Hi, this is my first post here. When I get around to it, I might write a bit about myself in the Open Board, but maybe a good way to show I’m not a spammer is to jump right into the question that brought me here.
My Greek is a bit rusty, and I wondered what would be an elegant Greek equivalent of the seemingly simple “the more you know…”, whether it goes on in the direction of: “the more you value [insert luxury product]” or “the more you shake your head.” The usual dictionaries and the Loeb Library online sources only raised more questions. Some issues that occurred to me were:
A. “The more” can be adverbial, in the sense of “the stronger you know”, with an inherent object. This is actually what most cases of “the more” plus verb are (“the more you pull”), but in this case it might make more sense to have “the more” as the object of knowing. How would I express this best?
B. I’m tempted to add ἂν, with the verb in the present subjunctive.
C. ἐπίσταμαι? Or “just” οἶδα? γιγνώσκω? μανθάνω could work, too, and there are lots of others.
D. Impersonality works different in Greek, but I think the second person may actually be fine here. Otherwise what? First person? Passive construction?
The trick is to use a correlative and a comparative: ὅσῳ πλείονα ἐπίσταταί τις, τοσούτῳ σοφώτερος γίγνεται = “The more you know, the smarter you get,” lit. “By how much one knows more things, by so much he becomes more smart.”
“The more you value something, …” e.g. ὅσῳ τι περὶ πλείονος ποιεῖται τις, (τοσούτῳ …).
“The more you shake your head, …” e.g. ὅσῳ μᾶλλον σφόδρα ἀνανεύεις, (τοσούτῳ …).
Etc. etc. (It’s much the same in Latin.)
In the Xenophon ἔλθοι represents what in direct speech would be ἂν ἔλθω: note μαχεῖσθαι future. Conditional clauses work just the same way. ὅσῳ θᾶττον ἂν ἔλθω is the protasis (~ the if-clause), τοσούτῳ απ.τερῳ βασ. μαχοῦμαι the apodosis.
Similarly in the Aristotle: “and the more σοφός he is, the more (he’ll be able to θεωρεῖν).” The Greek is elliptical: Ar. dispenses with the τοσούτῳ as well as with the main verb (I’m assuming nothing follows μᾶλλον, “all the more so”), so the Xenophon is the clearer example. (Your σοφώτερος ἂν εἴη doesn’t come into it.)
May I offer another example, from my favourite author? In speaking of the Chians, Thucydides (8.24.4) comments: καὶ ὅσῳ ἐπεδίδου ἡ πόλις αὐτοῖς ἐπὶ τὸ μεῖζον, τόσῳ δὲ καὶ ἐκοσμοῦντο ἐχυρώτερον.
I know it as dative of measure of difference, a cumbersome label but accurate; it’s used with comparatives to be sure. E.g. πολλῷ μεῖζον much bigger, πόσῳ μεῖζον How much bigger?, τόσῳ μεῖζον This much bigger, τόσῳ μεῖζον ὅσον τόδε As much bigger as this, τόσῳ μεῖζον ὅσῳ τόδε μικρότερον As much bigger as this is smaller.
αν+subj. (whether pres or aor) wd be used in circs where εαν wd be used if it were a conditional clause. Then fut. or pres. indic. in main clause. So yes it wd be good in my sample sentence (where now that I look at it εστι wd be better than γινεται, or something else altogether). But indic is ok too, and I was keeping the syntax simple. Really depends on the context.
