εὖ εἰδότες ὅτι οὐδεὶς αὐτοῖς κίνδυνος ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν κακόν τι παθεῖν μᾶλλον ἢ ὑπὸ τῶν πεφυκότων δένδρων;
Why do they translate τῶν πεφυκότων δένδρων as the trees growing yonder? where does ‘yonder’ come from?
πεφυκότων is “planted” as in “planted in place”. A literal translation doesn’t mean what he’s saying: “than from the planted trees”. No, more like “than from trees planted in the ground/place”, i.e. incapable of motion. The “over yonder” in whatever translation you are looking at may be trying to bring out the same. Or the translator may have missed the exact nature of πεφυκότων here.
The “τῶν” is like our the in “the birds and the bees”, as it comes across to me. General, not specific.
This is very reminiscent of an Anabasis section where Xenophon reorganizes the army to rustle together some cavalry.
EDIT: I see the LSJ translates this as “tree growing there” which does miss the point, and possibly inspires the translation.
my commentary says that dendron is the predicate of pefukoton, that is, by the things grown, or borne, or natural that are trees.
Why would he say that though? The Latin translation by Dübner (a German, so you should like it) is nice here: “a consitis arboribus”, compare: extra vallum stili caeci, mirabilem in modum consiti.
In English, we have active “planted” and passive “planted”. Our English usage goes this way: Pas. The tree was planted there. [Someone put it there.] vs. Act. The rock is planted there. [It’s not moving, lit. it has the characteristics of something that has been planted.] This second is what I’m getting at.
Xenophon is talking about an army without cavalry being about as dangerous as trees planted in place. Nothing to do with the fact that they’re growing or existing or have grown into being or whatever.
ok. the commentary is by C. Bigg, Oxford, 1886