Nursery Rhyme

[txgreekmann]

This is my interpretation on a common nursery rhyme, any suggestions on improving the greek?

Ιωαννης και Ιυλιανης ανηβαινει τον λοφον

κομιζειν τον αγγειον υδωÏ￾ατος

Ιωαννης κατηπιπτει και εθÏ￾αυει την κεφαλην τῳ αυτῳ

á¼￾(ως Ιυλιανης κατηπιπτει μετα αυτον

Thanks

[spiphany]

Not bad for a first composition!

Just a few comments on the Greek -- am I right that you haven't learned the past tense yet?
The genitive of ὕδωÏ￾ is ὕδατος
For the verbs, you want: ἀνέβαινε, κατέπιπτε. If you want to follow the (modern) literal meaning of 'break,' ῥήγνυμι (á¼”Ï￾Ï￾ηξε) might be a better choice than θÏ￾αύω, which I don't think is very common. You could also consider using something like βλάπτω to translate the sense of the archaism.

ἀγγεῖον also looks unusual to me, but I'm not terribly well informed on the various Greek words for types of containers.

τὴν κεφαλήν by itself is sufficient to indicate possession. If you want it to be explicit, use the reflexive pronoun ἑαυτοῦ/ἑαυτῷ or the possessive adjective ἑός

I had to check about what to do with κομίζειν -- there are several constructions in Greek which express purpose. Either ὅπως + subjunctive or a future participle, κομίσοντες. I would favor the simpicity of the participle here.

ἕως and μετά in the last line don't look quite right, but I'll have to think about it. The English isn't completely straightforward.

[hyptia]

I agree about μετά αυτόν; right away it seemed foreign somehow (but my experience is pretty limited so take it with a grain of salt ). I would have tended towards using an adverb, perhaps ταχέως.

However, for the verbs the aorists ανέβησαν and (κατ)έπεσαν would seem to be called for, since the actions of going up the hill and coming back down are seen as completed actions, not going on while other things are happening.

One other thing: Ιυλιάνης is a masculine ending (or else a genitive singular, which doesn't fit the context here). I'm the last person on Earth who'd take issue with that , but if you're going for an exact translation then perhaps Ιουλιάνη would be better. (I don't know how to pronounce the ιυ sequence so I changed the beginning a little.)

[hyptia]

Just remembered a variant:

Ιωάννης καί Ιουλιάνη λόφον ανέβησαν
‘έξοντες σύν αλλήλοις ολίγαν παιδιάν
ανόητος Ιουλιάνη τό φάρμακον* ουκ ανεμνήσατο
‘υιόν δέ ούν αυτοίς νύν έστιν.

*Closest word I could find to "pill".