Mythologica - Jason and the golden fleece story

Greek Learning Greek
1

On page 64 of Mythologica, the king tells Jason:

εἴ που φίλος μοι εἶ, λέγε μοι

I’m struggling to understand this, can someone help on the translation?

Also, what does ἐφʼ means and how would I go about finding out online?
I typed on Logeion but nothing comes up

2

Hi, are there parts of the sentence that you understand, and parts you don’t? Or is the whole thing a blur? If you could please jot down what you have figured out, people will be able to help with the rest.

On your last question, there isn’t an ἐφ’ in the quote you gave, but you can find ἐφ’ in the dictionary under ἐπί (this is the form that ἐπί takes when the final -ί is dropped and the next word starts with an aspirated vowel).

Cheers, Chad

3

Thanks a lot, Chad

To me, it means:

You’re my friend anywhere you are, tell me

But the εἶ (with the circumflex accent) makes me wonder if it really means εἴ

4

Hi, you’ve got part right.

The first word is εἰ ‘if’.

The word που is tricking you here: take a look at section II (not I) of που in LSJ. It’s an enclitic and so has thrown its accent back onto εἰ (normally unaccented).

The εἶ at the end of the first clause comes from εἰμί (2p. sg.).

Can you work out from this what it means now?

Cheers, Chad

5

Perfect, thanks Chad!

If you’re my friend anywhere, tell me! - right?!

For some reason I was (wrongly) thinking of eimi in the 3rd person pres ind with the acute and forgot about the enclitic throwing the accent back to the prior word…

6

Hi, getting close! In particular think about the bit ‘friend anywhere’: does that feel right to you (with a reference to location)? Have another look at the που article right through (tip: I made it a habit when starting out Greek to read the dictionary entry right through to the end every time — there’s no rush, Greek is not going anywhere). Check out what που means when it’s not referring to a location:

https://logeion.uchicago.edu/που

Cheers, Chad

7

Interesting…

So,
“I supposed you’re friendly to me, right?” - making the translation less literal.
or
“You’re friendly to me to some degree, right?”

8

Not quite there yet: remember it’s an “if” clause… and your translation comes across as a confident assertion (“right?”) but the second word of the Greek introduces a “perhaps” element. Cheers, Chad

9

Yes, I should have looked at the quote again more carefully…

If perhaps you are friendly to me, tell me…