Hi all
Please consider the following from the Iliad, A, 48:
ἕζετ’ ἔπειτ’ ἀπάνευθε νεῶν, μετὰ δ’ ἰὸν ἕηκεν
My question is: what is the aspect of ἕζετ’? Aorist or imperfective?
Imperfective, I would say.
Aorist would be [size=150]εἷσε[/size]
(just looked it up in Pharr’s Homeric Greek )
Hi Adelheid,
Thanks. The thing is, I looked it up via Perseus and here’s what I got:
As far as I can see it can be both. I had a quick look in the LSJ paper edition yesterday, and it seemed to be correct: imperfective and aorist2. I am not sure, though.
The reason why I started wondering was: why use the imperfective here? He ‘was sitting down’ - not the kind of action that lasts very long . . .
Cheers
I had the same idea when I translated this line. At first I even wondered if this could be indicative (no augment), but that was too much out of sync with the rest of the line. But I didn’t know about that second aorist (Pharr doesn’t mention it). I will have a look in Cunliffe’s ‘Lexicon’ later today, if no-one beats me to it.
Yes, LSJ says ἑζόμην can be either imperfect or aorist 2, but I wonder how they know that…
Anyways, it could be an imperfect, thus imperfective, given a Greek tendency to put an imperfective where other languages (e.g. Latin or French) would use a perfective form. It is because Greek does not continuously tell the story as a movie (in a “narrative” way), but sometimes, rather often, as a still picture, like a transparency (in a “descriptive” way). It is as if the author would point to a picture : “And here Apollo was taking position apart from the ships…” Greek often describes pictures.
χαίρετε
See for example Lysias, On the Olive Stump, section 2 :
ἀπεγράφην τὸ μὲν πρῶτον ἐλάαν ἐκ τῆς γῆς [color=blue]ἀφανίζειν[/color]… νυνί με σηκόν φασιν [color=blue]ἀφανίζειν[/color], ἡγούμενοι ἐμοὶ μὲν ταύτην τὴν αἰτίαν ἀπορωτάτην εἶναι [color=red]ἐξελέγξαι
hmmmmm, Cunliffe states that the forms from [size=150]ἑζόμην[/size] ‘may be regarded as aorists’. So it can really go both ways.
And LSJ says “in Homer only present and imperfect” 
Dank u wel, Adelheid, merci bien, Skylax
I just wonder: what does the LSJ dictionary base its information on? How can they know that the form in question can be an aorist? Is there some sort of rule here: I learnt that changes in aspect required changes of stem…? And how can they know that Homer does not use it as such but only in the imperfective aspect?
I guess we have to translate it as “he was sitting (himself) down …” or something like that then?
Perhaps context? So, if all the other verbs in a given line with [size=150]ἑζόμην[/size] would be imperfects, then [size=150]ἑζόμην[/size] logically would also be an imperfect?
That would suggest however that it’s an aorist here, since the other verb in line 48 is also an aorist: [size=150]ἕηκεν[/size].
Now I’m confused 
The seating of oneself may not take much time, but sitting (being seated) can be extended for quite some time - I tell you this from my own experience.
I take the imperfect here, “he was sitting down… and sent an arrow among them.”