Hello everyone, this is my first post here. I’m trying to refresh my Greek using Plato’s Apology and have run into a difficulty in the following passage at 17d. It reads: “ὥσπερ οὖν ἄν, εἰ τῷ ὄντι ξένος ἐτύγχανον ὤν, συνεγιγνώσκετε δήπου ἄν μοι εἰ ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ φωνῇ τε καὶ τῷ τρόπῷ ἔλεγον ἐν οἷσπερ ἐτεθράμμην, καὶ δὴ καὶ νῦν …”.
My difficulty is that I can’t figure out what the “τῷ ὄντι” is doing. My translation is: “Therefore, just as if I happened to be (ἐτύγχανον ὤν) a foreigner, you would doubtless excuse me, if I were to speak in that dialect and manner in which I had been raised, so also now…”.
I’m happy to receive any comments or corrections on this translation, but you can see I haven’t translated “τῷ ὄντι” and don’t know where to work it in. Help is much appreciated!