Babrius, Fables, no. 2
[line 14] κλέπτας γὰρ ἄλλους πῶς ὁ θεὸς ἂν εἰδείη,
[line 15] ὅς τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ φῶρας ούχὶ γιναώσκει,
[line 16] ζητεῖ δὲ μισθοῦ μή τις οἶδεν ἀνθρώπων;
I don’t understand how μή and τις work in line 16. The point is that the god is looking for a mortal man who knows who committed a theft of valuables from the god’s temple, as I learn from the LCL translation.
Hi again Hugh,
We have the same construction in the opening sentence: … ἐζήτει | μή τις παρόντων τήνδ’ ἔκλεψεν ἀγροίκων. This use of μή with indicative introducing an indirect question is post-classical: LSJ μή II.1 fin., citing Antonius Liberalis. I think it’s probably to be viewed as an extension of the common use of μή (or ἆρα μή) in direct questions.
Many thanks mwh. Checking my notes shows me that I overlooked μή in the first sentence. Overlooking a word happens to me now and then. What is a good procedure to guard against this?
Thanks for naming the grammar points and giving the LSJ citation. I did a lot of dictionary work, and had a good understanding down to the final line. Even before I looked at the translation, I had some idea what the last line had to mean, but I couldn’t get a confident reading.
Here is another difficulty with Babrius, no. 2. I wonder if I have gone wrong somewhere.
line 4: ἠρνεῖσθ’ἕκαστος.
LCL translates this as “Each one denied. . . .” I like this, and I want to parse the verb as ἀρνέομαι, aorist passive indicative, third person singular.
But I cannot find an authority for the spelling ἠρνεῖσθ’. Every reference I can find gives the spelling as ἠρνήσθ’.
Really? I’d have expected ἠρνεῖθ’, i.e ἠρνεῖτο elided before ἕκαστος. That would be imperfect. The aorist would be ἠρνήθη (the regular passive form) or ἠρνήσαθ’ (-σατο, middle form), both unmetrical.
Very helpful. Would the imperfect here carry the meaning “each one kept denying”? That’s a credible meaning in the context of the story.
I looked at the imperfect, but didn’t know how to do the elision. EDIT: Ok I see. Theta substitutes for tau in this situation.
Why couldn’t the final eta in ἠρνήθη be elided?
EDIT: Ok, I see. Only short vowels are elided.
The eta can’t be elided; that’s what would spoil the meter.
Finally, I need an idiot’s guide to the metrics in Babrius.
Imperfect is the most appropriate tense, as with ἐζήτει and most of the narrative.
I don’t know what your reported ἠρνήσθ’ is meant to be, but ἠρνεῖσθ’ looks like a typo for ἠρνεῖθ’.
Final short vowels are routinely elided if the next word begins with a vowel.
Babrius’ meter is choliambic. A choliamb (aka scazon, or “limping” iambic) is an iambic trimeter with the final foot a spondee (two long syllables) instead of a pure iamb (a short followed by a long). The first foot can take the form of an anapest (two shorts and a long, as in 13 ὁ δὲ τοῦτ’).
Many thanks. I have a lot to study here.