Can participles get the definite article?

Greek Homeric Greek and Early Greek Poetry
1

In Iliad 1.428-429…

ὣς ἄρα φωνήσασ’ ἀπεβήσετο, τὸν δὲ λίπ’ αὐτοῦ
χωόμενον κατὰ θυμὸν ἐϋζώνοιο γυναικὸς

…what does that τὸν refer to – αὐτοῦ? χωόμενον?

If αὐτοῦ, it seems redundant. And if χωόμενον, well, hence the title of this post.

2

Note how Michael Psellos renders the τὸν:

οὕτως δὴ εἰποῦσα ἐπορεύθη, τοῦτον δὲ αὐτόθι κατέλιπεν ὀργιζόμενον κατὰ τὴν ψυχὴν περὶ τῆς εὐστολίστου γυναικός.

3

Yes, participle with article (“arthric participles”) exist, it just transforms the article into a substantive. The problem you’re having right here is that you’re treating these like definite articles, which is a later development and this use is fairly rare in Homer. You should think of think of it almost like a pronoun.

I’d suggest you quickly revise the usage of the article in Homeric Greek. It should readily become apparent how the sentence must work. :slight_smile:

4

You may also be confusing the genitive pronoun αὐτοῦ with the adverb αὐτοῦ (which is of course nothing more than the genitive pronoun used adverbially), meaning “in the same place,” “right there.”

Here’s a link to the entry in the Liddell Scott Jones dictionary:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dau)tou%3D

5

I remember from your very first Textkit post that you don’t like definite articles, so it will please you that τόν here isn’t one. What τὸν δὲ does is shift the focus, from her to him. “Him she left there fuming …”. This use is everywhere in Homer.

6

Thanks, makes sense. I guess this also means Scribo’s response was misleading.

Heh-heh, I’ve since made my peace with definite articles. No choice, as I’ve been reading from the Septuagint. Besides all the definite articles, the Septuagint is infested with a ridiculous number of extra αυτου’s (eg τον αδηλψον αυτου) because of the way Hebrew works and their goal of translating the Hebrew word for word.