present and aor., 3rd sing., subj. = χραισμήσῃ, χραισμήσῃσῐ
present and aor., 3rd pl. subj. = χραισμήσωσῐ(ν)
I guess the present and aorist in this tense can look the same. (They also list some other aorist forms that are different.)
Two things confuse me:
(1) The form looks different, with the one in Iliad 1.28 not having the final σῃ. I guess this could just be a poetic form that fits the meter.
(2) The subject appears to be σκῆπτρον καὶ στέμμα, so you would think the verb would be plural. Buckley’s translation has “lest the staff and fillet of the god avail thee not,” where I guess “avail” could be either a singular or plural form of the English subjunctive, but the subject certainly looks plural.
What’s going on here? Is it like a “neither-nor” construction in English that is grammatically singular, “neither the car nor the house is purple?”
Understandable confusion Ben. The accent is the thing to observe. Since χραισμέω is an -έω contract verb, like ποιέω>ποιῶ, present subjunctive (3 sing.) would be χραισμῇ, like ποιῇ, χραίσμῃ with qcute has to be aorist subjunctive, the “2nd”(aka“strong”) aorist equivalent of the “1st”(aka weak) aor. χραισμήσῃ.
[The beginning of the wiki entry is bad, presumably based on misunderstanding of LSJ. -σω and -σομαι could be future or aorist but not present.]
As for σκῆπτρον καὶ στέμμα θεοιο, Chryses’ priestly accoutrements, they’’re both neuter and unexceptionally treated as singular.
I guess I’m still confused about the issue of number, though. In an English construction like “The house and the car are purple,” I use the plural form of the verb. As a stand-alone positive sentence not in the subjunctive I would say, “The staff and fillet help you,” not “The staff and fillet helps you.” Is my conjecture about a “neither-nor”-like singular incorrect? Am I misunderstanding something?
Hi Ben,
Does the 4th edition not have Pharr’s notes on line 28? In the first edition, he addresses both the form of the 2nd aor. subj. (although not nearly as well as mwh!) and agreement of the plural subject with a singular verb. He directs the reader to Para. 973, 2.
Ben, Could you be forgetting that Greek is not English? I don’t know what Pharr said, but here the pair of nouns can be viewed as a collective. And neuter plural subjects take singular verbs more often than not. And a verb’s number may agree with the nearer noun. So on all three counts the singular verb here could be said to be overdetermined.
Nonetheless, the plural would be perfectly possible, if only it suited the meter. As it is, the closing phrase σκῆπτρον καὶ στέμμα θεοῖο necessitates a “masculine” caesura ahead of it, χραίσμῃ rather than χραίσμωσι(ν).
I see, thanks, mwh and Aetos. That clears it up. I need to keep in mind that Pharr has detailed notes and vocabulary lists for the whole first book of the Iliad.
I don’t know what Pharr said, but here the pair of nouns can be viewed as a collective. And neuter plural subjects take singular verbs more often than not. And a verb’s number may agree with the nearer noun. So on all three counts the singular verb here could be said to be overdetermined.