Qimmik wrote:
ἐς πότε -- I think this means "until when?" "how long?". It's a kind of double question, or maybe a parenthetical question within a question.
Thank you Qimmik. I didn't think to check under εἰς in LSJ.
Χορός
1185
τίς ἄρα νέατος ἐς πότε λήξει πολυπλάγκτων ἐτέων ἀριθμός,
τὰν ἄπαυστον αἰὲν ἐμοὶ δορυσσοήτων
μόχθων ἄταν ἐπάγων
1190
ἄν τὰν εὐρώδεα Τρωΐαν,
δύστανον ὄνειδος Ἑλλάνων;
Chorus
1185 Which will be the last year? When will the sum of the years of our many wanderings stop bringing upon me the unending doom of toilful spear-battles 1190 throughout broad Troy, the cause of sorrow and of shame for Greece?
RE:
ἐς πότεCooper[1] considers combinations of adverbs and prepositions etymologically transparent [vol. 4, 2:66.1.1.0-1] but I will suspend judgement on claims of etymological transparency. Just because it is glossed that way in the standard lexicon doesn't prove much. I am
not disagreeing with LSJ on this particular combination of
ἐς πότε, just objecting to generalizations about etymological transparency of
preposition + adverb patterns. It isn't something that can be assumed.
Cooper[1] notes the adverb fills the substantive slot with preposition but this doesn't
"exactly" substantiveisze the adverb [ p2708, Vol 2, 1:66.1.3.A, p 1085]. Copper's metalanguage runs out of steam when confronted with an adverb filling a substantive slot.
[1] One or more of these citations from Cooper were reconstructed from corrupt readings in the index. This happens a lot in Cooper. The error rate in the indexes is alarming. Sometimes the reconstruction is fairly easy other times you just stumble on to the solution by providence as you are researching the issue. In this case it was cross referencing between subjects covered in vol 2 with vol 4 that resolved several errors.
C. Stirling Bartholomew