"Continuing beginner" question

Greek Learning Greek
1

Hello,

I’ve introduced myself on the Open Board; in a nutshell: I’ve had an elementary course based on reading Greek, not writing, grammar hasn’t stuck in my head, so I’m slowly working through Carl Ruck’s “Ancient Greek”. It looks as if I’m in a minority on this board, as a beginner, and I hope you’ll tolerate elementary questions like this.

I have learnt nominative and accusative cases, and present indic. act verbs. I’m on the pronouns chapter, can do the short-sentence translation exercises, but stuck on this longer one:

παντες δ’ὀυν μανθανομεν ἀει ὀυδε σοφος ὀυδεις ἐστι θνητος ἀλλ’ ἀσοφοι ἡμεις παντες τε και πασαι. (Please excuse lack of accents, I’ll get to grips with them at a later stage.)

Beginning is OK, “therefore we all learn, always, …” but I can’t make sense of the rest.
“Nobody is mortal” can’t be right? I’d be grateful for a hint through this maze.

best wishes,
David

2

Here is the second phrase alone:

οὐδὲ σοφὸς οὐδείς ἐστι θνητός
Subject: οὐδείς (subst.) θνητός (adj. applying to the subst.)
Predicate: οὐδὲ σοφὸς … ἐστι

Let me know if that helps. And welcome!

3

Thank you, very helpful. I’ll now try to remember that when there are two nominatives, if one doesn’t make sense as the subject of ἐστι, the other one might.

4

and just to check - the last phrase would be something like “but unwise are [or perhaps:can be] all we men and women”?

5

Yes, you’re reading it right.

6

Thanks for confirming, all best,
David

7

ὀυδε σοφος ὀυδεις

Hi David. Cool retirement hobby! I understand you’ll get to typing the accents later. But just to note here: the breathings go over the second vowel of the diphthong: οὐδε, οὐδεις.

Randy Gibbons

8

Thanks for this tip, Randy, I’ll remember it,

best wishes,
David