Lucian problem

Greek Learning Greek
1

αἰτία δέ μοι τῆς ἀποδημίας καὶ ὑπόθεσις ἡ τῆς διανοίας περιεργία καὶ πραγμάτων καινῶν ἐπιθυμία καὶ…

Hi all,

I’m reading Lucian’s True Story. The meaning of this phrase eludes me: καὶ ὑπόθεσις ἡ τῆς διανοίας περιεργία

The book defines περιεργία as “officiousness”, which does not make sense to me. Also…the article goes with περιεργία, right? I don’t get why there are two nouns and the article is in that spot.

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Hi Lina
You almost got it. περιεργία is part of the predicate. You need to supply a form of “to be”. I broke down & reordered the sentence for you so you can see how the parts go together better:
αἰτία καὶ ὑπόθεσις τῆς ἀποδημίας [ἦσαν] ἡ περιεργία τῆς διανοίας καὶ ἐπιθυμία πραγμάτων καινῶν καὶ τὸ βούλεσθαι μαθεῖν…

For the meaning of περιεργία try “inquisitiveness” (the underlying metaphor has to do with sticking one’s nose in other people’s business (εργα) I think)

3

Thanks for your help.