Yes it does. Great stuff, thanks!
What is implied indirect discourse? Mastronarde mentions it once in an abstruse footnote (for the construction “ἔμενον ἕως ἕλθοι”) and the Oxford grammar not at all but it’s turned up twice in the commentary and I consequently don’t understand the notes. I imagine it’s an older term.
Thanks all for the responses above.
This refers to situations where the constructions of indirect discourse are used (accusative + infinitive; optative in past-tense subordinate clauses, etc.) without an explicit verb of speaking or the like.
Smyth 2622:
- Indirect discourse is implied in the case of any subordinate clause, which, though not depending formally on a verb of saying or thinking, contains the past thought of another person and not a statement of the writer or speaker. Implied indirect discourse appears only after secondary tenses, and in various kinds of dependent clauses.
a. Conditional clauses, the conclusion being implied in the leading verb. Thus, after a verb of emotion, ““οἱ δ᾽ ᾤκτι_ρον εἰ ἁλώσοιντο” others pitied them if they should be captured” X. A. 1.4.7. The original form was ‘we pity them thinking what they will suffer εἰ ἁλώσονται if they shall be captured.’ In other εἰ clauses, as ““τὰ χρήματα τῷ δήμῳ ἔδωκεν, εἴ πως τελευτήσειεν ἄπαις” he gave his property to the people in case he died childless” And. 4.15 (i.e. that the people might have it, in case he should die: direct ἐὰ_ν τελευτήσω, and here ἐὰ_ν τελευτήσῃ might have been used).b. Temporal clauses implying purpose, expectation, or the like (cp. 2420). Thus, σπονδὰ_ς ἐποιήσαντο, ἕως ἀπαγγελθείη τὰ λεχθέντα they made a truce (which they agreed should continue) until what had been said should have been reported X. H. 3.2.20 (ἕως ἂν ἀπαγγελθῇ would be the direct form). Cp. ἕως δ᾽ ἂν ταῦτα διαπρά_ξωνται, φυλακὴν . . . κατέλιπε he left behind a guard (which he intended should remain) until they should settle these matters 5. 3. 25.
c. Causal clauses. See 2242.
d. Ordinary relative clauses. Thus, εἴρετο παῖδα, τὸν Εὐάδνα_ τέκοι he asked for the child which Evadna had borne Pindar, Ol. 6. 49. Here relative and interrogative are not sharply distinguished.
e. Clauses depending on an infinitive especially when introduced by a verb of will or desire, e.g. command, advise, plan, ask, wish (1991, 1992). Here the infinitive expressing command, warning, wish, is not itself in indirect discourse. The negative is μή. Thus, ἀφικνοῦνται (historical present) ὡς Σιτάλκην . . . βουλόμενοι πεῖσαι αὐτόν, εἰ δύναιντο, . . . στρατεῦσαι ἐπὶ τὴν Ποτείδαιαν they came to Sitalces with the desire of persuading him (if they could) to make an expedition against Potidaea T. 2.67 ( = ἐὰ_ν δυνώμεθα), cp. 2633 a.
f. Clauses of purpose and object clauses after verbs of effort admit the alternative constructions of indirect discourse.
Why don’t you copy the passage from Xenophon that’s troubling you from Perseus and paste it here? Here’s a link to the Anabasis:
Mastronarde prefers to call this anticipated action, which is maybe easier to understand, rather than implied indirect discourse. His text is as follows:
d. Temporal clauses with ἕως and the like referring to an action that was anticipated in the past contain the optative (without ἄν); the main verb may be imperfect or aorist. This pattern does not correspond to any of the conditional patterns, but it may be viewed as a transposition into past time of the construction illustrated under §1c, above (main clause present, temporal clause subj. + ἄν), with a corresponding shift of the subordinate mood because of the sequence of moods. > The action is focalized from the point of view of the participants, and grammarians have sometimes called this implied indirect discourse.
ἔμενον ἕως ἔλθοι.
They remained, waiting for him to come.Or They waited in expectation that he would (or might) come.
Contrast the more factual form (as in §1a, above):
ἔμενον ἕως ἦλθεν.
They waited until he (actually) arrived.
seneca2008:
I have an older edition of Mastronarde which splits that text between the main body and a footnote; the construction is more remote from the wording “implied indirect discourse”. The newer (and more concise) wording makes much more sense.
Hylander:
Thanks – I think I understand it for the most part but I’d have to see it some more to really internalize it. The Smyth is a good bit clearer.
I’ve been busy and haven’t had time to read Greek and Latin as I would like.
This is from 1.5.8; the wagons are stuck in the mud and Cyrus orders some Persians to get them unstuck. They do as good a job as can be imagined, and Xenophon remarks:
ἔνθα δὴ μέρος τι τῆς εὐταξίας ἧν θεάσασθαι.
The translation gives: “And then one might have beheld a sample of good discipline[.]”
“θεάσασθαι” is a future middle infinitive which, as a deponent (“θεάομαι”), is the equivalent of a future active infinitive. Does this interact with “ἧν” to mean something like “there was to see a sample…”? Why the future? I’m sure I’ve encountered this somewhere in Mastronarde, but I’m blanking on it.
Note Phillpotts’ paraphrase: ἔνθα δὴ ἴδοι ἄν τις μέρος τι τῆς εὐταξίας αὐτῶν.
θεάσασθαι is aorist, not future (which would be θεάσεσθαι), and aorist is the expected tense here, of a one-off occurrence. You’ll meet many more aorist infinitives (and participles) than futures; the alpha is the give-away in the sigmatic (aka “first” or “weak”) aorist. You’re right to connect it with the ην, literally “there was to see …", just as you say. εστιν/ην with infin. means “It is/was possible” to do something.
Sorry for wasting your time with a careless misreading, but thanks for your answer.
edited to reflect that I read Michael’s edit. Also to respond to jeidsath that that’s what I meant to put.
ἦν en , not ἧν hen (which is not a thing, but could be confused with ἣν hen).
I assume that θεᾶσθαι would indicate that they were often or continuously seeing the good order?
1.6.8. Orontas is on trial for collaborating with Artaxerxes and trying to betray Cyrus. He is asked whether he would be loyal to Cyrus if he should be pardoned:
“οὔδ’ εἰ γενοίμην, ὦ Κῦρε, σοί γ’ ἄν ποτε ἔτι δόξαιμι.”
I can’t begin to figure out this sentence. Both verbs are optative aorists and this is a future-less-vivid condition. Fairly literally I just get a bunch of gibberish (“If I should neither/and not , O Cyrus, to you, to be sure, I would seem yet/still at any time”). Part of it is probably because I’ve never understood well “γίγνομαι” (I did look it up but it’s a “loose” concept and I can’t figure out its use here) but even thinking of the sentence’s syntax using a placeholder “verb” (i.e. what it would be given X verb) I don’t get it.
ἐκ τούτου πάλιν ἠρώτησεν ὁ Κῦρος: ἔτι οὖν ἂν γένοιο τῷ ἐμῷ ἀδελφῷ πολέμιος, ἐμοὶ δὲ φίλος καὶ πιστός; ὁ δὲ ἀπεκρίνατο ὅτι οὐδ᾽ εἰ γενοίμην, ὦ Κῦρε, σοί γ᾽ ἄν ποτε ἔτι δόξαιμι.
Cyrus asks him, “might you still become an enemy to my brother and a faithful friend to me?”
He replies, “Not even if [οὐδ᾽ εἰ] I were to become [an enemy to your brother and a faithful friend to you], would I ever seem [to be an enemy . . . etc.] to you.”
Thanks.
“Even if I were to become . . . [your faithful friend], to you I still would never seem like it.”
This version captures γ᾽ and ἔτι better.
1.7.15. Cyrus and his army have encountered a large ditch constructed by the king to hinder their advance.
παρετέτατο δὲ ἡ τάφρος ἄνω διὰ τοῦ πεδίου ἐπὶ δώδεκα παρασάγγας μέχρι τοῦ Μηδίας τείχους.
“παρετέτατο” is pluperfect (augment/secondary ending + reduplication) passive (by the sense and with the medio-passive ending). The meaning is “the ditch was in the state of having been stretched out…” as opposed to the imperfect “the ditch was stretched out” because (a) it has imperfective force, and (b) the ditch at that earlier time was in the state of having been stretched out in the more remote past. Do I have this right? I had some trouble with the pluperfect in Mastronarde.
I’ve been reading inexcusably slowly since the new year, a mixture of procrastination, laziness, and being busy; Mather & Hewitt break the text into a number of episodes and I had been reading one of them, easy or hard, per day; at this rate it would take basically the whole year to read, especially as I’ve been alternating days between Greek and Latin lately, so I read two today and would have done a third but for the amount of vocabulary.
Yes, you have this right. The pluperfect represents the state of the ditch at the time of the narrative (i.e., in the past) resulting from the activity of constructing it, stretching it out, which occurred before the time of the narrative.
Great. Thanks.
Come to think of it it would be illogical with the imperfect – I’ve repeated the mistake that made the Latin passive difficult at first of confusing “it is (i.e. being) accomplished” (finitur) with “it is (copula) accomplished (past passive participle) – it has been done” (finitus est). (I don’t normally translate, just when it’s tricky)
I ran into some trouble today that didn’t clear up much with consulting a translation.
1.8.13. The troops lined up for battle, Cyrus orders Clearchus to attack the middle:
ὁρῶν δὲ ὀ Κλέαρχος τὸ μέσον στῖφος καὶ άκούων Κύρου ἕξω ὄντα τοῦ Ἑλληνικοὺ εὐωνύμου βασιλέα (τοσοῦτον γὰρ πλἠθει περιῆν βασιλεὺς ὥστε μέσον τῶν ἑαυτοῦ ἔχων τοῦ Κύρου εὐωνύμου ἔξω ἦν), […]
“And Clearchus, seeing the middle mass and hearing from Cyrus that the king was outside of the left of the Greeks (for the king excelled in numbers so much so that…” – this is where I get into trouble. First, I can’t figure out what “τοσοῦτον” goes with. It’s either masculine accusative or neuter nom/acc; “πλἠθει” is neuter but dative, and the two don’t agree. Going from the translation I think it may be an adverbial accusative.
…ὥστε μέσον τῶν ἑαυτοῦ ἔχων τοῦ Κύρου εὐωνύμου ἔξω ἦν
“…so much so that Clearchus, holding his own middle, was outside of the left of Cyrus”. The “τῶν” is baffling me; it’s genitive plural and doesn’t seem to go with anything (“ἔχων” is, of course, nominative singular). This is a difficult sentence, consuming probably half of my time today and which I still don’t comprehend much even in translation, that neither Mather & Hewitt nor Goodwin & White give much help with.
1.8.16. Cyrus comes to the Greeks, who are setting a watch word.
καὶ ὃς έθαύμασε τίς παραγγέλλει καὶ ἤρετο ὄ τι εἴη τὸ σὐνθημα.
The narrative here is fairly disjointed and confused. “And [Cyrus] marvelled at whoever passed on the message and asked what the watchword was”. First, I’m not sure what is so marvellous about the scene. I assume “παραγγέλλει” is historic present, and I believe “τίς” is the enclitic from the accent.
edit: fixed the mistake
τοσοῦτον γὰρ πλἠθει περιῆν βασιλεὺς
τοσοῦτον is, as you thought, an adverbial accusative, correlative with ὥστε: “to such an extent . . . that.”
πλἠθει – dative: πλἠθει περιῆν – he was superior in/with respect to πλἠθει, i.e., number of troops.
ὥστε μέσον τῶν ἑαυτοῦ ἔχων τοῦ Κύρου εὐωνύμου ἔξω ἦν
τῶν ἑαυτοῦ (not ἑαυτον) – his own forces
μέσον τῶν ἑαυτοῦ ἔχων – holding (i.e., stationing himself in) the middle of his own forces
τοῦ Κύρου εὐωνύμου ἔξω ἦν – he was outside of/beyond Cyrus’ left flank.
καὶ ὃς έθαύμασε τίς παραγγέλλει καὶ ἤρετο ὄ τι εἴη τὸ σὐνθημα.
‘I believe “τίς” is the enclitic from the accent.’ No, τίς, with accent, is not enclitic: it’s interrogative. (Without accent it would be enclitic, “someone”).
τίς παραγγέλλει – an indirect question. έθαύμασε τίς παραγγέλλει – he wondered who was giving [the watchword] (yes, X. is using the present indicative, “primary sequence” for “vividness”).
καὶ ἤρετο ὄ τι εἴη τὸ σὐνθημα – that’s right, “and asked what the watchword was.” X. has slipped back into “secondary sequence” for this indirect question, present optative. He could have written καὶ ἤρετο τί εστι τὸ σὐνθημα, but he switched, just to confuse you.
You’re right: if it were enclitic it would be “έθαύμασέ τις”, right? (Not to mention that the meaning would be different).
Thank you very much. I’ll have to look this over a few more times.