Reading A Greek Boy At Home

[Amadeus]

I have been reading Rouse's "A Greek Boy At Home" for quite a while now, and as much as I try to get past the first lessons quickly, I can't seem to do it. The main problem is with vocabulary, which cannot be deduced (for the most part) from the context, and the accompanying glossary apparently omits several key words. It can get very, very frustrating, but I refuse to let this book go. To further complicate matters, Rouse is mixing Greek dialects, and I only know, more or less, the forms of Attic Greek. And even though I can guess the equivalence between some forms (e.g. διδόασι καὶ διδῶσι), I just stumbled upon this word today, and I can't make sense of its form: καθίησι as in á½￾ γεωÏ￾γὸς καθίησι τὸ κάτω τοῦ á¼€Ï￾ότÏ￾ου εἰς τὴν γῆν. First of all, it's not in the glossary (or at least I can't find it), and, second, when I look up the word in "Diogenes" I get καθίζω, which I already know means "to sit," while further down I see καθεῖσεν, meaning "to set or to place", which makes more sense. But then what dialect uses καθίησι? Can anyone help?

[Amadeus]

Ooooohhh, pffff, I get it now! It's a "-μι" verb! No wonder I didn't even recognize it as a third person verb. I didn't really study this form when I was using "Thrasymachus". Wow, I'm not even past chapter IX of AGBAH and I'm already finding "-μι" verbs.


EDIT: Thanks Modus! We posted about the same time. I thought I was dealing with dialects (because Rouse does mix them up), and now I see my error. In my defense, though, the glossary is just crap!

[modus.irrealis]

καθίησι is the 3rd person singular present of καθίημι, which is κατά + ἵημι. Also, for διδόασι vs. διδῶσι, that's indicative vs. subjunctive. For me, the μι-verbs were a real problem, and I just had to sit down and memorize the forms (in my case, I wrote them out over and over again). I'm not sure they can be learned any other way.

Edit: I see I was too late, but yeah, the μι-verbs are problematic .

[Amadeus]

"αἱ Ï„Ï￾ίχες αἱ ὑπεÏ￾ τῶν ὀφθÏ￾αλμῶν κείμεναι ὀφÏ￾Ï￾ες. καὶ ὑπὲÏ￾ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν á¼￾στι τὸ μέτωπον..."

Is this usage of the prep. ὑπεÏ￾ correct? It seems to me that the first ὑπεÏ￾ could be replaced with á¼￾πί and the second with á¼￾ν μέσῳ.

[jk0592]

I do not know if this is of any help, but when I looked at "a greek boy at home", some of the missing vocabulary could be picked up in the book "a first greek course" also by Rouse.

[Amadeus]

Thanks jk0592, but my question isn't really related to vocabulary; rather, I'm asking about ὑπεÏ￾. It seems ὑπεÏ￾ is being used to say "above" the eyes and "between" them. Doesn't ὀφÏ￾Ï￾ες mean eyebrows, and μέτωπον frown? If so, I don't see how they can be below the eyes.

[modus.irrealis]

Hi,

ὑπέÏ￾ is "above" (in fact, I believe it's cognate with Latin super and English over). It's ὑπό that's "below". As for μέτωπον, I'd say the forehead is above the eyes.

About á¼￾πί, i think the difference between it and ὑπέÏ￾ (at least in concrete cases) is the same as that between "on" and "above", i.e. that á¼￾πί is used when there's some kind of contact.

[Amadeus]

damn! How do I keep mixing my prepositions?! I must've read that line over 10 times, and I couldn't make sense out of it because I kept confusing ὑπεÏ￾ with ὑπό.

P.S.: Thanks Modus. You're always getting me out of jams.

[IreneY]

By the way modus is right: While things are not always that clear, I think a good way to remember the difference between υπεÏ￾ and επι is birds and trees. Birds fly υπεÏ￾ a tree and sit επι a tree.

[modus.irrealis]

Glad to have helped, Amadeus.

By the way modus is right: While things are not always that clear, I think a good way to remember the difference between υπεÏ￾ and επι is birds and trees. Birds fly υπεÏ￾ a tree and sit επι a tree.

Somehow I read that at first as "birds and [the] bees" and I was like, where is she going with this?

[IreneY]

I am trying SO hard not to write something about birds and bees and επι right now!