ἔδεισα ἔφη θρασὺς δόξαι μὴ γιγνώσκων ἐμαυτόν μήδ΄ ὅτι βάρβαρον εἶναι με δοκεῖ τῇ τύχῃ
I was afraid to appear too bold not knowing myself and not because I appear to be a barbarian by fate.
Is this a correct translation?
No. μηδὲ [γιγνώσκων] ὅτι κτλ. (ὄτι introduces indirect discourse here)
βάρβαρον εἶναί με δοκεῖ τῇ τύχῃ: regular construction with δοκεῖ + dat as in ἔδοξε τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις μάχεσθαι
Make more sense?
(Lightly) personalized fate. It puzzled me how anyone wouldn’t realize himself a non-Greek, until I looked up the context. Some great lines in there: “οὐκ ἠδυνήθην ἐμαυτὸν κρύπτειν, ὡς δὲ μεστός εἰμι τῆς Ἑλλήνων φωνῆς”
ἔδεισα ἔφη θρασὺς δόξαι μὴ γιγνώσκων ἐμαυτόν μήδ΄ ὅτι βάρβαρον εἶναι με δοκεῖ τῇ τύχῃ
I was afraid to appear too bold neither knowing myself nor knowing that chance decided me to be a barbarian.
Since you have looked it up, you have probably seen that the English translation is very different. ‘I was afraid of seeming presumptuous, for I do not know myself, not to mention the fact that I am barbarian by decree of fate.’
I do not understand this μήδ΄is it like καί?
I’ve only seen the Greek. I read it as “that it seemed appropriate to fate for me to be a barbarian”. μηδε is like ουδε, both of them coming after another negation. οὐ τοῦτο, οὐδʼ ἐκεῖνο. The LSJ will have better examples than anything I make up though.
μηδέ = nor/not even
I think it is high time to retranslate this text, coz the English is either obsolete or not quite correct.
Yes, it can be adverbial like that, but here it seems like the more usual “and not”, imo.
EDIT: I see the “nor” now, which does work. It’s “not even” that wouldn’t be right here, but you didn’t mean to suggest that.
Constantinus: The translation you quoted was accurate enough. I’d imagine that there are several English translations of the Life of Apollonius. It’s a pretty well known text.