Some question on greek and a greeting.

[Sohtnirybal]

Hi my name is Ángel I´m from Argentina, I´m 24 years old. I have been studying greek along 1 year -like 1 year and a half-, and I want to adquire a fluid reading in greek, that's why prepare and exercise myself almost everyday -I apologize because my english may sound not so fluid even more strange I hope it dosen´t be a big deal- this is my first post and I doubt if this is the appropriate way to ask something about greek, it means if I should open a new topic, should I open a new topic everytime I have a question?

In so I have some questions and I want to share and see how you solve it. I exercise my greek skill with this beauty book-if some of you want a copy i can scan mine-: Ianua Linguae graecae by Holtermann. I will enumarate my concerns:

1. The first question born in the lecture N. 31 sentence No 5.: ὴμεῖς μὲν γὰρ φίλους μόνους προσδεχόμεθα προσελθεῖν τῇ θυσίᾳ ἡμῶν, οὗτος δὲ θεοῦ τινος γνώμῃ ἐχθρός μου εἶναι φαίνεται. (my translation is: we allow only our friends to go to make the sacrifice for us, but this one seems me to be hated for any God according to a judgment (and the deal comes with this dat. γνώμῃ I understand it as a dat of relation, but I’m not quite sure if it´s right, what do you think?)
2. The second question comes in the text No. 33 sentence No 2: Ὸ δ᾿ Αἰήτης· Παρέξω σοι τὸ δέρμα, ἐὰν ποιήσῃς, ἃ ἂν λέγω. (If I understand this sentence it´s a conditional of subjuntive with ἐάν, also call future more vivid, my translation is: But Aietes: I`m going to give you the skin if you make, those thing I say. My question concerns to this repetition: ἃ ἂν λέγω, I think it´s a subjunctive, I understand the meaning but I can´t find an explanation of it in Smyth’s grammar, it means I do not understand quite right what’s going on here)

3. The last question is in the same reading but in sentence 16: Ταῦτα δ᾿ ἤκουσε Μήδεια, ἡ τοῦ Αἰήτου θυγάτηρ, φαρμακὶς οὖσα δεινή, ἣν καὶ πρότερον ἐπιθυμία κατέλαβε τοῦ ἂλοχον γενέσθαι τοῦ ἣρωος (my translation of the first part is clear –apologize if my translation doesn’t have a good stylistic lecture- : After Medea heard those stuff, she who is the daughter of Aietes, and she is also a terrible enchantress (but the second part is not too clear for me. The nominative is ἐπιθυμία the main verb is κατέλαβε: since before a desire took posetion of her - ἣν- (I understand this relative as Direct obj. of the verb) (the desire of) become the wife -ἂλοχον- (direct object of γενέσθαι wich is declined that´s why the genitive article after the κατέλαβε) for the Hero. I´m not so sure of two things the first is the syntax, can gignomai takes direct object, I think it´s not possible, the second is how to organize syntactically those acusatives the relative pronoun and the ἂλοχον, and finally how to understand those genitives? Maybe as genitives of purposes.

I hope my english does not represent a big problem for you, if so please let me know.

[jeidsath]

Hello! Your English is clear and understandable. It's fine to start new topics, but if you have a lot of questions from a single chapter of a book or a single book, maybe use just one topic for them instead of starting many?

1. The first question born in the lecture N. 31 sentence No 5.: ὴμεῖς μὲν γὰρ φίλους μόνους προσδεχόμεθα προσελθεῖν τῇ θυσίᾳ ἡμῶν, οὗτος δὲ θεοῦ τινος γνώμῃ ἐχθρός μου εἶναι φαίνεται. (my translation is: we allow only our friends to go to make the sacrifice for us, but this one seems me to be hated for any God according to a judgment (and the deal comes with this dat. γνώμῃ I understand it as a dat of relation, but I’m not quite sure if it´s right, what do you think?)

To me this makes sense as: "Now we allow only friends to attend our sacrifice, but this one appears to be an enemy of mine in a matter of religion [opinion of a god]."

2. The second question comes in the text No. 33 sentence No 2: Ὸ δ᾿ Αἰήτης· Παρέξω σοι τὸ δέρμα, ἐὰν ποιήσῃς, ἃ ἂν λέγω. (If I understand this sentence it´s a conditional of subjuntive with ἐάν, also call future more vivid, my translation is: But Aietes: I`m going to give you the skin if you make, those thing I say. My question concerns to this repetition: ἃ ἂν λέγω, I think it´s a subjunctive, I understand the meaning but I can´t find an explanation of it in Smyth’s grammar, it means I do not understand quite right what’s going on here)

I think that the subjunctive (with αν) makes it "what I shall say" instead of "what I say": And Aietes said: I will give you the skin if you do what I shall say.

3. The last question is in the same reading but in sentence 16: Ταῦτα δ᾿ ἤκουσε Μήδεια, ἡ τοῦ Αἰήτου θυγάτηρ, φαρμακὶς οὖσα δεινή, ἣν καὶ πρότερον ἐπιθυμία κατέλαβε τοῦ ἂλοχον γενέσθαι τοῦ ἣρωος (my translation of the first part is clear –apologize if my translation doesn’t have a good stylistic lecture- : After Medea heard those stuff, she who is the daughter of Aietes, and she is also a terrible enchantress (but the second part is not too clear for me. The nominative is ἐπιθυμία the main verb is κατέλαβε: since before a desire took posetion of her - ἣν- (I understand this relative as Direct obj. of the verb) (the desire of) become the wife -ἂλοχον- (direct object of γενέσθαι wich is declined that´s why the genitive article after the κατέλαβε) for the Hero. I´m not so sure of two things the first is the syntax, can gignomai takes direct object, I think it´s not possible, the second is how to organize syntactically those acusatives the relative pronoun and the ἂλοχον, and finally how to understand those genitives? Maybe as genitives of purposes.

I believe that the sense is: And Medea heard this, the daughter of Aietes, being a skilled sorceress, who even before had been seized by the desire to become wife of the hero.

I had to change "whom desire seized" to "who had been seized by the desire to" for the English idiom.

[mwh]

In #2, ἐὰν ποιήσῃς ἃ ἂν λέγω is “if you do what I say (whatever it may be).” You’re right that λέγω is subjunctive. Subjunctive+ἂν makes an “indefinite” clause. (ἃ λέγω would be indicative: “what I’m saying.”)

In #3, see jeidsath’s translation. τοῦ ἂλοχον γενέσθαι τοῦ ἣρωος is an “articular infinitive,” the introductory τοῦ (neuter) making the whole thing genitive. With ἐπιθυμία, “desire of becoming the hero’s bedmate” (a so-called “objective” genitive). You’re right that γενέσθαι doesn’t take a direct object; ἂλοχον is accusative as agreeing with ἣν (“whom,” the object of ἐπιθυμία κατέλαβε). The sentence’s main verb is ἤκουσε (there’s no “After”).

[Sohtnirybal]

Thanks you both to answer and clarify my doubts.
For me makes much more sense that τοῦ γενέσθαι is a genitive partitive of ἐπιθυμία, because I was tempted to understand that infitive beign ruled by the κατέλαβε but It doesn´t persuade me at all, so yes what you say makes more sense.

In the other hand, I understand the first sentence Ταῦτα δ᾿ ἤκουσε Μήδεια as a kind of pluperfect, that's why I put after.

Thanks you for your answers