Poems for memorization

[jeidsath]

I'm using this thread to keep a record of poems that I'd like to memorize, as a daily intention, and of course to give others the opportunity to post suggestions.

Oxford Book of Greek Verse 185. Theognis. Choosing Friends

Ταῦτα μὲν οὕτως ἴσθι· κακοῖσι δὲ μὴ προσομίλει ἀνδράσιν, ἀλλ᾿ αἰεὶ τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἔχεο· καὶ μετὰ τοῖσιν πῖνε καὶ ἔσθιε, καὶ μετὰ τοῖσιν ἵζε, καὶ ἅνδανε τοῖς, ὧν μεγάλη δύναμις. ἐσθλῶν μὲν γὰρ ἄπ᾿ ἐσθλὰ μαθήσεαι· ἢν δὲ κακοῖσιν συμμίσγῃς, ἀπολεῖς καὶ τὸν ἐόντα νόον.

[Constantinus Philo]

this apo is postpositive and goes with ἐσθλῶν right?

[jeidsath]

That's how I took it anyway, saying it to myself. And that's how it's accented here.

What I was shaky on was the μέν...δέ of the first line, and what ταῦτα referred to. But after saying it to myself a bit, here's what I've got just now: ταῦτα refers specifically to the wisdom saying of the last two lines, which I take as being even older than the setting. Know this [proverb] this way, and stay away from bad men <...>: "ἐσθλῶν μὲν γὰρ ἄπ᾿ ἐσθλὰ μαθήσεαι..."

Menander and St. Paul repeat a version of this proverb, of course.

[Hylander]

I think ταῦτα μὲν οὕτως ἴσθι refers to what precedes:

πέπνυσο, μηδ᾽ αἰσχροῖσιν ἐπ᾽ ἔργμασι μηδ᾽ ἀδίκοισιν
τιμὰς μηδ᾽ ἀρετὰς ἕλκεο μηδ᾽ ἄφενος.

See ll. 29-30.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ection%3D2

[jeidsath]

Reasonable. I've just got this extract in the book of verse, and Googling for context ruins the fun, of course.

[jeidsath]

450. Plato. Country Music

Ὑψίκομον παρὰ τάνδε καθίζεο φωνήεσσαν φρίσσουσαν πυκινοῖς κῶμον ὑπὸ Ζεφύροις, καί σοι καχλάζουσιν ἐμοῖς παρὰ νάμασι σύριγξ θελγομένων ἄξει κῶμα κατὰ βλεφάρων.

[jeidsath]

477. Menander. The Family Dinner-Party

Ἔργον ἐστὶν εἰς τρίκλινον συγγενείας εἰσπεσεῖν,
οὗ λαβὼν τὴν κύλικα πρῶτος ἄρχεται λόγου πατὴρ
καὶ παραινέσας πέπωκεν, εἶτα μήτηρ δευτέρα,
εἶτα τήθη παραλαλεῖ τις, εἶτα βαρύφωνος γέρων,
τηθίδος πατήρ, ἔπειτα γραῦς καλοῦσα φίλτατον.
ὁ δ᾿ ἐπινεύει πᾶσι τούτοις.

Happy Thanksgiving. I hope that everyone has plenty of trochee.

[Constantinus Philo]

who is this filtaton?
how to scan this? not all of it are trochees.

[jeidsath]

I imagined the φίλτατον as some loved grandkid...but I have no idea. I will keep a lookout at our Thanksgiving for worthy candidates for all the characters.

Scanning it seems straightforward enough, I think. Here is the base, before anceps and resolutions are sprinkled in:

- . - . - . - . - . - . - . -

4 beats gets you into the line, 4 beats gets you out. I don't know what that's called, but I'll bet it starts with "trochaic". Notice that τρίκλινον is short long long before συγ-. κύλικα is short short short before πρ-.

[Constantinus Philo]

this filtaton is probably neutrum not masculinum, right?
I cannot scan the even lines, I don't think they are trochees.

[jeidsath]

οὗ λαβὼν τὴν κύλικα πρῶτος ἄρχεται λόγου πατὴρ

- . - x (. .) . - . - . - . - . -

And so on. Let me know if you need the others too.

I assumed that the φίλτατον is a masculine individual, addressed by the γραῦς, and the subject of the next line. But I may change my mind after I've memorized it and said it a few times.

It seems that this is meant to be advice to someone trying to infiltrate a party, about how to recognize everyone?

EDIT: Perhaps the φίλτατον is the old man, father of the grandmother, and he is the subject of the next line. But he's already had the cup...

[phalakros]

Like Joel’s edit, I take φίλτατον to refer to the βαρύφωνος γέρων, the father of the aunt. In the last line he nods in assent. The meter is trochaic tetrameter catalectic.

[Constantinus Philo]

οὗ λαβὼν τὴν κύλικα πρῶτος ἄρχεται λόγου πατὴρ

[jeidsath]

of the aunt

You're right. Strange though. I wonder if that shouldn't be τηθίς and not τήθη just before then.

Another objection to the identification of the old man, who has apparently already spoken and toasted, is the slight awkwardness of his being one of the πᾶσι τούτοις just mentioned himself.

A third objection is that the ἔπειτα makes this identification a focus. We've been led up to this point.

The most obvious candidate other than the old man is the person not mentioned, but who sort of is mentioned: the person in relationship to all these people, the son of the father and mother, etc. He would also be the one throwing the party, hence ἐπινεύει.

But why does his own family need to be identified for him? Why is it a job for him to get into the party?

Because the φίλτατον is actually the identical twin, raised away, of the the beloved relative.

Hey, didn't Plautus write a play about an identical twin infiltrating a dinner party? What're the odds?

οὗ λαβὼν τὴν κύλικα πρῶτος ἄρχεται λόγου πατὴρ

That's how I say it aloud, at least, with the exception that the rat-a-tat string of short vowels of κύλικα doesn't make me feel an ictus on the first syllable. Maybe the second... but I'm hesitant to commit to one in particular. I have found that the important thing to make the short vowels fit in iambics, at least, is to say them very fast and smoothly, rat-a-tat-tat, and the rhythm seems to come out right. Otherwise on long vowels, I stress the ictus.

[jeidsath]

183. Anonymous. Marriage

Γάμος κράτιστός ἐστιν ἀνδρὶ σώφρονι,
τρόπον γυναικὸς χρηστὸν ἕδνον λαμβάνειν.
αὕτη γὰρ ἡ προὶξ οἰκίαν σώζει μόνη.
συνεργὸν οὗτος ἀντὶ δεσποίνης ἔχει
εὔνουν, βεβαίαν εἰς ἅπαντα τὸν βίον.

Are you memorizing these too, Philo? Let me know if you have a particular trick or process. I'm not approaching it with much systemization, though everything seems to stick so far.

[phalakros]

I wonder if that shouldn't be τηθίς and not τήθη just before then.

Good eye. I see that Olson’s ed. of Athenaeus (where this fragment comes from) prints τηθίς instead of τήθη here. I don’t have editions of the Menander fragments handy, but one could look there too. τηθίς seems right.

[jeidsath]

Here's Kassel, who dates the fix to Meineke, for his Attic Comic Poets, I imagine. So I'm somewhat anticipated. I've also included 187 due to the fix to τηθίδα in line one.

[jeidsath]

These next is 30 lines, and I may take a couple of days to memorize it.

Oxford Greek Verse 2. Thersites. Il. 211-42.

[Constantinus Philo]

183. Anonymous. Marriage

Γάμος κράτιστός ἐστιν ἀνδρὶ σώφρονι,
τρόπον γυναικὸς χρηστὸν ἕδνον λαμβάνειν.
αὕτη γὰρ ἡ προὶξ οἰκίαν σώζει μόνη.
συνεργὸν οὗτος ἀντὶ δεσποίνης ἔχει
εὔνουν, βεβαίαν εἰς ἅπαντα τὸν βίον.

Are you memorizing these too, Philo? Let me know if you have a particular trick or process. I'm not approaching it with much systemization, though everything seems to stick so far.

the best marriage for a wise man is
to take a useful dowry in the person of a woman
onl ythis gift safeguards the household
he has a companion instead of a lady
well-minded, and reliable, for the rest of his life.
plz indicate prossody

[jeidsath]

I took χρηστόν as modifying τρόπον: "to take a woman's good character as dowry"

[Constantinus Philo]

yes its more likely, i mean to take a woman's character as a useful dowry

[jeidsath]

I just saw the prosody question. It's normal iambic trimeter. There's a violation of the final cretic in σώζει μόνη that I suppose could be μόνη σώζει, but I think it's a pretty normal violation.

EDIT: scratch μόνη σώζει, of course that's impossible

[Constantinus Philo]

some long syllables are accentuated , what is the rule
Γάμος κράτιστός ἐστιν ἀνδρὶ σώφρονι

[jeidsath]

The accent never matters in Greek poetry before Justinian. (With minor exceptions like the end of lines in Babrius.) It's just heavy syllables versus light syllables.

Γάμος κράτιστός ἐστιν ἀνδρὶ σώφρονι,
τρόπον γυναικὸς χρηστὸν ἕδνον λαμβάνειν.
αὕτη γὰρ ἡ προὶξ οἰκίαν σώζει μόνη.
συνεργὸν οὗτος ἀντὶ δεσποίνης ἔχει
εὔνουν, βεβαίαν εἰς ἅπαντα τὸν βίον.

Notice the long final vowel on βεβαίαν, despite it coming in a non-emphasized position.

[Constantinus Philo]

are the prosdody rules like in latin?
Γάμος κράτιστός ἐστιν ἀνδρὶ σώφρονι,

[jeidsath]

Allen has suggested a stress rule that's similar to the Latin one in some ways, but that depends on the following word in a sentence. You can read him for details.

Simply for scanning the lines, Goodwin is by far the best resource that I've found. I wish I had learned them from him.

Start at 1620:

https://archive.org/details/greekgramma ... 8/mode/2up

The Iambic rhythms are described at 1657:

https://archive.org/details/greekgramma ... 6/mode/2up

[phalakros]

some long syllables are accentuated , what is the rule
Γάμος κράτιστός ἐστιν ἀνδρὶ σώφρονι

You mean short syllables, right? You marked all the shorts, so you seem to follow the prosody just fine. Accentuation doesn’t come into it. The first line scans as follows:

u — u — / u — u | — / u — u x // [let me know if the notation isn’t clear]

The prosody is generally like Latin with a few exceptions. For a convenient intro to Greek + Latin meter, see the handouts and lectures here:

https://antigonejournal.com/2021/05/int ... tin-metre/

here's a violation of the final cretic in σώζει μόνη

There’s no violation of Porson’s Bridge in that line, unlike the preceding one (…ἕδνον λαμβάνειν/). Note that Porson’s Bridge is a metrical tendency that applies mostly to tragedy, which this is not.

The excerpt is from the Hipponax fragments though it’s clearly spurious. The version you quote from Oxford Greek Verse is abridged, poorly. There should be something before the 4th line to prepare for οὗτος.

[jeidsath]

Right on Porson's Law. I'm sloppy, I'm afraid, as you can see from my correction. ἀνδρὶ σώφρονι brings the οὗτος into view well enough, I think.

But yes, the abridgment (or restoration) of some of these isn't great. That makes it fun.

The thing that I like about the Goodwin discussion is his appropriate focus on finding the ictus. It's the central thing.

***

Some of Butterfield's old compositions are on Textkit. They were among the Greek text that I managed to recover from the old pre-unicode database unfortunately scrambled by the storied, but sometimes fallible administrators of Textkit past.

[phalakros]

ἀνδρὶ σώφρονι brings the οὗτος into view well enough, I think.

Respectfully, I disagree. While it's grammatical, some line or lines are clearly missing before the 4th.

[jeidsath]

Whether there is anything that comes before is a separate question. Reading these lines alone, "a man with sense" has entered the mental picture, and is even the subject of λαμβάνειν. Now, if this were just some sort of a vague proverb, he'd naturally come in as ἐκεῖνος, but οὗτος tells us he's the specific man to whom this advice is being delivered. The lines may refer to something else in their real context, but what's here isn't badly formed, I think.

[phalakros]

we agree to disagree, then