The big problem with the video is how out of sync the image is from the sound. So much so I froze it on one screen and watched that while the video was playing on my other screen which gave me the audio. Your explanation did seem be based on the assumption everyone would be watching the video so I did find things a little harder to follow that the first video - but I did follow it nonetheless. The other technical problem is the sound was very low. I can get good sound if I access youtube thru my TV but then it is very hard to rewind using a TV controler rather than a mouse-pointer.
There were some words I couldn’t make out - were they moder Greek?
I agree - the thing that makes - Virtues and Vices hard for me is that there are so many words that are completely new. Hence paraphrases that may well involve even more unknown words would risk over loading me.
The real test is that I understood how every thing hangs together.
I was completely stumped by κατέχουσι τῷ λογισμῷ τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν ὁρμῶσαν ἐπὶ τὰς but you cleared up all my confusion. Using brackets was a good idea but I don’t quite get the use of the two types of brackets.
I especially liked how you drew attention to the basic structure of the sentences at the end.
Audio + Video sync better but sound quality…eh. Couldn’t append much analysis to the end (summaries, sentence structures etc) because my voice gave out. Though I’ve given in and taken some cold medicne now lol. Hopefully my explanations are sufficiently full to facilitate comprehension but also not quite repetitive.
Recall my advice to re-read previous sections, a huge amount of the text is replicated on a structural level.
Scribo, I really like what you did with ὠθέω, showing the picture of an ὠθισμός and the quote from Herodotus. As you say, this is a good way to help folks better internalize the Greek.
I just re-read the passage from Perseus and I was able to understand it better than I would have before the videos, and so on that level your project was a success. And sometimes one would indeed rather watch a video than read a commentary.
In the Perseus edition of the text there is this sentence
περὶ μὲν τῆς ἀκρατείας οὐδέν: οὕτω δὲ σὺ δύνασαι ὁρίζειν.
just before:
ἀκράτεια δ᾽ ἐστὶ κακία τοῦ ἐπιθυμητικοῦ, καθ᾽ ἣν παρασύρουσι τῇ ἀλογίᾳ τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν ὠθοῦσαν ἐπὶ τὰς τῶν φαύλων ἡδονῶν ἀπολαύσεις.
This is missing from your version and
I have found a third version of the text which is different again.
Is this extra line the result of differences between surviving manuscripts?
I couldn’t make sense of that line at all. Is that just me or is there something odd about it.
Yesterday when I went through the third video it was after a bad nights sleep and yet your video made it easy. Especially helpful was you explanation of παρασύρουσι τῇ ἀλογίᾳ τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν . Without that, I would have been totally stumped. The dictionary definition of παρασύρω is nothing like the one you gave and has little relevance to its use here. On top of that it is very useful to told what the missing subject is. I have lost count of the times I have been thrown by a Greek writer leaving out something as being too obvious to be worth the bother of writing it. Obvious, of course, to an Ancient Greek native speaker but not at all to someone like me.
When some months ago I first attempted Virtues and Vices I was bewildered as to why you considered it to be easy. Now, thanks to you, it does seem easy even to me. A big part of that is the redundancy so I won’t join you in shaming the ὀργιλότης δ᾽ ἐστὶ κακία τοῦ θυμοειδοῦς, καθ᾽ ἣν εὐκίνητοι γίνονται πρὸς ὀργήν - at the intermediate level redundancy is your friend. It is worth pointing out the extent of redundancy (and indeed in that line the author goes beyond redundancy into tautology) as sometimes I have been stumped because a writer has written something so redundant that I have convinced myself there must be something more there.
Joel I haven’t commented on your video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLc43tdCnUc ) because it depends on being able to understand the spoken Greek and although I have listened both to your Virtues and Vices reading and your one of Klearchos’ speech several times can’t yet do that. The problem is no doubt my hearing as I also need the text in front of me when listening to Polis.
I do get that you want to encourage people to listen without the text in front of them but for me the lack of a text ensures I can’t understand.
I do want, however, to comment on one thing you said in English. The essential point about ἐπαινετὰ is surely that it is what other people think of the action. For example, let us imagine a westerner finds himself in a region occupied by the so called Islamic state he might well if his desire to survive was greater than his courage plunder a church to prove he was a supporter of Islamic state. It would be ἐπαινετὰ even though he secretly believed it to be wrong. If later, while overcome with guilt at his cowardice, his sees some IS activists setting fire to a building in which there were Yazidi children and he broke in to save the children he would be doing something ψεκτὰ.
(I should say that I have seen no reports of IS burning children alive - burying children alive, yes, but burning no. )
I hadn’t meant for you to look at it without the text. I recorded it on my phone, I think, and assumed that people could open the text in another browser window as they needed it.
My old videos are all awful, generally. Learning to speak Greek seems to be a process of years.
Fair point about ἐπαινετός. I think that we might need to get into a discussion of shame versus guilt cultures to know more.
It is true that you can open the text in another window - this text is online but the key prob is your explanations are based on illustrative examples in Greek which aren’t available.
Providing the text for your recording of the Greek Boy at home is, however, a big help even more so because you put on screen just the section you are reading which helps me keep place. The Greek Boy at home is a bit lifeless as plain text and having it read is helpful.
Yeah I got to work out how to do stuff like that. I’m going to finish this series (on Stotis, naturally), write it up, and then do some on Latin as well and some generic conversational stuff.
It can be fun to mess around with this stuff. E.g I’ve learned how to eliminate some of the background noise in Audacity. You open up the track, highlight what you think to be the background noise and the programme automatically deletes it. Lovely.
Scribo, your video does not show up in any Youtube searches. I wonder if there is a setting to make it more public that would help make it more accessible.
It is an excellent resourse.
Has it been deleted or moved?