C. S. Bartholomew wrote:NateD26 wrote: εἰ διαφευξοίμην ἤδη [ἂν] ὑμῶν οἱ ὑεῖς
ἐπιτηδεύοντες ἃ Σωκράτης διδάσκει πάντες παντάπασι διαφθαρήσονται,...
if I survived now, all your
children would be utterly corrupted in pursuing Socrates' teaching,...
... future optative in protasis (ἂν is
in parenthesis and is ignored by most translations) ...
Nate,
What difference would ἂν make in the translation?
CSB
What I mean is that ἂν with optative usually goes in the apodosis and even then, never a future optative.
Here we have a threat or warning and for that, εἰ + fut. ind. » fut. ind. was the preferred construction,
Dependent upon secondary tense saying/thinking verb we may find both protasis and apodosis
in fut. opt. standing for the ind. Here only the protasis had undergone such change.
That's how I read it. I'm probably mistaken in it and in my grossly inaccurate statement that ἂν is
ignored by most translations, since square brackets are read by most editors and the round ones
are often ignored.
However, I'm not sure I see a place for it in this sentence. It might go with the participle ἐπιτηδεύοντες
but as standing for what? We have two remote possibilities: unreal indicative which does not
fit with the factual nature of the apodosis; or potential optative which I'm struggling to find any
sense in it.
A third possibility is the iterative past (impf. + ἂν) which might make the most sense here
and in this reading, I take ἤδη with the meaning
already:
...telling you that if I survived (i.e if I'm acquitted), all your children would be
utterly corrupted as they were already wont to pursue Socrates' teaching.
Nate.