by byzantion45 » Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:39 pm
Hello fellow lovers of Greek. I have been "doing" Greek since 2008. Before that I spent a number of years on Latin, but I have found that as you work on a new language, old skills fall away. In 2009 I studied Open University A396, passing it reasonably well at the end of the year. Since then I have continued to do classical Greek, with a year out for an introduction to the modern language 2012/13. Now I read Homer with the vowels of modern Athens! As is often the case, I find that the more I learn the less I seem to know. And so I arrive on this board with a specific sticking point. Does anybody have a clue why, in Iliad Book 1 line 191, Homer uses a present optative between two aorist optatives, on the face of it regular replacements in an indirect question of deliberative subjunctives with optatives? I refer to the verb form "enarizoi". I note that this is an additional clause within the "whether" half of the question, but cannot fathom why Homer should switch tenses. Does any body have any ideas?
