[size=150]ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην εῤισαντε
Ah, [size=150]δή
Thanks william.
answers like this make me eager (almost impatient) to be able to read greek comfortably.
[quote author=William Annis link=board=2;threadid=283;start=0#1752 date=1058837625]
(You should read Greek to read Greek, not to translate in your head, ultimately.)
[/quote]
As a reply to one of my 1st post to this forum, Elucubrator gave very similar advice. I am trying it and slowly on it is working. It makes reading Greek even more enjoyable.
Thanks Guys!
Hi,
To flesh this out a bit more let me quote from Denniston’s
“The Greek Particles” about dh/ (take a deep breath):
“The derivation of dh/, of which widely divergent views have been held, remains entirely obscure.
It has often been held that the primary sense of the dh/ is temporal…The evidence for this
supposed temporal sense is, however, exceedingly weak: and I doubt whether any such view would have gained currency without the support of precarious etymologies. The essential meaning seems clearly to be ‘verily’, ‘actually’, ‘indeed’. dh/ denotes that a thing really and truly is so: or that it is very much so…”
A few pages later he says:
“Hitherto dh/ has emphasized individual words, though in many cases, as we have seen, the emphasis is to some extent distributed over the whole clause or sentence. We have now to consider passages in which it emphasizes structural words, which affect the whole architecture of the sentence.”
Under the general heading, then, of relatives where
dh/ stresses the importance of the relative, and referring directly to Iliad A6, he says:
“Relative temporal adverbs, ‘precisely when’, ‘just when’.”
In A6 the relative in question is e)c ou(=
Homer asks the Muse to begin singing her story from a specific moment in time: when Agamemnon and Achilles first squared off.
Cordially,
Paul
[quote author=Paul link=board=2;threadid=283;start=0#1754 date=1058839280]
To flesh this out a bit more let me quote from Denniston’s
“The Greek Particles” about dh/ (take a deep breath):
[/quote]
Someday I will be able to afford this book. (Of course, I just ordered both volumes of West’s Teubner edition of the Iliad… not cheap).
Does he make a clear distinction between different periods of Greek?
[quote author=William Annis link=board=2;threadid=283;start=0#1778 date=1058876687]
Does he make a clear distinction between different periods of Greek?
[/quote]
Yes, where warranted. I suppose that where a particle has uses characteristic of a particular period or author, Denniston so notes. For example, the 40 page(!) discussion of me/n has a section on its ‘emphatic’ use in Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, and Ionic verse and a section on its ‘preparatory’ use in later Attic.
Similarly, me/ntoi is discussed in its Epic, Elegiac, and early iambic use; then as used in Ionic prose and in Attic.
The beloved dh/, on the other hand, receives a largely functional treatment without much consideration of the different periods of Greek.
Cordially,
Paul
As a source book, Denniston is still the best. Concerning theory, as William’s post on pragmatic functions also shows, one should use Denniston with caution.
I thought Bristol Classical Press has reprinted Denniston. Is this edition also expensive?
Euchomai humas errôsthai,
Ptolemaios