I asked Paul if he would let me use an email that he wrote for a Textkit post:τίς δὲ βίος, τί δὲ τερπνὸν ἄτερ χρυσῆς Ἀφροδίτης;
τεθναίην, ὅτε μοι μηκέτι ταῦτα μέλοι,
κρυπταδίη φιλότης καὶ μείλιχα δῶρα καὶ εὐνή·
οἷ’ ἥβης ἄνθεα γίγνεται ἁρπαλέα
ἀνδράσιν ἠδὲ γυναιξίν· ἐπεὶ δ’ ὀδυνηρὸν ἐπέλθῃ
γῆρας, ὅ τ’ αἰσχρὸν ὁμῶς καὶ καλὸν ἄνδρα τιθεῖ,
αἰεί μιν φρένας ἀμφὶ κακαὶ τείρουσι μέριμναι,
οὐδ’ αὐγὰς προσορῶν τέρπεται ἠελίου,
ἀλλ’ ἐχθρὸς μὲν παισίν, ἀτίμαστος δὲ γυναιξίν·
οὕτως ἀργαλέον γῆρας ἔθηκε θεός.
I think that there is something that I don't understand about attributive and predicative adjectives here. I assume that Mimnermos is equivalent to Homeric Greek where you don't have articles to tell you everything. Reading through the LSJ examples for τίθημι, I'd expect "to make a man ugly" to be:Paul Derouda wrote:Joel, you should pay more attention to whether adjectives are predicative or attributive. ὅ τ’ αἰσχρὸν ὁμῶς καὶ καλὸν ἄνδρα τιθεῖ ”which makes even a handsome man ugly” (not ”sets together both the ugly man and the beautiful”)...Similarly, οὕτως ἀργαλέον γῆρας ἔθηκε θεός ”in such a manner did the divine/God make old age troublesome (not ”in such a manner does God lay on troublesome age”).
θεῖναι ἄνδρα αἰσχρόν
And similarly, to make old age troublesome:
θεῖναι γῆρας ἀργαλέον
So in the Mimnermos poem, this seems reversed.