by bingley » Fri Sep 05, 2003 3:25 pm
I had hoped somebody who was a bit more advanced than I am would take up the challenge ;D.<br /><br />I think the [face=SPIonic]dh\ kai\[/face] is there for emphasis. So the first part would be something like, "Well just supposing we did go mad and kill you" <br /><br />We have a conditional with [face=SPIonic]ei)[/face] plus aorist optative and [face=SPIonic]a)\n[/face] plus present optative in the first sentence. I would translate:<br /><br />Well, just supposing we did go mad and kill you, wouldn't we then, having killed a benefactor, have to fight the Great King, who had sat this one out? <br /><br />The conditional in the second sentence is similar but with two aorist optatives. I would translate:<br /><br />How many and of what sort are the hopes I would be depriving myself of if I were to lay hands on you to do something bad, I will tell you.<br /><br />I think in both sentences it's optative to show it's unlikely to happen (at least the speaker wants his interlocutor to think so). [face=SPIonic]le/cw[/face] is future, and doesn't need the change to optative for indirect speech. (I think ;D.) I think [face=SPIonic]tau^ta[/face] sums up everything he's said previously, so the actual words are not the object of [face=SPIonic]le/cw[/face]
