Homeric Pluperfect

Thucydides · Post by **Thucydides** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 8:43 pm

Whatever does the Homeric Pluperfect mean? A past tense of a stative verb (which is what the Homeric perfect basically is) is surely impossible.

Skylax · Post by **Skylax** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 9:51 am

All the grammarians I know say what Smyth writes: "it denotes a past fixed state resulting from a completed action". They don't refer to a special use in Homer.

Kühner quotes Iliad, E (5), 65s, where a βεβλήκει "he had (already) hit (his ennemy)" means that the ennemy was already in a sorry state when his opponent "finished" him.