long α in ἀνήρ

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Constantinus Philo
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long α in ἀνήρ

Post by Constantinus Philo »

Bailly says that in arsis a is long, however, in B 1 it is long in a thesis: ἄλλοι μέν ῥα θεοί τε καὶ ἀνέρες ἱπποκορυσταὶ. Maybe, as was common, Bailly confuses the terms arsis and thesis.
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jeidsath
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Re: long α in ἀνήρ

Post by jeidsath »

Yeah, looking at the entry in his dictionary, he seems to mean it Latin-wise, like this in Davies.

Image

Bailly has an entry for ἄρσις which is clear enough, but does not explain how he means it in French.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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mwh
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Re: long α in ἀνήρ

Post by mwh »

Just a couple of small points. (1) It’s in the trisyllabic epic forms ἀνέρες etc. that the alpha is lengthened, not in ἀνήρ itself.
(2) Given that the meaning of the terms arsis and thesis is sometimes inverted (in German scholarship the arsis is often called Senkung), I reckon they’re beyond rehabilitation, and would best be abandoned. And ictus is something else again, if indeed it’s anything at all; probably that too would best be abandoned. (There was an old thread on this; “ictus fictus" I think Hylander quipped.)

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jeidsath
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Re: long α in ἀνήρ

Post by jeidsath »

And sometimes ictus is identified with ἄρσις, as in the Davies quotation. Or in Goodwin 1621 (and footnote), where he makes it all nice and clear:

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

I thought about mentioning that ictus fictus thread in the last post here. Finding ictus, imo, is the key to all of Greek meter. If I could fix anything about how I learned Greek, it would have been to read Goodwin Part V at the outset.

Declaring these terms "beyond rehabilitation" (in fact, it's simple to define one's terms, just as Goodwin does) is a way of isolating ourselves from the metrical tradition in order to over-emphasize recent scholarship. Either we don't read the Greek or Roman theorists, in which case there's no problem about defining arsis/thesis, or we do read them, in which case we need to know how the terms are used regardless.

On ἀνήρ sing. nom., it is regularly iamb, but spondee in the following lines in Homer (by my count):

Μ382
Ψ112
ζ184
μ77
π45
(and of course last foot, approx. 1 million times)

And Β216 depending on whether you would like to write it as hiatus or not. I'm sure that Eustathius mentions somewhere that Homer preferred the spondee version when he would recite on Tuesdays, but hiatus on other days of the week. I can't recall the exact volume just now, unfortunately.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: long α in ἀνήρ

Post by mwh »

I disagree. But arguing with Joel is a waste of time.

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