I came across this form in Reading Greek 2nd ed. It is from the Odyssey (6.157). I suppose I should at least give a little bit of context.
“γουνοῦμαί σε, ἄνασσα· θεός νύ τις, ἦ βροτός ἐσσι; εἰ μέν τις θεός ἐσσι, τοὶ οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἔχουσιν, Ἀρτέμιδί σε ἐγώ γε, Διὸς κούρῃ μεγάλοιο, εἶδός τε μέγεθός τε φυήν τ ̓ ἄγχιστα ἐΐσκω· εἰ δέ τίς ἐσσι βροτῶν, τοὶ ἐπὶ χθονὶ ναιετάουσι, 153 τρισμάκαρες μὲν σοί γε πατὴρ καὶ πότνια μήτηρ, τρισμάκαρες δὲ κασίγνητοι· μάλα πού σφισι θυμὸς αἰὲν ἐυφροσύνῃσιν ἰαίνεται εἵνεκα σεῖο, λευσσόντων τοιόνδε θάλος χορὸν εἰσοιχνεῦσαν. κεῖνος δ ̓ αὖ περὶ κῆρι μακάρτατος ἔξοχον ἄλλων, ὅς κέ σ ̓ ἐέδνοισι βρίσας οἶκόνδ ̓ ἀγάγηται.
I understand the passage perfectly, thanks to the generous support of the notes, but I am troubled by the participle. In the notes, it is given as the feminine accusative. The study guide recognizes that the noun θάλος is neuter, but argues that, logically, it refers to Nausikaa, hence feminine. I do not understand why it would not be εἰσιχνεύσασαν on the model of παύσασαν. What am I missing?
I was struck by the feminine. To me anyway, rather than “seeing such a θάλος having entered the dance”, it came across as “seeing such a θάλος, when you’ve entered the dance.” Amps up the romance. Good enough for a movie…
But…I guess the accusative absolute is unlikely in Homer, and the first meaning is more standard-bog Homeric, with the gender simply agreeing with the mental object rather than the grammatical. Ah well.
My problem is that I see it the other way around. I think the participle is neuter and does, fact agree, with the grammatical gender. The mental gender is feminine. I just don’t see how the participle can be feminine by form.
Reading it as neuter -εῦσαν, -εῦσαντος, -εῦσαντι, -εῦσαν, instead of feminine -εῦσα, -εύσης, -εύσῃ, -εῦσαν? If that’s the case, it would be neuter by form and grammar. (And that would explain it being called aorist.)
But with a strange contraction like -εῦ-, I don’t know how to tell, myself. I see it explained both ways in the scholia, now that I look.
This is a contracted present, not aorist, participle. The contraction ε+ου>ευ is Homeric/Ionic. Contrast Attic ε+ου>ου. In Attic this form would be ἐποιχνοῦσαν.
An aorist participle here would be difficult to reconcile with the meaning. Roughly, they were seeing the θάλος entering the dance. The verbal aspect must be action in progress/imperfective, not punctual/aorist, just as λευσσόντων is action in progress/imperfective.
Thank you kindly, my friends. Now it is perfectly clear to me.
That’s what you might think, but when you do a TLG search to confirm the hypothesis, you see things like ἐξιχνεύσαντος in Hippocrates and ἀνιχνεύσας in Aristotle, which must be aorist participles.
ἐξιχνεύσαντος – aorist participle of ἐξιχν-εύ-ω.
ἀνιχνεύσας – aorist participle of ἀνιχν-εύ-ω.
εἰσοιχνεῦσαν – present participle of εἰσοιχν-έ-ω.
ἰχνεύω – “to track” (like a hunting dog)
οἰχνέω – poetic word for “go”, “come”, “walk”.
Aorist participle of εἰσοιχνέω, if attested anywhere, should be εἰσοιχνήσας, analogous to ποιήσας.
That makes sense. I saw an early -οιχνεύων when I searched, and assumed that the form went back and forth. But looking more carefully, it was just an isolated Plutarch quote of Pindar, and probably not real evidence.
If I’m reading LSJ correctly, οἰνεύων isn’t in the Pindar fragment as transmitted in Plutarch — it seems to be a conjecture for ἰχνεύων. Too much trouble for me to track this down any further.
I had found it by a general search for -οιχνευ-, and didn’t have an apparatus. Here it is in Bergk:
My understanding of that note is that ἰχνεύων is written in some manuscripts of the Life of Nicias, others οἰχνεύων, and where Plutarch quotes it separately in Flatterer from Friend, it’s ἰχνεύων.
Herodian doesn’t know about any -ευ- version, but he isn’t sure whether the etymology of οἰχνεῖν is from οἴχω or ἰχνῶ:
οἰχνεῖν ἀμφίβολον· ἢ παρὰ τὸ ἴχνος ἰχνῶ καὶ πλεονασμῷ τοῦ ο οἰχνῶ ἢ παρὰ τὸ οἴχω οἰχνῶ ὡς ὀρέγω ὀριγνῶ, σκεδῶ σκιδνῶ, περῶ περνῶ. ἔχεις δὲ ἀμφότερα εἰς τὸ περὶ παθῶν.
All that aside, you must be right about the present, and I’m not sure where the labels of aorist come from, though there are scholia explaining it both ways.
Apparently, if I understand the note correctly, mss of Plutarch (“vulgo”) have ἰχνεύων; but Bc (Boeckh?) conjectured οἰχνεύων. But Bergk apparently conjectured and printed (“scripsi”) οἰχνέων, and the standard modern edition, that of Maehler, also prints οἰχνέων. The fragment is quoted out of context in Plutarch’s Life of Nicias. The same fragmentary quote from Pindar also shows up with ἰχνεύων in Plutarch’s Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur (how to tell a flatterer from a friend), 65b.
So οἰχνεύων seems to be a conjecture by Bergk, and later editors of Pindar read οἰχνέων for ἰχνεύων in this fragment.