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ὑμῖν μὲν θεοὶ δοῖεν Ὀλύμπια δώματ' ἔχοντες
?κπέ?σαι Π?ιάμοιο πόλιν, ?ὺ δ'οἴκαδ' ἱκέσθαι·
παῖδα δ'?μοὶ λῦσαί τε φίλην, τά τ' ἄποινα δέχεσθαι
I don't know if the me/n - de/ pair is; (1) On the one hand may they grant to you the city of Priam to sack, on the other hand may you arrive home safely, or; (2) On the one hand may THEY grant TO YOU the city to sack and to arrive home safely and YOU return TO ME my daughter . .
The one possibility leaves the first DE/ clause without a finite verb which the second possibility solved by including it with the verb DOI=EN but then the second DE/ clause is left without a finite verb.
Pharr takes choice (2) and he says that the two infinitives in the second DE/ clause are used as imperatives. Does that mean that the sentence does not need a finite verb because the infinitives take its place?
It would seem natural (how would I know though) to take the following de/ to belong to me/n. If the intend was to take the second de/, the ambiguity could be avoided by replacing the first one with te.

Hmmm

The second pair (this and that to you, this and that to me) seems to me to be the right one. I am afraid I got a bit confused about what you mean about no finitive verb etc. There's no need to repeat the verb since it is easy to understand what it is by context (DOIEN)

I went for the imperative option: the gods may grant the Achaeans to sack a city, but it seems strange to me to say 'may the gods grant you to free my daughter'. The Achaeans are free to decide for themselves to do that, I would think.

I translated it as 'may the gods grant you to sack the city (...), but free my daughter and accept these ransoms'.

I really didn't think too much about de/ though.

I'm inclined to go with the pair ὑμῖν μέν... ?ὺ δ’.

However, some editors read λύυσαιτε for λῦσαί τε. This leads to a pair of clauses with optatives, and the resulting parallelism might point more at your option (2).

Bert wrote:With δοῖεν coming after me/n I would be looking for another verb in the second clause.

Ahh. While μέν often does follow words to which attention seems to be directed, it and δέ may refer rather to the entire clauses in which they appear (Smyth 2915).

Pharr says that the two infinitives in the second DE/ clause are used as imperatives. Does that mean that the sentence does not need a finite verb because the infinitives take its place?

Yes, but.

I'd say that it's often tough to make a firm distinction between clause and sentence in Homer. In comparing texts I find editors often differ among themselves on whether to us a comma, a period or a raised-dot. λῦσαι might just as well be taken to complement δοῖεν, too. Well, maybe that's a stretch, but I think it's not completely indefensible.

Ah!! Now I see the light (took me a while).

I'm afraid I cannot add anything to what annis has already said

Interesting.

I've always read this passage according to Bert's 2nd choice. But my reason for this reading is not based chiefly on syntax or morphology. Rather, I detect a meaningful contrast in the analogy gods:heros::heros:"regular men". So it is quite natural for me to locate the μέν / δέ contrast along the lines of "as the gods give you, may you give me."

I construe the first δέ in ?ὺ δ'οἴκαδ' ἱκέσθαι· as merely continuative.

-Paul

Paul wrote:I detect a meaningful contrast in the analogy gods:heros::heros:"regular men". So it is quite natural for me to locate the μέν / δέ contrast along the lines of "as the gods give you, may you give me."

Could it even be a simpler contrast, as if Chryses is implying "I really hope you get what you want (μέν) and that I get what I want (δέ)?"

Chris

cdm2003 wrote:Could it even be a simpler contrast, as if Chryses is implying "I really hope you get what you want (μέν) and that I get what I want (δέ)?" Chris

Sure. That seems quite reasonable to me.
-pb