Most difficult text

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GreekGeek2
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Most difficult text

Post by GreekGeek2 »

I'd really like to know from you who you think is the hardest writer, why and which text in particular :D .

Thanks a lot,
GreekGeek2

P.s. The hardest text in my opinion is the Frogs of Aristophanes. Translating it and it takes me ages because of all the strange words and grammatical difficulties!

spiphany
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Post by spiphany »

Callimachus is certainly the one I've struggled the most with (esoteric vocabulary, unusual forms, and a highly conscious, artificial style...and I had all this thrown at me with only a couple semesters of reading Greek texts behind me).
IPHIGENIE: Kann uns zum Vaterland die Fremde werden?
ARKAS: Und dir ist fremd das Vaterland geworden.
IPHIGENIE: Das ist's, warum mein blutend Herz nicht heilt.
(Goethe, Iphigenie auf Tauris)

timeodanaos
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Post by timeodanaos »

I'm reading Pindar's first Olympian Ode right now, and it is killing me.

Plato's Kratylos is, as far as I remember, somehow more difficult than other dialogues I have read.

Didymus
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Post by Didymus »

Lycophron, Alexandra. Why? Well, try reading it.

jk0592
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Post by jk0592 »

The History by Thucydides. For some reason, every other sentence takes me a good fraction of an hour to understand.
Jean K.

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thesaurus
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Post by thesaurus »

At this point in the game everything I read is the most difficult for me.

annis
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Post by annis »

Didymus wrote:Lycophron, Alexandra. Why? Well, try reading it.
Is that a fair mention? It's designed to be obtuse.

Pindar has a terrible reputation, but after some reading his language becomes easier, if not always his obscurity of sense.

In general I have a harder time with the Alexandrian poets, too. The Aoidoi workup of Theocritus 13 cured me of any desire to read more of him any time soon.
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

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