H & Q Chapter 3

Greek Learning Greek
1

Just want to make sure I understand what’s going on:

I.

  1. [size=150]τοὺς μὲν ὀφθαλοὺς (ομήρου οὐκ ἐφύλαξαν οἱ θεοί· τὰ δὲ βιβλία τὰ περὶ τῆς τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἀρετῆς εὖ πεφυλάξασιν[/size]

I got: The gods did not guard Homer’s eyes: they have guarded well books about the excellence of men.

(I left out the ‘on the one hand…on the other hand’. Is this acceptable?)


12. [size=150]ἐπειδὴ τοὺς παρὰ τῶν ξένων ἀγγέλους ἐφυλάξαμεν, τὴν δημοκρατίαν οὐκ ἔλυσαν.[/size]

I got: Since we guarded the messengers from the foreigners, they did not destroy our democracy.

(a little unsure about how to translate παρὰ τῶν ξένων here. To me, “guarded the messengers from the foreigners” sounds like we guarded the messengers against attacks by foreigners.)



II.

  1. But you had sent prizes to Homer in order that he might educate your brother.

I got: [size=150]ἆλλα ἄθλους ᾠ (ομήρῳ ἐπέπομφης ὠς τὸν ἀδελφὸν παιδεύσαι[/size]


I’m also a little unsure about the meaning of λυω. “free”, as in release from jail?

thanks,
Titus Marius

2

You don’t always have to translate men… de, more often than not you don’t translate it. Here you could translate it as: The gods did not guard Homer’s eyes: but they have guarded …
That’s much shorter than saying ‘on the one hand… on the other hand’

(a little unsure about how to translate para\ tw=n ce/nwn here. To me, “guarded the messengers from the foreigners” sounds like we guarded the messengers against attacks by foreigners.)

I see what you mean… it’s not really clear in English what the meaning is. To make the meaning clearer you could attempted a freer translation maybe: Since we guarded the messengers the foreigners sent… or similar
But normally it’s always better to stick with what the Greek says. I wouldn’t worry about your translation though, it’s good, you know what the meaning of the sentence is, so if you wanted to you could always give a freer translation.