Newby Post

Greek Learning Greek
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Hi. I am new to this forum. I am reading the works of a number of Greek authors who lived in first millennium BCE. My primary source is the Loeb Classical Library, which I access online thru my local library. You will know that the Loeb books present the ancient Greek text and the translated English text on opposing pages. It’s a great format for what I need.

For my current research, I need to match the specific sentence(s) of the Greek text to the corresponding English text. Not word-for-word, but in the sense of “this Greek sentence inspired this English translation”.

I do not speak ancient or modern Greek, but in most cases I can match the Greek to the English text using various online tools, and with a bit of help from my rusty Latin. But I have four cases where my efforts have failed. I would like to ask for assistance in these four cases.

I will start a new post for each of the four cases. The first one will follow in a moment, entitled Euripides. Thank you in advance for any assistance provided.

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This is a follow-on from my Newby Post a few moments ago. Here is my first case.

In the attached link, I need to specify the Greek sentence(s) that gives rise to the English translation underlined in red. The structure of the Loeb books helps a lot here.

I believe the Greek sentence containing words 7 thru 16 gives rise to the translation. Is this correct?

https://imgur.com/a/4U661q3

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Here is my second case. Here, it’s much less clear to me. I think that the English translation underlined in red comes somewhere from the Greek words that I’ve numbered in red.

Can anyone specify the first and last word (for example, 18 thru 40) of the passage that inspires the English translation?

https://imgur.com/a/LulsCyA

I will stop here and see what response I get on the first two cases before I post the other two. Again, thanks in advance.

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Feel free to post them all to this thread. You may wish to use imgur instead of dropbox, or even just cite the page and English text in the Loeb, we can tell you the Greek easily enough from that.

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Thank you, Joel, for combining my posts. But now, none of the Dropbox links appear in the posts (at least, not from what I see on my end). Something I need to fix on my end? Sorry, I am not familiar with imgur.

PJ

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They didn’t appear before I merged them either. Hence the Imgur recommendation. It’s a free image hosting service.

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Q1. Yes

Q2. Starts 41 ends 57, although the sentence continues. Justice and piety belong together so perhaps you have should have continued your underlining a bit further.

Why are you asking these questions?

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Thank you Seneca2008. In answer to your question, I am writing a book on certain elements of ancient Greek philosophy.

I am familiar with translations of modern languages, and I know that the process of translation is as much art as it is science. In many instances, I have come across translations that included “filler” sentences. Such sentences do not appear in the source text, but do appear in the translated text. In these instances, the translator felt it necessary (and probably rightly so) to include the filler in order to render a more accurate translation, one that better captures the context or history of what the source writer was trying to convey.

Anyway, in the case of the ancient Greek text, matching the source text to the translated text will help me in a future stage of research, not only in the identification of filler sentences, but also in researching how the meaning of certain words has changed over time. Hope that makes sense.

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Here is the third case, from Sextus Empiricus.

https://imgur.com/a/UxGIQ7A

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And the fourth and final case, from Demosthenes.

https://imgur.com/a/m5bLNK1

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Sextus Empiricus

18- 37

Demosthenes

68-74

I am not sure what you mean by a filler sentence. It is usually very difficult to make a meaningful word for word translation from Ancient Greek into English because the manner of expression in these languages is (can be) quite different. One has always to decide what something means in Ancient Greek and then try to express that in English. Often more words are required in English than in Greek. But I would not describe those extra words as “fillers”. They are essential to express the meaning. Extra lines appear in translations of poetical works, where something altogether new is included, such as Pope’s version of Iliad or perhaps better Dryden’s Virgil. But I don’t think that’s what you are referring to.

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Thanks again Seneca2008. Very helpful and much appreciated.