iliad line 28

[megas_yiannakis]

μή νÏ￾ τοι ου χÏ￾αίσμηι (<iota subscript) σκήπτÏ￾ον και στέμμα θεοίο.

... why are there two negatives? 'mh' and 'oy'? when the translation i found on the internet was:

'Your sceptre of the god and your wreath shall profit you nothing.'

... the translation i was getting was:

'indeed your sceptre and god's wreath may not help to you'

i know my translation doesnt make sence in english but im having trouble with this whole 'may' bussines... lol... since i have not covered the subjunctive yet should i just ignore this? again in my translation i only translated one negative 'mh'... so what happened to 'oy'

again any help is appreciated

-Yiannis

[modus.irrealis]

μή νÏ￾ τοι ου χÏ￾αίσμηι (<iota subscript) σκήπτÏ￾ον και στέμμα θεοίο.

... why are there two negatives? 'mh' and 'oy'?

Here, the μη isn't being used as a negative exactly -- one of its uses is in the sense of "lest" or "so that ... not" and in this use it requires a subjunctive verb. And it's the ου here that makes χÏ￾αισμη negative. So all in all you have something like

lest ... your sceptre ... be not useful to you

I tried coming up with something that an English speaker in this century would say , but it's tough, and the best I could do is something awkward like

so that ... your sceptre ... does not be un-useful to you

Since you speak modern Greek, μη here is used in roughly the same way as it would be if you said φÏ￾γε μη σε σκοτώσω and you can sort of compare the two negatives to something like φοβάμαι μη δεν έÏ￾θει.

[megas_yiannakis]

wow thank you thqat actually makes total sence... i kind of closed myself in a box of thought when i was translating this passage and i was sure that it was saying something along the lines of:

your ransoms dont do anything. i will not free her

but to my understanding now... it means something more like:

let me not come upon you, old man, by the swift ships either now delaying, or later in return, so that your sceptre and god's wreaths wont be a complete waste...

is this correct?

obviously i changed the words around about but this is just trying to get the meaning clear in my head...

many thanks

Yiannis

[IreneY]

I found this translation (του Α. Πάλλη) on the internet

« ΤήÏ￾α εγώ, γέÏ￾ο, μη σε βÏ￾ω Ï„Ï￾ιγÏ￾Ï￾ω στα καÏ￾άβια
» για Ï„ÏŽÏ￾α ν' αÏ￾γοστέκεσαι για πίσω να κοπιάσεις,
» μη δε σε σώσει οÏ￾τε Ï￾αβδί οÏ￾τε θεοÏ￾ στεφάνι.

Hope it helps a bit

Edit: Anything other than "lest" is sort of "off the mark". I'd say maybe either "or the blahblah may not be of use to you" or "in case the blahblah won't be useful to you" (or in other words "won't save you" )

[megas_yiannakis]

euxaristw eirini makes more sence reading it in modern greek... now that the 'negative busines' is solved... another question:

why the subjunctive?

im afew chapters off starting the subjunctive in pharr but from what little light reading ive done conserning it its got something to do with what is 'willed' or 'expected' to happen right?...

so why was the verb in the above example in the subjunctive?

"lest your sceptre and god's wreath not save you"

or...

"so that your sceptre and god's wreath wont not save you... i.e so that your sceptre and god's wreath will save you"

using that as an example couldnt a simple future tense be used... 'they will save' instead of the subjunctive? or is the ambiguity of words like 'may' and 'might' being implied in the meaning?

how has the subjunctive been obsorbed into modern greek? could this help me in the future when i cover the subjunctive (and optative) in pharr and obviously in all my consequantal greek reading considering almost all fragments of the subjunctive have disapeared from english...

sorry for all the questions just eager

Yiannis

[IreneY]

Subjunctive covers many, many things, one of which is being used when something is not certain (which is the case here). If he did actually say "or the blahblah won't be of use to you" (a certain thing) he'd have used the indicative.

It's in sunjunctive in modern Greek too, but the problem is that it's impossible to tell just by looking at it now that for some reason they have "simplified" the spelling and the indicative and subjunctive share the same endings.

Modern Greek subjunctive can help you only if you actually know that it is the subjunctive that we use (see above) I'm afraid.

In this case, Indicative would be (in future obviously)
"αλλιώς δε θα σε βοηθήσει οÏ￾τε.. οÏ￾τε/μήτε "
See the difference?

[megas_yiannakis]

hmmm...

so the subjunctive in modern greek as modus.irrealis said is like:

ΦÏ￾γε μη σε σκοτώσω

roughly translated as kind of:

...leave so i dont kill you!

or more:

...leave before i kill you!

and the verb 'φεÏ￾γω' in this case is actually subjunctive?

is it the same in the case of:

να μη πήγε σε άλλο εστιατόÏ￾ιο...

like as in... if i was talking about someone who was suppose to meet us at a certain restaurant...

which im finding very hard to translate into english too...

i completely get the line 28 of the iliad now though which is good thank you all for your help...

Yiannis

[IreneY]

ΦÏ￾γε is in the imperative really It's the (μη) σε σκοτώσω that is in subjunctive. The best translation would be "Leave lest I kill you" though in more modern English it'd probably be something like "Leave or I may kill you" "for I might killl you" or something of the kind.

What you wrote is also in subjunctive

[modus.irrealis]

About the subjunctive, one thing I've used when learning a language, is that a lot of the time a subjunctive is just required and there's no real choice between subjunctive or another mood. And that's the case here - if you want to use μή in the sense of "lest," it has to be followed by a subjunctive verb (actually English works the same way in this case, since you have to say "lest we be attacked").

Irene's right that the subjunctive is hidden in modern Greek, but there are some tricks you can sort of use (although I haven't actually thought about it enough to see if these are actually useful, so no guarantees here), and one is that if you can use a word like έÏ￾θει or φÏ￾γει and so on in a certain construction, then ancient Greek requires the subjunctive if that construction existed there (since these words go back to the aorist subjunctive and are still called that, I believe). Like in this case,

Κάτσε μη φÏ￾γει - anc. Gr. μή needs subjunctive (μὴ φÏ￾γῃ)

or also

Το κάνω (για) να φÏ￾γει - anc. Gr. ἵνα needs subjunctive (ἵνα φÏ￾γῃ)
Άν φÏ￾γει, θα φÏ￾γω και 'γώ - the equivalent anc. Gr. if-then sentence has έάν followed by a subjunctive (á¼￾ὰν φÏ￾γῃ).

I've found some of these tricks helpful at times to learn how some things work, but the best thing is probably just to learn the rules for ancient Greek -- especially since you have to do that for the optative mood where there can be no help from modern Greek (as far as I can tell). Although, then again, it can help to look for similarities (not to get too far ahead, but weird things like ancient Greek using μή + aorist subjunctive instead of the negative of the aorist imperative is less weird when you realize the exact same thing still happens in modern Greek).