What's going on grammatically in Odyssey II.351?

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brometheus
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What's going on grammatically in Odyssey II.351?

Post by brometheus »

Telemachus needs some wine for his upcoming journey, so he asks Eurycleia:

Μαῖ΄, ἄγε δή μοι οἶνον ἐν ἀμφιφορεῦσιν ἄφυσσον
ἡδύν, ὅτις μετὰ τὸν λαρώτατος ὃν σὺ φυλάσσεις,
κεῖνον ὀϊομένη τὸν κάμμορον
, εἴ ποθεν ἔλθοι
διογενὴς Ὀδυσεὺς θάνατον καὶ κῆρας ἀλύξας. (Od. II.349-352)

For the bold text, I understand as much as "[sweet wine] which [is] most pleasant next to that (μετὰ τὸν) which you keep..." i.e., second-most pleasant.

But I just don't know what to do with the next four words. Presumably τὸν κάμμοτον ('that ill-fated one,' masc. sg. acc.) refers to Odysseus, but then does κεῖνον refer to Odysseus as well, or to the wine?

If κεῖνον refers to the wine (which my Lattimore translation seems to be suggesting), does that mean that ὀίομαι is taking a double accusative? 'To intend something for someone'? Because I can't find a precedent for that kind of usage. But I don't see any better alternative.

Thank you!

anphph
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Re: What's going on grammatically in Odyssey II.351?

Post by anphph »

οἴομαι seems to have the sense of "keeping in mind, thinking about". So Telemachus is saying that Eurycleia keeps the best wine in store in the hope that "that [κεῖνον] wretched man [τὸν κάμμορον]" might return. It seems to fit with the range of meanings that LS lists under "forebode, presage, expect" etc.

I don't know what the Lattimore translation says. I am finding it troublesome reading κεῖνον as referring to the wine, but I guess that one way of doing that would be to have φυλάσσεις working at some sort of zeugma and referring to both ὅν and κεῖνον, so "next to the best wine, that which [ὅν κεῖνον] you keep thinking of that wretched man". I guess both are possible, but the previous one seems more appealing.

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seneca2008
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Re: What's going on grammatically in Odyssey II.351?

Post by seneca2008 »

If κεῖνον refers to the wine (which my Lattimore translation seems to be suggesting), does that mean that ὀίομαι is taking a double accusative? 'To intend something for someone'? Because I can't find a precedent for that kind of usage. But I don't see any better alternative.
κεῖνον is definitely to be taken with τὸν κάμμορον. For article with demonstrative cf xviii 114 (ὃς τοῦτον τὸν ἄναλτον ἀλητεύειν ἀπέπαυσας /ἐν δήμῳ) and xix 372 (ὡς σέθεν αἱ κύνες αἵδε καθεψιόωνται ἅπασαι) See Stephanie West 152.

Lattimore " ..next after/ what you are saving for the ill-fated man, ..." omits "κεῖνον". The "what" surely refers to "ὃν" as in "ὃν σὺ φυλάσσεις". In fact Lattimore rather elides the Greek omitting also "ὀϊομένη". The loeb is clearer: "which is the choicest next to that which you save expecting that ill-fated one"
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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Paul Derouda
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Re: What's going on grammatically in Odyssey II.351?

Post by Paul Derouda »

(ἐ)κεῖνος is a demonstrative pronoun that is used to refer to something that is further away; for that reason, its use here is clearly in opposition to the wine and cannot refer to it, as Seneca says. (On the other hand, οὗτος refers to something close by, often precisely to something that belongs to the person who is addressed. So in order to refer to the wine, which is in Eurycleia's keeping, Telemachus might have used οὗτος).

brometheus
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Re: What's going on grammatically in Odyssey II.351?

Post by brometheus »

OK, thanks for the responses! This makes a lot more sense to me now. I guess I was assuming that κεῖνος had a 'the latter' meaning here to refer to the wine.

What really threw me was Lattimore's "next after / what you are saving for the ill-fated man"; he synthesizes into a single clause these two notions of saving the wine and thinking about the ill-fated man, but I guess a more literal translation would be "next after what you are saving, thinking about that ill-fated man."

What was steering me away from that translation originally was that I was reading an elliptic εἶναι in there: "thinking that that man was ill-fated" but there's just no way to make that work, especially with τόν before what would be the predicate adjective, not to mention that it doesn't make sense to save wine for somebody that you explicitly believe to be never coming back.

οἴομαι's apparent meaning of 'keep in mind, think about' also struck me as unusual. But I'll go with it! Thanks again!

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seneca2008
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Re: What's going on grammatically in Odyssey II.351?

Post by seneca2008 »

ἐ)κεῖνος is a demonstrative pronoun that is used to refer to something that is further away
As indeed Odysseus is for much of the open(ing) books of the poems. :D
Last edited by seneca2008 on Mon Jun 13, 2016 5:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

brometheus
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Re: What's going on grammatically in Odyssey II.351?

Post by brometheus »

(ἐ)κεῖνος is a demonstrative pronoun that is used to refer to something that is further away
As indeed Odysseus is for much of the open books of the poems. :D
good call.

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Re: What's going on grammatically in Odyssey II.351?

Post by Hylander »

Odyssey 24.401-2 seems to have a similar use of οἴομαι. When Odysseus goes to visit his father, an elderly retainer named Dolios greets him:

ὦ φίλ᾽, ἐπεὶ νόστησας ἐελδομένοισι μάλ᾽ ἡμῖν
οὐδ᾽ ἔτ᾽ ὀϊομένοισι, θεοὶ δέ σ᾽ ἀνήγαγον αὐτοί,
οὖλέ τε καὶ μάλα χαῖρε, θεοὶ δέ τοι ὄλβια δοῖεν.

"you returned to us when we were longing for you but no longer expecting you"

This is from the end of the Odysssey, which many scholars think is not a genuine part of the original poem.
Bill Walderman

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