My misunderstandings are in bold. Here is my translation:
“For unless the farmers sow, [omit and] they do not take food out of the fields; and unless they plant grape-vines, they do not have wine; and they do not have olive-oil, unless they plant olive trees (?).”
Firstly, why have οὐδὲ when you could just have οὐ? The second phrase in the first clause is a consequence of the first phrase, so you wouldn’t say, “For unless the farmers sow, and they do not [or “nor do they”] take food out of the fields”.
Secondly, what is ἐλαίας δένδρα φυτεύουσιν? Is ἐλαίας a genitive singular or accusative plural? Are the farmers planting “trees of the olive” (like a genitive of description or something)? or does φυτεύουσιν have another sense of “produce”, and so the trees are “producing” olives?
I think it’s a genitive. Aristophanes: τοῖς δ’ αὖ σεμνοῖς τῶν ὀρνίθων δένδρον ἐλάας ὁ νεὼς ἔσται. ἐλάας is the Attic form. An olive tree will be the temple.
I don’t know about that οὐδε. Is there a sentence coming before that could justify it?
Hi gloriapatri, I don’t have the Italian Athenaze, but re. the first οὐδέ, I think you are being thrown by your English translation of εἰ μή as ‘unless’: remember it’s actually a negative protasis in Greek, ‘if not…’.
This here at first glance is a straightforward use of responsive οὐδέ after a negative clause: if not A, norB (or, if not A, notBeither). For more see e.g. Denniston on Greek particles at pp. 194–95: οὐδέ ‘simply adding a negative idea, usually to a negative idea either expressed or implied: “not … either”.’
You ask why they didn’t use οὐ alone (note they actually used that alternative in the following sentence: you can use either). We can use the alternatives in English too, in a similar way:
If they do not (sow, etc.), they do not (reap, etc.)
OR
If they do not (sow, etc.), > nor > do they (reap, etc.)
That may be what the author was thinking. But it would be an “apodotic οὐδέ” that doesn’t correspond to the main categories of apodotic δέ listed in Denniston 178.
Otherwise (and much more regularly) when οὐδέ sits in apodosis, it seems to be adverbial or responding to (or leading to) another οὐδέ or a negative somewhere else other than the protasis.
Hi Joel, I think you’re looking at a different section of Denniston: p. 178 is in the δέ section, but Denniston specifically covers οὐδέ later on: I gave the page refs above in my original post. It contains several examples (including a negative conditional protasis: πάριτε δή, θρέμματα γενναῖα, καλλίπαιδά τε Φαῖδρον πείθετε ὡς ἐὰν μὴ ἱκανῶς φιλοσοφήσῃ, οὐδὲ ἱκανός ποτε λέγειν ἔσται περὶ οὐδενός (Pl. Phdr. 261a) and there are lots of examples of this (εἰ μὴ … οὐδὲ …, or εὰν μὴ … οὐδὲ …) in Attic prose. I see it as a common construction and useful to have in a beginner textbook like Athenaze (I hope they explained it though!)
Yes, I am looking at a different section. Uses of apodotic οὐδέ parallel apodotic δέ when they can’t be classified in one of the other manners my above post describes. See Smyth 2935. (Though the Smyth example there, S.OC 590 is bad, as Denniston points out. But there are other good examples.)
Post some examples of the Attic construction that you see, and we can classify them, if you like.
Apodotic δέ is much rarer in Attic prose than Homer and Herodotus, and most of the time when you see οὐδέ inside an apodosis, it’s not really functioning that way.