that was the best Greek sense, I can't say.

Ἔνιφεν ὁ Ζεύς· αἰπόλος δέ τις φεύγων
εἰς ἄντρον εἰσήλαυνε τῶν ἀοικήτων
τὰς αἶγας ἁδρῇ χιόνι λευκανθιζούσας.
εὑρὼν δ᾿ ἐκεῖ τάχιον εἰσδεδυκυίας
αἶγας κερούχους ἀγρίας, πολὺ πλείους
ὧν αὐτὸς ἦγε, μείζονάς τε καὶ κρείσσους,
ταῖς μὲν φέρων ἔβαλλε θαλλὸν ἐξ ὕλης,
τὰς δ᾿ ἰδίας ἀφῆκε μακρὰ λιμώττειν.
ὡς δ᾿ ᾐθρίησε, τὰς μὲν εὗρε τεθνώσας,
αἱ δ᾿ οὐκ ἔμειναν, ἀλλ᾿ ὀρῶν ἀβοσκήτων
ἀνέμβατον δρυμῶνα ποσσὶν ἠρεύνων.
ὁ δ᾿ αἰπόλος γελαστὸς ἦλθεν εἰς οἴκους
αἰγῶν ἔρημος· ἐλπίσας δὲ τὰ κρείσσω
οὐκ ὤνατ᾿ οὐδ᾿ ὧν αὐτὸς εἶχεν ἐκ πρώτης.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

anphph
Textkit Enthusiast
Posts: 593
Joined: Fri Nov 09, 2007 1:35 am

Re: Questions regarding Blackie's Greek Dialogues.

Post by anphph »

I guess I can somehow see how the παρεμβάλλω might be interpreted as "humming". But I really cannot phantom where the "in snatches" comes?
From the παρα- at παρεμβάλλω.
What about of the αὐτομάτως? How is it reflected on the translation?
It's not. See Joel's answer.

mwh
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 4790
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:34 am

Re: Questions regarding Blackie's Greek Dialogues.

Post by mwh »

Hi Julius, and welcome to Textkit!

I’ve never seen these dialogues before. They’re very good indeed. The use of particles is especially good; they’re perhaps the most difficult thing about Greek. The English-Greek translations are not literal or word-by-word. They're evidently aiming at a naturalistic equivalence, as any good translation does. You’ll appreciate them better when you have more Greek under your belt, but you seem to have enough already to get benefit from them.

ᾐθρίαζε means the sky was αἴθριος, there was αἰθρία—i.e. that there was no cloud cover. In cold climates (and this is Scotland) that’s when you get hard frost. The use of the verb may not have an exact parallel, but this is the way –άζω verbs behave.

μελῳδήματα αὐτομάτως παρεμβάλλων ἥσυχα as a rendering of "In snatches humming quiet tunes". The “in snatches” is covered by the prefix of παρεμβάλλων, as anphph points out, aided by αὐτομάτως, which suggests spontaneity, implicit in the English “humming" as well as "snatches." It’s the image as a whole that corresponds.
Blackie, a 19th-century Scots professor of Greek, would have bought into Ossian.

ἐπικληθήσομαι. You should not be searching for the exact form (which you should recognize as future passive—of ἐπικαλέω, yes) but looking up επικαλέω to see how the verb is used.

Hope this helps.

User avatar
ἑκηβόλος
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 969
Joined: Wed Aug 07, 2013 10:19 am
Contact:

Re: Questions regarding Blackie's Greek Dialogues.

Post by ἑκηβόλος »

Julius wrote:μελῳδήματα αὐτομάτως παρεμβάλλων ἥσυχα
In snatches humming quiet tunes
How about this:
αὐτομάτως - whatever comes, ie. without putting in the effort of a performance - quietly, without words.
παρεμβάλλων - punctuating, filling in the gaps (between the silence) - In snatches.
μελῳδήματα - tunes, songs (without enough effort to form the words).
τί δὲ ἀγαθὸν τῇ πομφόλυγι συνεστώσῃ ἢ κακὸν διαλυθείσῃ;

mwh
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 4790
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:34 am

Re: Questions regarding Blackie's Greek Dialogues.

Post by mwh »

Fine, but this particular phrase is unusually impressionistic, as befits Ossianic style perhaps. I think it will be most profitable to read the more ordinary parts of these dialogues, but still focussing on where the Greek translation does not coincide with the English original. That means paying close attention to:
particles;
syntax;
word choice and word order.

Post Reply