Athenaze Ch 7, Exercise 7θ

Greek Learning Greek
1

Hi folks, again I’d be grateful if anyone could cast their eye over my English to Greek translation effort below. Not that I may not have made any other mistakes, but I was really struggling with the last phrase of no.2. In particular, is the σου a personal pronoun (συ) or an adjective (σός)? If the former, should it have the circumflex or not? Athenaze (p.77) and CGCG (p.339) seem to say that the possessive pronouns are only accented for contrastive purposes, but I don’t think that would be the case here.

Also, is the word order appropriate here, or should it be ‘τοῦ πατρὸς σου (or σοῦ), or something else again? I put it this way based on the story (p.128), where Theseus’ father is going to go to the promontory daily, ‘ὁρᾶν τὴν σὴν ναῦν’.

Any light shed on this, or anything else I’ve got wrong, would be very welcome.

  1. When Theseus arrives at Athens, he learns that his father is dead.
    ἐπεὶ ὁ Θησεὺς ἀφικνεῖται εἰς τὰς Ἀθήνας, γιγνώσκει ὄτι ὁ πατῆρ αὐτοῦ τέθνηκεν.
  2. His mother says to the young man, “You are to blame; for you always forget your father’s words.”
    ἡ δὲ μήτηρ τῷ νεανίᾳ λέγει· “σὺ εἶ αἴτιος· σὺ γὰρ ἀεὶ ἐπιλανθάνει τῶν τοῦ σοῦ πατρὸς λόγων.”
  3. Theseus is very sad and says, “I myself am to blame; and so I intend to flee from home.’
    ὁ δὲ Θησεὺς μάλα λυπεῖται καὶ φησίν, "ἐγὼ αὐτὸς αἴτιός εἰμι· καὶ οὖν μέλλω ἀποφεύγειν τὸν οἶκον.”
  4. But his mother tells (orders) him not to go away.
    ἡ δὲ μήτηρ αὐτοῦ κελεύει αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπιέναι.
  5. Soon he becomes king, and the Athenians love and honour him.
    δι’ ολίγου γὶγνεται βασιλεύς, καὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι αὐτὸν φιλοῦσι καὶ τιμῶσιν.
2

Mosty excellent. In 2, the first σὺ is good, the second unnecessary (so better αει γαρ επιλ.).
Good questions. τοῦ σοῦ πατρὸς lays undue stress on σοῦ (emphatic adjective, “your father’s”). τοῦ πατρός σου would be much better (unemphatic pronoun, enclitic, gen. of ὁ πατήρ σου). Or τοῦ πατρὸς would be enough by itself.
4. [EDIT: 3.] και ουν not a good collocation. Try τοίγαρ or ὥστε.
Everything else looks fine, unless i’ve missed something.

3

Ah, yes, thanks so much for clearing that up.

και ουν not a good collocation.

Not good as in ‘just not done’ or is there a specific grammatical rule that I’ve overlooked? Do they just not stack?

4

They just don’t stack; ουν by itself (2nd word) is a sentence connective. Here τοίνυν (2nd word, no και) would suit well. Particles are subtle things.

5

Thanks. Yes, they are subtle (esp to me). I guess there’s nothing for it but to plough on and read, read, read …

6

Small point: In #1, πατηρ should be barytone.

7

Oh, so it should. That’s embarrassing :open_mouth:
Thanks Bill.