Trial translation: It was through these things [that] the kinds [were] three and [were of] these sorts
As I understand, Aristophanes is giving equal emphasis to two points:
the number of the kinds (3)
the sorts of kinds that there were.
The Perseus translation is this:
The number and features of these three sexes were owing to the fact that
I continue to have trouble with “attributive” and “predicative”. In English I understand intuitively the difference between “that big automobile” and “that automobile is big”. However I am often missing this distinction in Greek, where it is a question of definite article placement.
Does anybody know of an online tutorial that focuses on this problem, with helpful examples?
Your trial translation, Hugh, is syntactically more accurate than the Perseus translation (which is nonetheless justified by the fact that in the Greek the stress falls on the ὅτι clause that δια ταυτα points forward to), and when there’s a definite article on the scene, as there is here, the matter is simple enough. τρία τὰ γένη (or τὰ γένη τρία): τρία predicative, as distinct from τὰ τρία γένη, where τρία is attributive.
But you’re not the only one to have trouble with this. For there’s not always a definite article, and the case doesn’t have to be nominative. One thread I remember (there have been several, it might be worth doing a textkit search) was on a Mastronarde sentence, οὕτως ἄδικοι ἐγένοντο ὥστε πολίτας ἀπέκτειναν ἀκρίτους, “They were so unjust that they killed citizens untried (i.e. without a trial)”—a good example of an adjective used predicatively.
Compare “I like my coffee black” (predicative) as distinct from “I like my black coffee” (attributive).
Your example translation seems to parse it as if it were:
τρία ἦν τὰ γένη καὶ τοιαῦτα ἦν τὰ γένα
The kinds were triplet and the kinds were these sorts of things.
I don’t think that’s impossible, but I understand it more like this:
τρία ἦν τὰ γένη καὶ τρία ἦν τὰ τοιαῦτα.
The kinds were triplet and these sorts of thing were triplet.
So translating the original: “The sexes and such things were triplet because of this.”
Ie., in the original τὰ γένη καὶ τοιαῦτα are a single unit, being predicatively modified by τρία. I’d like to think that Fowler actually understood this, as signaled by “the number and features,” and was just rewording for readability, but it’s hard not to see “these three sexes” as a bit of a flub.
I won’’t comment on Joel’s reading, beyond saying that I think it’s quite wrong.
But Hugh here are a few more examples of predicative adjectives where their nouns have the article, from the latter part of Aristophanes’ Frogs (a play I’ve just been looking through for another purpose):
1061 καὶ γὰρ τοῖς ἱματίοις ἡμῶν χρῶνται πολὺ σεμνοτέροισιν, lit. “for they [demigods] use their clothes much finer than us” i.e. “the clothes they wear are much finer than ours.”
1099 μέγα τὸ πρᾶγμα, πολὺ τὸ νεῖκος, ἁδρὸς ὁ πόλεμος ἔρχεται. Syntactically straightforward (all nom.), but perhaps my favorite lyrics in all Aristophanes (resolved trochaics, beautifully articulated).
1148 εἰ γὰρ πατρῷον τὸ χθόνιον ἔχει γέρας, lit. “if he has his underworld privilege paternal” i.e. “if the underworld privilege that he has is paternal” (derived from his father).
1386 σὺ δ᾽ εἰσέθηκας τοὔπος ἐπτερωμένον, lit. “you introduced your word winged” i.e. “the word that you introduced is winged.”
Best read in context of course, but I hope this will help you see how it typically works.
Of what sort of kind? It’s not entirely obvious from what comes after.
Isocrates has an example (there must be others, I didn’t look very hard) of καὶ τοιαῦτα being added to a list of definite substantives to mean something like “and that sort of thing”: “τοὺς βομβυλιοὺς καὶ τοὺς ἅλας καὶ τοιαῦτα”. So, despite your strong claim, it does not actually seem impossible to read τὰ γένη καὶ τοιαῦτα as a single unit. And if it’s a single unit, then my translation is straightforward and unobjectionable, and avoids the contextual question above.
Well, it would have to in that interpretation, with the τρία pointing ahead and the τοιαῦτα behind, making for a slightly convoluted, though not impossible, statement.
Michael is the one who likes to make these undefended statements (aside from the extraneous rhetoric) about what’s ‘quite impossible’. He missed his calling as a bishop. As is often the case, I am more agnostic, and think that that there seems to be more than one possibility here, and that we should weigh them carefully.
I took the διὰ ταῦτα as referring to the explanation that follows (i.e. cataphoric, if I’ve got the terminology right). He’s already said that there were three genders, and what they were like, and now he’s going to explain why.
Many thanks to Michael, Joel, and MattK for their comments.
I think a reader response to the sentence under study might be this: “OK, Aristophanes entitles me to predict (tentatively) that he means to show how the primordial structure of humans caused later humans to be of three (what-the-heck?) kinds, and also how each of the three kinds is like it is.”
I can also see that I need to be alert for this attribution v. predication grammatical question.
As Matt says, “He’s already said that there were three genders, and what they were like, and now he’s going to explain why.” τρια and τοιαυτα both refer back, and δια ταυτα points forward (hence my colon after “this”). There’s nothing “convoluted” about it.
Thanks to Matt and Hugh for keeping us on an even keel here.