Cyrop 4.5.25

Specific Text Questions Cyropaedia
1

Hi everyone
In a rather amusing episode Cyrus is attempting to pamper a Median messenger in order to dissuade and delay him from returning to his king along with the rest of the Median army. Referring to the messenger, Cyrus says to the Hyrkanian king:

καὶ διαλέγου δὲ αὐτῷ ὁπόσα ἐλπὶς γενέσθαι ἀγαθὰ πᾶσι τοῖς φίλοις, ἂν ταῦτ᾽ εὖ γένηται

I don’t understand the construction ὁπόσα ἐλπὶς γενέσθαι ἀγαθὰ, specifically what ἐλπὶς (nom.fem) is doing here, alongside the (copulative) infinitive and ὁπόσα ἀγαθὰ (presumably acc.neut.plu).

2

We can supply εστι with ελπίς. He’s to tell him how many goodies he can expect (ελπίς) there to be if it goes well.

3

Ok thanks, so in clunky English

go through with him the many good things there is hope (for) to come about, should things turn out well.

4

That’s it, except that διαλέγου is not just “go through” with him (διέρχου) but “discuss" with him—it’s to be framed as a conversation—and ὁπόσα is actually “how many" good things, an indirect question.

5

I don’t think that διαλέγεσθαι is like interloqui. In a lot of the LSJ examples, the δια- sure looks like it points to an external object under discussion (items being “gone through”), not the person being conversed with.

6

The “external object”—what the conversation is to be about—is ὁπόσα ἐλπὶς γενέσθαι ἀγαθὰ πᾶσι τοῖς φίλοις, ἂν ταῦτ᾽ εὖ γένηται. That’s what’s to be discussed with him (αυτῷ). I thought I’d made all that clear. There’s nothing problematic about it.