What others have told you, I too am having a go at helping you.
daivid, can you recognize that as an anacoluthon? (Not quite the same as Xenophon’s, but still.)
In the terms of Smyth’s definition, there’s a deviation in the (syntactical) structure of the sentence. If you ask what it deviates from, the only answer is that it deviates from its original course, the course on which it appeared to be set when it started out, whatever that may have turned out to be if it hadn’t deviated. You want to ask what course it would have taken if it hadn’t deviated. But that’s a hypothetical, to which there can be no certain answer since it didn’t happen. As a historian I’m sure you understand that. You don’t try to explain something that happened, however unexpectedly, by speculating what would have happened if it hadn’t. Of course we could try writing a sentence that continued as it started out, but the point is that Xenophon didn’t. We should focus more on what Xenophon wrote (or dictated) than on what he didn’t.
You could say (as some have) that everything we say and do is rhetorical. (And it could also be said that everything we say and do is natural, as being part of human nature.) I knew you’d object to Smyth’s and Hylander’s and daivid’s and my use of “natural,” and naturally the distinction Smyth draws could indeed be deconstructed (though not usefully, I think). What I might object to is describing Xenophon’s language in terms of his use of “devices.” To see the anacoluthon here as a “rhetorical device” (or any more of one than his ananacoluthonic sentences) seems to me misguided.
As you would expect I think “and I don’t think Xen’s readers would either” is a bold claim. But rather than press you on that I will merely observe that we (including Daivid) are readers of Xenophon and that our reception of this text also matters just as much as an appeal to other “supposed readers” whom we are not able to interrogate.
seneca, with respect, I’m tempted to say Give it a rest. You had said (boldly claimed?) “to a Greek it would seem a quite normal device,” implicitly distinguishing between Greeks and readers such as daivid. By Xen’s readers I meant his ancient Greek readers, obviously. And again I see no grounds for asserting that Greeks would regard the anacoluthon here as any kind of device, whether normal or abnormal.
The sentence flows much better if you quote the one before it as well. Despite having read this chapter a few times, I had to re-read it in context before I understood it. I think that the appearance of anacolouthon comes from taking it out of context. It all seems very well connected in the Greek.
My attempt at a translation. As always, I appreciate mwh’s and Hylander’s, and others’ critiques.
Verily towards friends, as many as he might make and might believe to be kindly disposed and might judge worthy to be his fellow workers at whatever he was then planning to accomplish, it is agreed from all that he became the strongest indeed in helping. And for these same plans, for the reason of which he thought himself to be in need of friends, so he might have fellow workers, even he himself attempted to be the strongest fellow worker towards his friends in this, whatever he might think each one desired.
EDIT: Some minor changes above. Looking over it, I have the feeling that that τούτου must refer back to the τοῦτο, which refers to the to ὅ τι τυγχάνει βουλόμενος κατεργάζεσθαι, but now it’s their plans, not his, so I’m not sure of this.
In the first sentence, φίλους, the first word of the sentence, is the direct object of θεραπεύειν. So “towards friends” is not quite right. In English, the word order has to be adjusted. "It is agreed by all that he became the strongest/very strong to serve his friends, as many as . . . ".
But that doesn’t remove the anacoluthon from the next sentence. αὐτὸ τοῦτο still has no function in the main clause. τούτου ὅτου doesn’t refer back to αὐτὸ τοῦτο: the ὅτου clause explains τούτου. “for these very plans” – “For” eliminates the anacoluthon in English translation, but there’s nothing in the Greek that motivates it. αὐτὸ τοῦτο is still on its own.
“whatever he might think” This isn’t exactly wrong, but αἰσθάνοιτο is simply imperfect optative in a “general” relative clause in “secondary sequence”, i.e., after a “historical” tense verb in the main clause (ἐπειρᾶτο), so “whatever he thought” would be equally accurate and more idiomatic. After a present-tense verb (in “primary” sequence), it would be subjunctive + αν : καὶ αὐτὸς πειρᾶται συνεργὸς τοῖς φίλοις κράτιστος εἶναι τουτου οτου αν αισθανηται ἕκαστον ἐπιθυμοῦντα. The point is αἰσθάνοιτο isn’t a potential optative. (This is also true of the optatives in the first sentence, ποιήσαιτο, γνοίη, κρίνειε.)
Thank you for the critique. I need to get back to composition work and really learn the moods.
“for these very plans” – “For” eliminates the anacoluthon in English translation, but there’s nothing in the Greek that motivates it. αὐτὸ τοῦτο is still on its own.
Isn’t the γάρ in καὶ γὰρ αὐτὸ τοῦτο a case of inversion?
All I wanted to do was to draw attention to the idea that “rhetoric” is a slippery term. What one reader might regard as an example of a particular rhetorical practise (or device) others might see as “normal” , “regular” or “natural”. Rhetoric is surely something more than the use of various figures, or strategies listed in handbooks. I think that one should reflect on this. How one discusses it without lapsing into some reductive soup is difficult. I also wished to make the point perhaps not obvious to other readers that Xenophon’s “simplicity” is hard won not through some employment of “natural” language but as a result of careful rhetorical training.
And now I will take your advice and “give it a rest”.
βουλόμενος – βουλομαι “want”, not βουλευομαι “resolve, plan”
κατεργάζεσθαι – must depend directly on ἱκανοὺς, not βουλόμενος: “collaborators capable of accomplishing whatever he happened to want”. Otherwise, the phrase ὅ τι τυγχάνει βουλόμενος κατεργάζεσθαι wouldn’t be anchored syntactically in the clause–we would embark on another anacoluthon, and this one would be unbearably violent, disrupting the entire sentence.
“. . . friends, however many he made and knew to be well-disposed and judged collaborators capable of accomplishing whatever he happened to want”
Again, you might expect τυγχάνοι (optative in general relative clause in secondary sequence; would be subjunctive + αν in primary sequence), but the mss. have τυγχάνει. Someone (Schäfer) actually conjectured τυγχάνοι, but Marchant’s Oxford text prints τυγχάνει, which would have been pronounced the same after the classical period. We saw this same vacillation a few weeks ago, I think.
