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Odyssey, Book 1

Posted: Fri May 09, 2014 6:11 am
by huilen
I have read Book 1 this week. At last I have opted for Merry (thanks, Paul :)), which I must say I have found very useful, specially the short Homeric grammar that is appended at the end of the book. I am glad because I have solved most of my morphological questions, better understood the many uses of the participles, and felt that, finally, the imperfect vs aorist makes sense. However, there are still some things left out, like the perfect tense (many of the questions that I make below have to do with the perfect), and of course the seemingly unending vocabulary is still the first hurdle in the reading.
One more about this last thing: at first, when I started reading from Merry, I missed the short vocabularies with which books like S&H accompany the passages with the most frequent words that are worth memorizing, but then I found out that looking at the dictionary each time can be much more pedagogic (well... with a computer at least, and when one has mastered the core vocabulary). So here goes a tip (probably most of you already know it, but maybe helps anyone): to determine which words are worth remembering I use the frequency analysis tables of Perseus for the Odyssey, I just find each word in the table, and if the frequency is above certain limit I add the word to my memorization list, otherwise I just write down the word at the margin with a short definition.
That said, here are some questions that I couldn't solve with Merry's notes:

11-15:
ἔνθ᾽ ἄλλοι μὲν πάντες, ὅσοι φύγον αἰπὺν ὄλεθρον,
οἴκοι ἔσαν, πόλεμόν τε πεφευγότες ἠδὲ θάλασσαν:
τὸν δ᾽ οἶον νόστου κεχρημένον ἠδὲ γυναικὸς
νύμφη πότνι᾽ ἔρυκε Καλυψὼ δῖα θεάων
ἐν σπέσσι γλαφυροῖσι, λιλαιομένη πόσιν εἶναι.
All the tenses in this passage make sense for me, except for the participle perfect κεχρημένον.

24:
οἱ μὲν δυσομένου Ὑπερίονος οἱ δ᾽ ἀνιόντος,
How would you explain the difference in tense between both participles?

57-59:
αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσεύς,
ἱέμενος καὶ καπνὸν ἀποθρῴσκοντα νοῆσαι
ἧς γαίης, θανέειν ἱμείρεται.
It seems like a concession: wishing to see his earth, even if it were only it's smoke. The sense is clear, but, what is the smoke of the earth? Is there any metaphorical use of the word that I am missing here?

88-91:
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν Ἰθάκηνδ᾽ ἐσελεύσομαι, ὄφρα οἱ υἱὸν
μᾶλλον ἐποτρύνω καί οἱ μένος ἐν φρεσὶ θείω,
εἰς ἀγορὴν καλέσαντα κάρη κομόωντας Ἀχαιοὺς
πᾶσι μνηστήρεσσιν ἀπειπέμεν,
1) I would expect a coma after ἐποτρύνω. That way "καὶ οἱ μένος ἐν φρέσὶ θείω" would be parenthetical, and then ἐποτρύνω would be with the infinitive clause that follows. Would you explain the infinitive clause in any other way?
μνηστῆρες, τοῖσιν μὲν ἐνὶ φρεσὶν ἄλλα μεμήλει,
It seems that is common to use μέλω in the perfect/pluperfect tense, but I still don't get it. Which would be the difference in meaning if I replace μεμήλει for ἐμέλησε in this sentence?

166-168:
νῦν δ᾽ ὁ μὲν ὣς ἀπόλωλε κακὸν μόρον, οὐδέ τις ἡμῖν
θαλπωρή, εἴ πέρ τις ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων
φῇσιν ἐλεύσεσθαι: τοῦ δ᾽ ὤλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ.
How would you explain that (ἀπ)ὄλλυμι is perfect the first time, but aorist the second?
I would translate:
"On the contrary, he has died an evil death, and there is no hope to us, even if a man upon the earth should say that he is coming: his day of return has been lost."
I don't see any grammatical difference between the first "died" and the second "lost".
So, my question is: would the sentence result in exactly the same meaning if I interchange these two verbs? Are metrical reasons and variety the only factors here?

217-218:
ὡς δὴ ἐγώ γ᾽ ὄφελον μάκαρός νύ τευ ἔμμεναι υἱὸς
ἀνέρος, ὃν κτεάτεσσιν ἑοῖς ἔπι γῆρας ἔτετμε.
I would expect ἐγώ in the accussative (if it has to be expressed at all), since this is an infinitive construction.

267,400:
ἀλλ᾽ ἦ τοι μὲν ταῦτα θεῶν ἐν γούνασι κεῖται,
This is a strange expression, I would expect things to be in the hands of the gods, not in their knees! Have you got any theory about it? Maybe means that something depends of the prayings of the mortals (for to pray to someone implies to be at his knees)?

274:
μνηστῆρας μὲν ἐπὶ σφέτερα σκίδνασθαι ἄνωχθι,
How should I take ἐπὶ σφέτερα? "On their own"? Or ἐπὶ σφέτερα [δώματα]?

372-374
ἠῶθεν δ᾽ ἀγορήνδε καθεζώμεσθα κιόντες
πάντες, ἵν᾽ ὕμιν μῦθον ἀπηλεγέως ἀποείπω,
ἐξιέναι μεγάρων:
How should I take the infinitive ἐξιέναι here? Is this the infinitive of command?

361-362:
ἡ μὲν θαμβήσασα πάλιν οἶκόνδε βεβήκει:
παιδὸς γὰρ μῦθον πεπνυμένον ἔνθετο θυμῷ.
Why is the pluperfect used here?

381-382:
ὣς ἔφαθ᾽, οἱ δ᾽ ἄρα πάντες ὀδὰξ ἐν χείλεσι φύντες
Τηλέμαχον θαύμαζον, ὃ θαρσαλέως ἀγόρευεν.
Which is the meaning of φύντες here? I don't understand it's intransitive use.
ποίης δ᾽ ἐξ εὔχεται εἶναι
γαίης, ποῦ δέ νύ οἱ γενεὴ καὶ πατρὶς ἄρουρα.
Here ἐξ is following the word to which belongs (ποίης γαίης). Should not keep it's accent then?

411:
οὐ μὲν γάρ τι κακῷ εἰς ὦπα ἐῴκει.
How should I take εἰς ὦπα? Could be translated "at sight"? I am not sure if this is an expression in English or it is literal, but in my language "at sight" = "at first sight" = "at once".

430-432:
τήν ποτε Λαέρτης πρίατο κτεάτεσσιν ἑοῖσι,
προθήβην ἔτ' ἐοῦσαν, ἐεικοσάβοια δ' ἔδωκεν,
ἶσα δέ μιν κεδνῇ ἀλόχῳ τίεν ἐν μεγάροισιν,
Really I don't see the imperfect of πρίαμαι here, I would expect the aorist. He
bought her, and to buy something is nothing durative, right?
Note: below I listed this verb as one of which I couldn't explain the form (it is a μι deponent verb, so I would expect πρίετο to be the imperfect, not πρίατο), so I suspect that maybe this is actually a first aorist, not an imperfect, despite what the lemmatizer of Perseus says.

435:
φιλέεσκε καὶ ἔτρεφε
I wonder when is the iterative form used and when is not. I mean, there are many
cases where the action is frequentative and the iterative form is not used (here
for example, is used in the first verb and neglected in the second, being both
verbs grammatically equal in the sentence and having a very close meaning). Is
this just arbitrary or is there any other condition besides the frequentative
aspect of the action that makes more probably the apparition of an iterative
form? How would you explain this case particularly?

Finally, here are the words whose form I couldn't explain, neither with Merry's notes nor Smyth's grammar:

verse number. strange form => expected form
225. ἐπλέτο => ἐπέλετο

234. ἐβόλοντο => ἐβούλοντο

237. δάμνη => δαμάσθη

243. κάλλιπεν => κατέλιπεν

289. τεθνηῶτος => τεθνηκότος

292. δοῦναι => δῶκαι

299. ἔκτα => ἔκτεινε or ἔκτανε

348. δίδωσιν (singular) => δίδοι

374. ἐξιέναι => ἐξιέμεναι

411. γνώμεναι => γνώναι

410. ἀναΐξας => ἀνηίξας

433. ἔμικτο => ἔμιχθη

411. ἐῴκει => ἐοίκει

430. πρίατο => πρίετο

433. ἔμικτο => ἐμίχθη

435. δμῳάων => δμωάων
Before I start with Book 2, I would like to listen a reading of what I have read, would you recommend any audio resource to me? I am not very ambitious really, I just would like to recite to myself less or more decently what I read.

Re: Odyssey, Book 1

Posted: Fri May 09, 2014 12:54 pm
by Qimmik
κεχρημένον -- perfect with present meaning. See LSJ χράω C:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 3Dxra%2Fw2

δυσομένου - second aorist middle participle with present meaning.

LSJ δύω:
aor. “ἐδυ_σάμην” A.R.4.865, (ἀπό) Nic.Al.302; Ep. 3pl. “δύσαντο” Il.23.739, opt. δυσαίατο prob. in 18.376 (Prose and Com. in Compds.); Hom. mostly uses the Ep. forms ἐδύσεο, ἐδύσετο, imper. “δύσεο” 19.36, Hes.Sc.108, part. δυσόμενος (in pres.sense) Od.1.24, Hes. Op.384:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... %3Ddu%2Fw2

καὶ καπνὸν ἀποθρῴσκοντα νοῆσαι
ἧς γαίης,

He longs to see the smoke rising from huts in his native land.

If you know French you can read this sonnet of Joachim du Bellay, which echoes Od. 1.58:

Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage,
Ou comme cestuy-là qui conquit la toison,
Et puis est retourné, plein d'usage et raison,
Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son âge !

Quand reverrai-je, hélas, de mon petit village
Fumer la cheminée,
et en quelle saison
Reverrai-je le clos de ma pauvre maison,
Qui m'est une province, et beaucoup davantage ?

Plus me plaît le séjour qu'ont bâti mes aïeux,
Que des palais Romains le front audacieux,
Plus que le marbre dur me plaît l'ardoise fine :

Plus mon Loire gaulois, que le Tibre latin,
Plus mon petit Liré, que le mont Palatin,
Et plus que l'air marin la doulceur angevine.


ἐποτρύνω καί οἱ μένος ἐν φρεσὶ θείω -- the infinitive goes with both verbs: "urge him and put the strength in his chest/mind to summon the Achaeans into the market-place and denounce the suitors ..."

μεμήλει -- You have to accept that Homer uses the perf./pluperf. forms of this verb with a present/imperfect meaning (this is true of many other perfects, as well, such as κεχρημένον, above). Don't forget that Homeric diction is a highly artificial, formulaic language that incorporates various dialects and periods, not always consistently.

ἀπόλωλε/ὤλετο -- ἀπόλωλε means not just that he died but that he is dead, like τέθνηκε. ὤλετο simply reports an event.

ἀλλ᾽ ἦ τοι μὲν ταῦτα θεῶν ἐν γούνασι κεῖται -- "lies in the lap of the gods". Greek idioms are not necessarily the same as English or Spanish idioms. Just note the expression and move on. Picture a larger than life seated statue of Zeus. The image is more vivid for us perhaps than it would have been for the ancient Greeks, just as "in the hands of the gods" has lost most of its graphic impact.

ἐπὶ σφέτερα - ἐπὶ σφέτερα [δώματα]

That's all I have time for right now.

Re: Odyssey, Book 1

Posted: Fri May 09, 2014 1:23 pm
by Qimmik
One more:

243. κάλλιπεν => κατέλιπεν -- apocope, Smyth 75D:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... p%3D75%20D

Apocope of preverbs is characteristic of the Aeolic element in the artificial language of the Homeric poems.

Re: Odyssey, Book 1

Posted: Fri May 09, 2014 2:02 pm
by Qimmik
435. δμῳάων => δμωάων LSJ δμῳή:
δμῳή (Choerob. in Theod.1.405) or δμω-ή (both spellings freq. in codd.)
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 3Ddmw|h%2F

292. δοῦναι => δῶκαι -- δοῦναι is the normal aorist infinitive active form; δῶκαι is a non-existent form.

Smyth 416:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 99.04.0007

See also Smyth 755:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 99.04.0007

Re: Odyssey, Book 1

Posted: Fri May 09, 2014 2:14 pm
by Qimmik
410. ἀναΐξας => ἀνηίξας -- aorist participle: no augment.

Re: Odyssey, Book 1

Posted: Fri May 09, 2014 2:20 pm
by Qimmik
430. => πρίετο - πρίατο is augment-less, but otherwise regular aorist. This verb has no pres./imperf.

πρίετο is a non-existent form.

LSJ:
*πρίαμαι (assumed as Pres.)
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... pri%2Famai

Re: Odyssey, Book 1

Posted: Fri May 09, 2014 3:33 pm
by huilen
Thanks Qimmik!

With regard to the perfect: many times the father of Telemachus is referred as πατρὸς οἰχομένοιο (1.281, 1.135), with a present participle, when I would expect a perfect one. I just point it out, because it seems to me like the inverse situation that I have with μέλω.
I have been thinking about it: the sense of a verb can refer sometimes to something stative (like be absent or gone), and others to something dynamic (like to go away or depart). By default, i.e. in the present, a verb inherently refers to either something either stative or dynamic: for example, μέλω refers to a dynamic action, say "I put something in my mind as a concern". But when I conjugate the verb I can change it's aspect, and a verb that is dynamic in the present becomes stative in the perfect. Then, in the perfect we have that "I have put something in my mind as a concern" = "I concern about something". And there is the "perfect with present sense". On the other hand, a verb that denotes something stative in the present, like οἴχομαι ("to be gone"), can be used in the present "with a perfect sense", like in the case of πατρὸς οἰχομένοιο (although this isn't a good example, because I checked in LSG and it seems that οἴχομαι is used with a dynamic sense too by Homer, and then it has also a perfect form).
The troublesome I suppose, is that a stative action that is expressed in one language by a present with a stative meaning, may be expressed in the other with a verb that is dynamic in the present but becomes stative being conjugated in the perfect. So, one can think in terms of "presents with perfect senses" and "perfects with present senses". Just a think. I am trying to make sense of this.

Re: Odyssey, Book 1

Posted: Fri May 09, 2014 6:16 pm
by Qimmik
ὡς δὴ ἐγώ γ᾽ ὄφελον μάκαρός νύ τευ ἔμμεναι υἱὸς -- for the personal construction, see LSJ ὀφείλω A.II.3:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... o)fei%2Flw

Re: Odyssey, Book 1

Posted: Fri May 09, 2014 6:29 pm
by Qimmik
"despite what the lemmatizer of Perseus says."

The Perseus word-study tool is very unreliable.

Re: Odyssey, Book 1

Posted: Sat May 10, 2014 12:40 pm
by Bart
Qimmik wrote:d
If you know French you can read this sonnet of Joachim du Bellay, which echoes Od. 1.58:

Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage,
Ou comme cestuy-là qui conquit la toison,
Et puis est retourné, plein d'usage et raison,
Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son âge !

Quand reverrai-je, hélas, de mon petit village
Fumer la cheminée,
et en quelle saison
Reverrai-je le clos de ma pauvre maison,
Qui m'est une province, et beaucoup davantage ?

Plus me plaît le séjour qu'ont bâti mes aïeux,
Que des palais Romains le front audacieux,
Plus que le marbre dur me plaît l'ardoise fine :

Plus mon Loire gaulois, que le Tibre latin,
Plus mon petit Liré, que le mont Palatin,
Et plus que l'air marin la doulceur angevine.
And in his turn du Bellay was the inspiration for this famous chanson by George Brassens:
http://salahaddinfrance3.over-blog.com/ ... 44105.html

Re: Odyssey, Book 1

Posted: Sat May 10, 2014 1:07 pm
by Qimmik
Thanks, Bart!

Re: Odyssey, Book 1

Posted: Sat May 10, 2014 1:35 pm
by Qimmik
374. ἐξιέναι => ἐξιέμεναι

411. γνώμεναι => γνώναι

Infinitives in -μεναι are generally Aeolic. These forms may coexist with Attic-Ionic forms because the Homeric language incorporates words and forms from multiple dialects and multiple periods of the Greek language. See Smyth 469 D:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... %3D469%20D

Smyth writes: "Hom. has no case of -εναι (for ἰέναι write ἴμεναι)." Well, in Od. 1.374 we have the form ἐξιέναι, and there is no evidence in the manuscripts of a variant reading ἐξιμεναι. Generally, Aeolic forms were replaced in the Homeric diction by Ionic forms where this was possible metrically. In most cases it would have been metrically impossible to replace Aeolic infinitives in -μεναι by Ionic infinitives, but in the case of ἐξιέναι/ἐξιέμεναι, the meter would have allowed replacement, so I think Smyth is wrong.

Addendum: I see that Chantraine, Gram. Hom. I, sec. 234 reaches the same conclusion as I did about ἐξιέναι.

Re: Odyssey, Book 1

Posted: Sat May 10, 2014 1:44 pm
by Qimmik
234. ἐβόλοντο => ἐβούλοντο

βόλομαι is a form that is attested in Arcadian. See Chantraine GH I sec. 144.

LSJ βούλομαι:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ou%2Flomai

βόλομαι:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... bo%2Flomai

Re: Odyssey, Book 1

Posted: Sat May 10, 2014 1:50 pm
by Qimmik
225. ἐπλέτο => ἐπέλετο

ἐπλέτο is the regular Homeric aorist of this verb.

LSJ πέλω/πέλομαι:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... %3Dpe%2Flw

Re: Odyssey, Book 1

Posted: Fri May 16, 2014 10:22 pm
by Paul Derouda
Bart wrote:
Qimmik wrote:d
If you know French you can read this sonnet of Joachim du Bellay, which echoes Od. 1.58:

Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage,
Ou comme cestuy-là qui conquit la toison,
Et puis est retourné, plein d'usage et raison,
Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son âge !

Quand reverrai-je, hélas, de mon petit village
Fumer la cheminée,
et en quelle saison
Reverrai-je le clos de ma pauvre maison,
Qui m'est une province, et beaucoup davantage ?

Plus me plaît le séjour qu'ont bâti mes aïeux,
Que des palais Romains le front audacieux,
Plus que le marbre dur me plaît l'ardoise fine :

Plus mon Loire gaulois, que le Tibre latin,
Plus mon petit Liré, que le mont Palatin,
Et plus que l'air marin la doulceur angevine.
And in his turn du Bellay was the inspiration for this famous chanson by George Brassens:
http://salahaddinfrance3.over-blog.com/ ... 44105.html
Both the poem and the song are nice indeed, I didn't know either. I have a five CD box of Brassens, "les plus belles chansons", and it doesn't even have this song! But he was prolific. Looking at the song titles in the collection I notice that there are some others by him with Homeric themes. I haven't listened to him for a while and mostly remember him for the naughty bits... The end of this great song is particularly memorable!

Re: Odyssey, Book 1

Posted: Sat May 17, 2014 4:39 pm
by Bart
Well, and there is this Brassens' song of course...http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HFg2Ja6fVvk