First Greek Writer Exercises III->

Greek Learning Greek
21

Exercise XVI

ὕλη τις δασεῖα ἦν παντοίοις δένδρεσι καὶ φυτοῖς ἐταῦθα δὲ πάνυ πλῆθα ὄρνεα καὶ θηρία. οὐδείς δὲ ἦν ἐν τιμῇ μείζονι τοῦ ἐλέφαντος. καὶ πότε τις σύλλογος ἦν τῶν ἄλλων τῶν θηρίων ὁ δὲ μέγας λόγος ἐγένετο περὶ αὐτοῦ. τίς ἐστιν ἡ αἰτία ἔφασαν τῆς τιμῆς τῷ ἐλέφαντι εἶναι; καὶ ἄλλοις μὲν ἐδόκει αἰτία τις ἄλλοις δὲ ἑτέρα.

ὁ λόγος πρῶτος τῆς ἀλώπεκος ἦν ὅδε διὰ τί ἄρα οὖτος κρείσσων ἡμῶν; οὐδαμῶς οἶμαι διὰ τὸν κέρκον αὐτοῦ μικρότατον γὰρ καὶ αἰσχρότατον ἦν αὐτῷ. ἅμα δὲ λέγων ἐκίνει τὸν μακρὸν καὶ ἁπαλὸν κέρκον. εὖ λέγεις ἔφασαν οἱ ἄλλοι σὺν πολλοῖς γέλωσι καὶ ἐπαίνοις.

Exercise XVI — Corrections

Notice word order in key for first sentence.
μέγα πλῆθος ὀρνίθων καὶ θηρίων
ἐν τιμῇ μείζονι → ἐν μείζονι τιμῇ
πότε τις → πότε
τῶν ἄλλων θηρίων (strike the extra τῶν)
πολὺς λόγος
περὶ ἐκείνου
καὶ ἄλλοις ἄλλη αἰτία ἐδόκει εἶναι — idiomatic
τοιόσδε ὁ λόγος
διὰ τί δὴ
τὴν κέρκον throughout. Feminine
πάνυ γὰρ σμικρά τις αὐτῷ ἐστι καὶ αἰσχρά
λέγουσα (f.)
μετὰ πολλοῦ γέλωτος καὶ ἐπαίνου

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Exercise XVII

μετὰ αὕτην ἡ ἄρκτος εἶπε τοιόσδε οὗτος μὲν ἀληθής ἐστιν ἡ δὲ τιμὴ γίγνεταί τις εἰκότως ἀπὸ ὀνύχων. ἄνευ γὰρ ὀνύχων πού τις φαῦλος τῷ κάλλῳ. οὔπω γέγονε τῷ ἐλέφαντι οὐδὲν τοιοῦτος καὶ πᾶσι οὖτος δῆλος ἦν. καὶ ἐνταῦθα ὑπάλαβε ὁ βοῦς λέγων. γιγνώσκω μέντοι τὴν αἰτίαν ὀδούς γὰρ δύω ἐστὶν οὕτῴ τινι προέχων ἐκ τοῦ στόμα αὐτοῦ. καὶ δοκοῦσι ἄλλοις ὁμοίοις κέρασι. καὶ δήπου οὐδείς οἶδε οὐδὲν καλλίον τῶν κεράτων.

καὶ ὕστατος ὁ ὄνος λέγει τοιόσδε ἔστε μὲν πᾶντες ἀμαθής καὶ ἄφρων τί γὰρ τιμή ἐστι τοῖς κέρασι καὶ ταῖς κέρκοις; οὐ δῆτα δὲ κῦδος καλός ἐστι τῶν ὤτων. ἡ τιμὴ γέγονε τῷ ἐλέφαντι διὰ τὰ ὦτα.

Exercise XVII — Corrections

μετὰ δὲ τοῦτον (ἀλώπηξ feminine, but the character is male)
τοιόσδε → τοιάδε (as follows)
οὗτος → τοῦτο
ἀπὸ ὀνύχων → ἐκ δὲ ὀνύχων
τις → τινι
κάλλῳ → κάλλει
τοιοῦτος → τοιοῦτον
οὖτος → τοῦτο
πᾶσι → ἅπασιν (LSJ consonant euphony?)
ὑπέλαβε → ὑπέλαβεν
δύο more common than δύω
οὕτῴ → τούτῳ
ἐστὶν → εἰσὶ
στόμα → στόματος
προέχων → προέχοντες
ἄλλοις → τοῖς ἑτέροις (to the others)
ὁμοίοις → ὅμοιοι
Add εἶναι
καὶ → δὲ
τοιόσδε → τάδε
ἀμαθής → ἀμαθεῖς
ἄφρων → ἄφρονες
τί → τίς
δὲ → ἀλλὰ (I wanted to write this the first time)
κῦδος καλός ἐστι τῶν ὤτων → ὤτων τὸ ἀληθὲς κλέος

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Exercise VIII Bees - Submission
ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ὕλῃ μέλισσαι ἀνάριθμαι εἰσὶ πετόμεναι (1) πάντῃ τάχιστα. ποῦ ὁ τόπος ἐν ᾦ ἐστιν ὁ οἶκος ταύτων; ἴσως ἐν δένδρῳ μεγάλῳ τινι ἐκ τούτων τῶν δένδρων ἐστίν. πολλάκις γὰρ τὰ ξύλα σαπρά (2) ἐστιν διὰ τὸν μακρὸν χρόνον καὶ τὸν δεινὸν ὑετόν. οὕτω ἐν τῷ κοίλῳ ἄντρον ἐστιν ᾦ (3) οὐκ ἄνευ πόνου πεποίηται ὑπὸ μελίσσων ἐς οἶκον. τοῦτο δὲ θαυμάσιον ἐστὶν ὅτι οὐκ ἄνδρες ἔχθιστοι μελίσσαις ἀλλὰ ἄρκτοι. οὗτοι γὰρ ὅμοιοι παιδία καὶ αὐτοῖς ἐστι πόθος μέγα ἥδιστα τινα. (4)

(1) Sidgwick:
_“In this wood are numberless bees flying every way very-quickly.”
“ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ὕλῃ ἐισὶ μέλισσαι ἀνήριθμοι τάντῃ τάχιστα πετόμεναι.”
_

  • Does my translation give the sense of a periphrastic verb, “The bees were flying…” rather than “There were bees flying…”??
    ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ὕλῃ μέλισσαι ἀνάριθμοι εἰσὶ πετόμεναι πάντῃ τάχιστα.

(2) Sidwick:
“It is probably in some one of these large trees.”
“ἔστι που ἐν τούτων τινὶ τῶν μεγάλων δένδρων.”

  • The vocabulary for this exercise lists, “probably, που.”
    Sidwick’s phrasing is difficult for me.

(3) I knew the relative should be ὅν (Sidwick uses ὅπερ) but I went with attraction. Now that I look again, I see that it would NOT be attracted since the ὅν would be Nominative, not Accusative. Until I read Thompson (Syntax of Attic Greek) I hadn’t realized that attraction follows this rule: “A Relative which would be in the Accusative is often attracted into the case of its Antecedent, if that Antecedent is in the Genitive or Dative” (§ 75).

(4) Sidwick:
“and they have a very-great desire of very-sweet things.”
“καὶ τῶν ̔ἡδίστων μέγιστος αὐταῖς ἐστὶ πόθος.”

  • I don’t really understand this word order.

Audio recording of Exercise VIII
https://archive.org/details/SidgwickFirstExerciseVI

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I do think that no one will mind if you start a new thread for 18 plus.

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Yes, by both your word order and the way you accent εἰσὶ . Again, although there is some controversy on this, if you wanted to posit the existence of the bees, I think you would have εἴσι.

Very nice. These are obviously New Testament bees.

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Exercise VIII – Comment @Saulos

(1) Sidgwick:
“In this wood are numberless bees flying every way very-quickly.”
“ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ὕλῃ ἐισὶ μέλισσαι ἀνήριθμοι τάντῃ τάχιστα πετόμεναι.”

Note the adverbs going not at sentence end but before the verb (or in this case the participle). You don’t often get adverbs at the end.

(2) Sidwick:
“It is probably in some one of these large trees.”
“ἔστι που ἐν τούτων τινὶ τῶν μεγάλων δένδρων.”

The vocabulary for this exercise lists, “probably, που.”
Sidwick’s phrasing is difficult for me.

που is often used (e.g. by Plato, and tragedy) to add a note of conjecture or supposition to an utterance, more or less equivalent to English “I guess” or “no doubt.” This is about the only decent position for it here—2nd word (as an enclitic), following the verb.

You might well find the word order ἐν τούτων τινὶ τῶν μεγάλων δένδρων a bit strange, but since τινί is enclitic Sidgwick idiomatically tucks it in behind τουτων rather than putting it directly after ἐν where you or I might have put it. Probably best not to try this at home.
—I now notice your ἐν δένδρῳ μεγάλῳ τινι ἐκ τούτων τῶν δένδρων, which is unnecessarily cumbersome, especially the δενδρ- repeat. You could have said e.g. ἐν ἑνί τῳ (= τινὶ) τούτων τῶν μεγάλων δένδρων.

(4) Sidwick:
“and they have a very-great desire of very-sweet things.”
“καὶ τῶν ἡδίστων μέγιστος αὐταῖς ἐστὶ πόθος.”

I don’t really understand this word order.

It’s really not so very odd, and this is the sort of thing you might well emulate. των ηδιστων is given prominence (“salience”) by being put up front (it’s very sweet things that they desire). The two superlatives are juxtaposed, ηδιστων μεγιστος; that’s nice. μεγιστος—the adjective comes before its noun, and that noun is held in abeyance while αυταις εστιν is got out of the way. This way both μεγιστος and the concluding ποθος gain a bit of punch, and των ηδιστων … ποθος sandwich the whole thing. It’s a pretty neat sentence.

There are quite a number of mistakes in your submission that you don’t signal, but others (που) will pick them up. Here I comment only on the queries you raised.

PS. A propos, I’ve just seen that Sophocles was called “bee” (μέλιττα) because he was ἥδιστος, acc. to an ancient note on Soph. Ajax 1218.
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=N6oNAAAAQAAJ&pg=GBS.PA113, with thanks to jeidsath for the link.

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I really appreciate the specific feedback from you (plural).

Expand on that sentence (Note the adverbs…), please.

That sort of explanation of the word order is very helpful.

I mark those mistakes I found myself. If there are other mistakes, I’d like to hear about them, if anyone is willing. If so, pick a couple more glaring mistakes. That would be more useful for me and less tedious for correcters.

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Exercise VIII – Comment @Σαῦλος

I only noticed three that weren’t commented on. Of course, I’m not good for word order questions, although I can generally tell the Sidgwick is right and I’m not.

ἀνάριθμαι → ἀνήριθμοι
ταύτων → ταύταις (or τούτων?)
I don’t think that the ἐκ is necessary. I’m not sure that I’ve seen ἐκ used like that either.

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χάριν ἔχω, ὦ Ἰωήλ.

ἐκ τούτων… I was shooting for Koine composition. You’re right, ἐκ is not necessary, but often in Koine, prepositions are used to make the case function clearer. For this particular usage, see see BDAG, εκ, 4a.

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Exercise IV - Submission
ἤδη ὁ στατός εστι ἐν τῷ στρατοπέδῳ καί τὸ ναυτικόν εστι παρὰ τῷ τῆς νήσου αἰγιαλῷ.
οἱ πολέμιοι εἰσὶ ἐπὶ τῷ λόφῳ ὃς εστι ἐναντίος ἡμετέρῳ στρατοπέδῳ.
ἐπαύριον, ἴσως, ἔσται μάχη δοκοῦσι γὰρ ἕτοιμος εἶναι.
ἀλλὰ αὕτη ἔστι ἡ τοῦ στρατηγοῦ μηχανή.
νῦν γὰρ πάντα ἔστι σκοτεινὰ καὶ τὰ τῶν πολεμίων πυρά εστιν ὀλίγα.
τοίνυν οὐ ἔσται χαλεπὸν τοῖς ἡμετέροις στρατιώταις ἐλθεῖν λάθρα πρὸς αὐτοὺς καὶ ἀποτεμεῖν τὰς πολλῶν κεφαλάς.
οὕτως δὲ ἐπαῦρον ὀλίγοι ἔσονται ζώοι ἔσονται καὶ ἡ νίκη ἔσται ἡμετέρα.

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Exercise IV – Comment @david

I only spotted two typos:

ἕτοιμος → ἕτοιμοι
ἐπαῦρον → ἐπαύριον

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Thanks for both those corrections especially ἐπαύριον - I now realize that I have been getting that word wrong for a rather long time, :frowning: - but no longer.

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Note that I typo’ed ἕτοιμοι. Breathing should be rough. I’ll fix in the original post too.

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Ex.IV – comment @ daivid

Pretty good! Just one or two more things (Ignoring typos and minima):

ἡμετέρῳ στρατοπέδῳ needs article

νῦν γὰρ πάντα ἔστι σκοτεινὰ.
Accent ἐστὶ

τοίνυν οὐ ἔσται χαλεπὸν
οὐ τοινυν (τοίνυν regularly postpositive in Attic; τοινυν first word does occur in later greek, however).
And don’t forget to use οὐκ to break hiatus before vowels.

τὰς πολλῶν κεφαλάς better τὰς κεφαλὰς πολλῶν

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Exercise 5 Submission
ἐν τούτῳ ἀγρῷ ἐστὶ τάφρος καὶ ἔχει πλεῖστον πηλόν. τῶν δὲ πολλῶν ἵππων οἳ εἰσὶν ἐνταῦθα, εἳς δοκεῖ ἐν δείνῳ κινδύνῳ. ἔστηκε γὰρ ἐγγὺς αὐτοῦ τάφρου. οἴμοι νῦν ἐστὶν ἐν μέσῳ τῷ πηλῷ. οἱ ἀλλοὶ εἰσίν ἐν ἀπορίᾳ καί οὐ οἶοί τε ἔσονται ἐξέλκειν τὸν ἑταῖρον. τοῦτον γὰρ ὁ δεσπότης μόνος οἷός τε ἐστὶ ποιεῖν οἴκοι ὦν. ἐν τοῖς ἵπποις εἵς ἐστὶν ὃς ἐστὶ μακρῷ σοφώτερος ἢ οἱ ἀλλοί. οὕτος δὲ τρέχει ἐπὶ τὴν οἰκίαν καὶ κεφαλῇ παίει τὴν θύραν. τὸ δὲ τοίνυν κακὸν τῷ δεσπότῃ ἐστὶ δῆλον καὶ ὁ δὲ ἐξέλκει τὸν ἵππον.

Checking Sidgwick, about half the ἐστὶs get accents and half don’t. I would expect that to be a sign of stress but I can’t work out the logic.

The dagger on τοινυν was Sidgwick’s hint that it is positive. Now I’ll be on the lookout in future. Thanks for all the corrections.

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Checking Sidgwick, about half the ἐστὶs get accents and half don’t. I would expect that to be a sign of stress but I can’t work out the logic.

No. It’s just that enclitic accentuation can be complicated. I’ve summarized the basic rules below. I have noted where each is found in Chandler. You should also look up Chandler 938 and 940, but that’s discussed above in this thread, so I won’t include it in this post.

An enclitic following an oxytone loses its accent and the oxytone receives the acute rather than grave. ἀγαθός ἐστι. (Chandler 964.)

The monosyllabic enclitic after a paroxytone loses its accent and the paroxytone is unaltered. ὅυτω που Διὶ μέλλει ὑπερμενέϊ φίλον εἶναι : ἤδη τις εἶπεν : φίλος τις (Chandler 965)

A dissyllabic enclitic after the same paroxytone is oxytone: Ἀτρείδης ἐστί: πολλάκις εἰσί : οὔπω ποτέ : ἤδη φαμέν : φίλοι εἰσίν (Chandler 969)

A proparoxytone followed by an enclitic receives the acute on the last syllable. ἄγγελός εἰμι : ἤκουσέ μου : ἄνθρωποί εἰσι : κάκιστοί εἰσιν : ἐλάλησέ τις (Chandler 970)

A properispomenon followed by an enclitic receives the acute on its last syllable: οἶκός τε : Σκῶλόν τε Κνῆμόν τε : ταῦτά με. (Chandler 971)

After a perispomenon, enclitics lose their accent: ἧςτινος : ὧντινων : φῶς ἐστι : Ἑρμῆς ἐστι. (Chandler 972)

When several enclitics follow each other, they are all oxytone except the last: ἤ νύ σέ που δέος ἴσχει : εἴ πέρ τίς σέ μοί φησί ποτε (Chandler 973).

I recommend a read through the entire chapter in Chandler. There are some exceptions to the rules above for words like κῆρυξ or φοῖνιξ. Sidgwick doesn’t always follow 972.

If you think of everything in terms of mora conservation at the ends of words, and remember that there must always be room for the low pitch in a Greek utterance, it’s not too difficult.

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I’ve found a copy of Chandler’s A practical introduction to Greek accentuation online. With that and your very full reply I should get the hang of it when I’ve had time to digest it.
Thanks.

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Exercise IX - Cyrus
I’m back to composing and found Exercise IX especially useful for teaching word order. I think attempting the composition without help is essential to then seeing how natural Sidgwick’s word order then looks. It has helped to have comments here showing such confidence in Sidgwick’s ability to write good Greek.

Again, I’m finding that to truly learn from these exercises, I must spend some time internalizing the Greek, Sidgwick’s Greek, that is. I can’t find a better way to do that than to “perform” the Greek by speaking out loud, as if to an audience. I also ask myself questions as I say the Greek.

I got stuck on the following phrase. I was trying to ask myself a question about δῶρα. Cyrus was extra faithful because he gave his wealth to many, and he also gave gifts.

  • “and gifts of which each was in need”
    “καὶ δῶρα ὧν ἕκαστος ἦν δεόμενος.”

If the ANSWER is “gifts of which everyone was in need,” what is THE QUESTION?
I can’t even think of how to ask it properly in English.

The very last phrase of this Exercise was difficult to understand in English: "And then he used to send loaves to them and about the fodder he said this: I have fodder, owing to the care of my slaves: I will give therefore to my friends: for to whom a man is dear, to him no less is his horse.

I think I understand the last phrase. ‘If a person is dear to a man, to the same man, his horse is no less dear.’ But I don’t get the line of thought in this last bit.

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So that’s taken from Anabasis 1.9. Sidgwick’s English is a little strained here because he’s trying to lead the student to the proper Greek. Simpler English:

Gifts suited to each person’s needs.

If a man is dear to Cyrus, that man’s horse is no less dear to Cryus.

Xenophon’s version makes more sense. From Perseus:

“And wherever fodder was exceedingly scarce and he was able to get it for his own use because of the large number of his servants and because of his good planning, he would distribute this fodder among his friends and tell them to give it to the horses that carried their own bodies, that they might not be hungry while carrying his friends.”