pster wrote:Well, Hornblower has basically nothing whatsoever to say about any of this. He has a few remarks about the kind of folly involved at the very end. I could never be a classicist. I don't know how there could be a debate between two camps that isn't addressed in a 2000 page 3 volume commentary. Frankly, it seems quite absurd. I better stop there.
mwh wrote:But I note the competing translations both (or all) appear to take the negative as applying only to the participle. Could it perhaps apply to both the participle and the main verb?
John W. wrote:It is the bit in bold which is the real problem, and especially the force of οὐ γὰρ δὴ. Denniston (The Greek Particles, 2nd edn, p. 243) gives the general sense of οὐ γὰρ δὴ as ‘certainly not’ (or ‘certainly not, at any rate’), but for our present passage translates as ‘Surely you have not avoided these three errors only to fall into a fourth ...’
mwh wrote:Agreed the tenses are important (as always), and perfects are perfects. That doesn't mean they have to translated by presents. I don't see anything wrong with "I have found" for eureka. I tried variously to capture the force of the perfects in my highly tentative and fumbling renderings above ("have managed to avoid," "have been free" etc.)—unsatisfactorily, no doubt.
mwh wrote:I read the aphllaktai bit as referring to the failings he's rehearsed in the speech up to this point.
mwh wrote: For me the difficulty lies in the katafronhsis bit, as I tried to explain. Who or what is (was, will be) the object of the contempt (or lack of it)? I don't get it.
John W. wrote:
pster asked why I used ‘but’ in referring to Denniston on οὐ γὰρ δὴ (The Greek Particles, 2nd edn, p. 243). It was to contrast the general sense he gives for this combination – ‘you have certainly not done X’ – with the different sense he assigns to it here : ‘surely you have not done X(?)’.
John W. wrote:
I agree with mwh that we need to look at the context. The Corinthians have said that the allies are not only failing to strengthen the liberty which they inherited from their fathers, but are even ‘allowing a tyrant city [= imperial Athens] to be established in Hellas’. They add that they cannot see how ‘these things’ (i.e. the failure to safeguard their liberty, and allowing Athens to become a tyrant city – ‘this policy’ in my translation) ‘can be free from the three greatest disasters: stupidity, weakness and ignorance’.
So far, so good. But are the Corinthians then saying to the allies (I translate fairly freely to bring out the possible meanings):
(a) ‘We cannot see how this policy can be free from these disasters – for you certainly have not avoided them by adopting a contemptuous attitude towards the Athenians.’ (I think this is what ‘contempt’ means here: the allies are accused of arrogantly underestimating the power and threat of Athens.)
Or are they saying:
(b) ‘For surely you have not managed to avoid these disasters, only to fall into the trap of regarding the Athenians with contempt.’
mwh wrote:To adopt your preferrred translations for the verbs, "Not being free of these sumphorai are you accommodating that contempt …". Which turns out to be just the same as John's "you certainly have not avoided them by adopting a contemptuous attitude" and my "you certainly can't have proceeded to that oh-so-pernicious contemptuousness without having fallen prey to these afflictions."
pster wrote: I just think that the Corinthians are whining not just about what the allies did, but what the allies have been doing! Maybe that is the problem we all are having. Not enough use of the English present perfect, myself included!
mwh wrote:
?Interesting that the three are presented as alternatives (h not kai). Why? Each entails the others, or you can take your pick, they all effectively amount to the same thing?
Michael
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