Ἀγαμέμνος ὑπόθεσις

[Paul Derouda]

I'm starting now with Ἀγαμέμνος ὑπόθεσις! All in all the Greek of the hypothesis is quite straightforward. There's a couple of things I'm wondering about.

1) The word ὑπόθεσις - what does it mean exactly? Does is mean "subject of the play" (like LSJ II.3), or (not so likely, I think) "starting point" (LSJ IV.3). Or "summary" or maybe "introduction"?

2) The end of the hypothesis. Does πρῶτος here just mean that this year Aeschylus was first, that he won?

ἐδιδάχθη τὸ δρᾶμα ἐπὶ ἄρχοντος Φιλοκλέους Ὀλυμπιάδι πη ἔτει β. πρῶτος Αἰσχύλος Ἁγαμέμνονι Χοηφόροις Εὐμενίσι Πρωτεῖ σατυρικῶι.

"The drama was produced during the archonship of Philokleos in the second year of the 88th Olympiad. The winner [was] Aeschylus with Agamemnon, Choephoroi, Eumenides [and] the satyrplay Proteus."

Is this correct?

[NateD26]

Hi, Paul.

I think hypothesis, like you said, in this sense is a summary proposed before the
work itself. Here's a very short definition on Wikipedia.

I'm still at beginning of the hypothesis (I apologize upfront for any delays), so I'll leave
the second part for others.

My question is regarding the first sentence.

Ἀγαμέμνων εἰς Ἴλιον ἀπιὼν τῇ Κλυταιμήστρᾳ, εἰ πορθήσοι τὸ ἴλιον,
ὑπέσχετο τῆς αὐτῆς ἡμέρας σημαίνειν διὰ τοῦ πυρσοῦ.

1. Do you read the dative as indirect object of the promise, or with the
participle as the purpose of his departure to Ilium?

2. Does the genitive of time here signify a time within which he will signal to her the
sacking of Ilium?

3. Why does he use the future optative in the protasis?
[edit #3:] ὑπισχνέομαι can take fut. inf. The promise by its very nature refers to the future.
Why then does he use pres. inf.?

[Paul Derouda]

Ἀγαμέμνων εἰς Ἴλιον ἀπιὼν τῇ Κλυταιμήστρᾳ, εἰ πορθήσοι τὸ ἴλιον,
ὑπέσχετο τῆς αὐτῆς ἡμέρας σημαίνειν διὰ τοῦ πυρσοῦ.

1. Do you read the dative as indirect object of the promise, or with the
participle as the purpose of his departure to Ilium?

2. Does the genitive of time here signify a time within which he will signal to her the
sacking of Ilium?

3. Why does he use the future optative in the protasis?
[edit #3:] ὑπισχνέομαι can take fut. inf. The promise by its very nature refers to the future.
Why then does he use pres. inf.?

1. It must be the indirect object of the promise.

2. I think you're right, it's a genitive of time, Smyth §1444. "As contrasted with the accusative of time (1582) the genitive denotes a portion of time. Hence the genitive of time is partitive."

3. The idea of the promise's fulfilment in the future is already expressed in εἰ πορθήσοι; an infinitive's tense does not express time but aspect. Whether it is possible to use a future infinitive here, I don't know, but I guess mostly it's a choice between aorist and present infinitive.

[NateD26]

Ἀγαμέμνων εἰς Ἴλιον ἀπιὼν τῇ Κλυταιμήστρᾳ, εἰ πορθήσοι τὸ ἴλιον,
ὑπέσχετο τῆς αὐτῆς ἡμέρας σημαίνειν διὰ τοῦ πυρσοῦ.

3. Why does he use the future optative in the protasis?
[edit #3:] ὑπισχνέομαι can take fut. inf. The promise by its very nature refers to the future.
Why then does he use pres. inf.?

3. The idea of the promise's fulfilment in the future is already expressed in εἰ πορθήσοι; an infinitive's tense does not express time but aspect. Whether it is possible to use a future infinitive here, I don't know, but I guess mostly it's a choice between aorist and present infinitive.

But where can we find other examples of future optative in the protasis, other than future "most vivid"
condition, which has mostly the fut. ind. in both protasis and apodosis?

[Paul Derouda]

But where can we find other examples of future optative in the protasis, other than future "most vivid"
condition, which has mostly the fut. ind. in both protasis and apodosis?

I have no idea.
I thought you were wondering about the apodosis being a present, but it was it being an infinitive that was bothering you...

[NateD26]

But where can we find other examples of future optative in the protasis, other than future "most vivid"
condition, which has mostly the fut. ind. in both protasis and apodosis?

I have no idea.
I thought you were wondering about the apodosis being a present, but it was it being an infinitive that was bothering you...

It being infinitive is alright with me. It complement the idea of the main verb.
According to LSJ, aor. inf. with this verb is more common (less so fut. inf.),
and pres. inf. means to profess to do a thing; not sure how different it
is from promise.

Try to revert this to direct speech:
ὑπισχνοῦμαί σοι, ὦ Κλυταιμήστρα· εἰ πορθήσω (fut. ind.) τὸ ἴλιον,
τῆς αὐτῆς ἡμέρας σημαίνω (pres. ind./subj.?) διὰ τοῦ πυρσοῦ.

I guess this is some uncommon form of a future condition.

[NateD26]

I could only find a couple occurrences of the fut. opt. of this verb,
both of which are in the Scholia Vetera (Agamemnon's Hypothesis & comment
on Homer's Iliad 2. 12). A compound ἐκπορθήσοι was found in Medieval commentary
on Homer by Eustathius (c.1115-1195/6), and here it actually has ἄν, which baffles me even further.

Perhaps this was used as aor. opt. in those times when the Scholia was written.
A clue for that is in the second occurrence where aor. opt. for αἱρέω, ἕλοι, is given
two glosses, one of which is aorist: λάβοι & πορθήσοι.

Regarding the use of pres. inf. with ὑπισχνοῦμαι and its meaning, see Smyth 1868c.

[NateD26]

Here's the relevant portion of the play (lines 25-30):

ἰοὺ ἰού.
Ἀγαμέμνονος γυναικὶ σημαίνω τορῶς
εὐνῆς ἐπαντείλασαν ὡς τάχος δόμοις
ὀλολυγμὸν εὐφημοῦντα τῇδε λαμπάδι
ἐπορθιάζειν, εἴπερ Ἰλίου πόλις
ἑάλωκεν, ὡς ὁ φρυκτὸς ἀγγέλλων πρέπει·

Herbert Smyth's translation (1926):
[25] Hallo! Hallo! To Agamemnon's queen I thus cry aloud the signal to rise
from her bed, and as quickly as she can to lift up in her palace halls a shout
of joy in welcome of this fire, if the city of Ilium [30] truly is taken, as this
beacon unmistakably announces.

[Paul Derouda]

Sorry about all the nonsense above...

Goodwin's Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb has a few words on what I now think you were really talking about.

§459 "The future optative cannot be used in protasis or apodosis, except in indirect discourse to represent a future indicative of the direct discourse."
http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/phi ... Monographs

So I guess you were on the right track reverting it to direct speech.

BTW, I'll really have to revise those conditional sentences myself...

[NateD26]

Well, this is annoying. I've written my humble translation here and again was redirected
to the login window even though I was logged in, and everything got lost.
It's no use anyways. You can find most of the hypothesis translated here (pp. 25-26)

[Paul Derouda]

Nate, I'm sorry about that, it's really annoying.

πεποίηκέν τε Αἴγισθον καὶ Κλυταιμήστραν ἑκάτερον διισχυριζόμενον περὶ τῆς ἀναιρέσεως ἑνι κεφαλαίωι, τὴν μὲν τῆι ἀναιρέσει Ἰφιγενείας, τὸν δὲ ταῖς τοῦ πατρὸς ἐξ Ἀτρέως συμφοραῖς.

Agamemnon in performance translates:
"...and he has created a scene in which Aegisthus and Clytemnestra each claim responsibility for the murder on a single count, Clytemnestra for the murder of Iphigeneia, and Aegisthus for the sufferings of his father Thyestes at the hands of Atreus."

I find this English a bit unclear, and unless I misunderstand the meaning of "on a single count", this isn't exactly how I understand the Greek. I would rather translate:
"...and he has created a scene in which Aegisthus and Clytemnestra each give/have their own separate reason for the murder, Clytemnestra etc."

What do you think?

[NateD26]

Nate, I'm sorry about that, it's really annoying.

πεποίηκέν τε Αἴγισθον καὶ Κλυταιμήστραν ἑκάτερον διισχυριζόμενον περὶ τῆς ἀναιρέσεως ἑνι κεφαλαίωι, τὴν μὲν τῆι ἀναιρέσει Ἰφιγενείας, τὸν δὲ ταῖς τοῦ πατρὸς ἐξ Ἀτρέως συμφοραῖς.

Agamemnon in performance translates:
"...and he has created a scene in which Aegisthus and Clytemnestra each claim responsibility for the murder on a single count, Clytemnestra for the murder of Iphigeneia, and Aegisthus for the sufferings of his father Thyestes at the hands of Atreus."

I find this English a bit unclear, and unless I misunderstand the meaning of "on a single count", this isn't exactly how I understand the Greek. I would rather translate:
"...and he has created a scene in which Aegisthus and Clytemnestra each give/have their own separate reason for the murder, Clytemnestra etc."

What do you think?

I think it boils down to the style of the translator, as both yours and the above essentially
mean the same. One could argue that ἑκάτερον διισχυριζόμενον already established that
they'd given their own separate motives for the act with ἑνι κεφαλαίωι being rather redundant.