Iliad 3:195

[Bert]

τεύχεα μέν οἱ κεῖται á¼￾πὶ χθονὶ πουλυβοτείÏ￾ῃ,

Boise calls the dative oi( an ethical dative. Does it not make more sense as a dative of possesion?

[Paul]

τεύχεα μέν οἱ κεῖται á¼￾πὶ χθονὶ πουλυβοτείÏ￾ῃ,

Boise calls the dative oi( an ethical dative. Does it not make more sense as a dative of possesion?

Hi Bert,

Looks to me like so-called "dative of (dis)advantage."

Cordially,

Paul

[Bert]

Paul, can you please explain?
Here is my translation of lines 192 - 196
Come tell me about this one, dear child, who is that.
Though he is not as tall as Agamemnon the son of Atreus,
he is broader to look upon in shoulders and chest.
His armour is laying on the rich soil
but he himself, as a ram, is going among the ranks of men, inspecting.

If oi( is a dative of disadvantage then 'his' is not in the text but is assumed. That's possible.
But for a dative of disadvantage to make sense Odysseus would have to be better off with the armour but he laid it down himself. Priam, who was watching, would have seen that.
I can't make any sense at all of an ethical dative, especially not with an intransitive verb.

[Paul]

"His armour is laying on the rich soil"

If oi( is a dative of disadvantage then 'his' is not in the text but is assumed.

Hi Bert,

I don't understand what you mean; can you flesh it out for me?

Why is use of οἱ in 3.195 any different from its use in 1.104?

Cordially,

Paul

[Bert]

Most frustrating. I had a reply almost ready but I wanted to check one more thing. When I tried to get back to my reply, all it said was; "No reply mode specified." I don't know what I did not specify but my reply was gone. So here I go again:

I’ll try to explain or give examples of how I understand some of the different datives.
Maybe I have some misconceptions that are causing my confusion.

Dative of possession. ὄνομα αá½￾Ï„á¿· Παῦλος á¼￾στίν. I consider this a dative of possession. I think it has the same meaning as ὄνομα αá½￾τοῦ Παῦλος á¼￾στίν.
Dative of (dis)advantage. Iliad 1:4 and 5. …αá½￾τοὺς δὲ ἑλώÏ￾ια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι. …but prepared their bodies as prey for (to the advantage of) dogs and birds.
Dative of reference. I can’t think of an example from Homer right now. Here is one from Luke 18:31. ….πάντα Ï„á½° γεγÏ￾αμμένα διὰ τῶν Ï€Ï￾οφητῶν Ï„á¿· υἱῷ τοῦ ἀνθÏ￾ώπου. …all the things written by the prophets with reference to the Son of man.
Ethical dative. This is quite common in Dutch and German. I don’t know if you know Dutch and I don’t know German well enough anymore to give a German example. (Here is a Dutch one anyway.) Begin me nu niet the huilen. ‘Me’ is in the objective case because Dutch does not have a dative. Translated this would mean something like; Don’t start crying on me now. I am not the one doing the crying but I sure indicate that the other’s crying affects me.
I view οἱ in 3:195 the same as in 1:104. The weapons simply belong to Odysseus and the eyes simply belong to Agamemnon. If line 1:104 was written from the view point of Kalchas, something like “..ὄσσε δέ μοι πυÏ￾ὶ λαμπετόωντι á¼￾ΐκτην.â€￾ then I would see it as an ethical dative. “….his eyes to me are like burning fire.â€￾
The long and the short of it is; I can’t see how oi( in line 195 can be a dative of (dis)advantage nor an ethical dative.
What I meant by

If oi( is a dative of disadvantage then 'his' is not in the text but is assumed.

is; I took oi( as a datie of possession so that is why I translated it with 'his.' If it is actually a dative of advantage then oi( would be something like 'the armour was laying on the ground for him.' The armour could still be translated as his armour but only because it can be assumed from context, not because it is specified.

(edit: corrected typo)

[Paul]

Hi Bert,

Nice summation of the dative, by the way.

The long and the short of it is; I can’t see how oi( in line 195 can be a dative of (dis)advantage nor an ethical dative.
What I meant by

If oi( is a dative of disadvantage then 'his' is not in the text but is assumed.

is; I took oi( as a datie of possession so that is why I translated it with 'his.' If it is actually a dative of advantage then oi( would be something like 'the armour was laying on the ground for him.'

From Monro: "The so-called dativus commodi, 'ethical dative,' &c, need not be separated from the general usage. Note however that -- The Dative of the Personal Pronoun is very often used where we should have a Possessive agreeing with a Noun in the clause."

From Goodwin's "Greek Grammar" (1170), under the discussion of "dative of advantage or disadvantage: "Sometimes this dative has a force which seems to approach that of a possessive genitive."

Similarly in Smyth, ktl.

I realize that you know all this. I share your frustration with the haziness of this typology of the dative (and other cases). But it is good to remember that these categories are the inventions of grammarians. A\ propos, here is Leonard Palmer: "The categories to which grammarians affix their various labels are nothing more than associational groups or 'fairy rings' into which words naturally fall in virtue of their meaning."

I think it's safe to say that the dative in our example connotes neither location, nor instrument. Hence it belongs to that larger 'fairy ring' called the 'true dative' comprising dative of the indirect object, dative of (dis)advantage, ethical dative, dative of possession, ktl.

I am not convinced that one need know much more than this. Context matters.

Cordially,

Paul

[Bert]

Strange as this may seem; I know what you mean.
Thanks Paul.