I woke up this morning with the ridiculous idea of translating songs from the Coen brothers movie into Greek. Since it’s an adaptation of the Odyssey, I thought it would be funny to adapt it backwards…
κατέβην εις τόν ποταμόν προσεύχεσθαι
μανθάνων τὴν εὐθὺς ὁδόν
ὦ κύριε, δείκνυε με τὴν ὁδόν…
ὦ ἀδελφαί, καταβήομεν
καταβήομεν, κατάβηθι
ὦ ἀδελφαί, καταβήομεν
εις τόν ποταμόν προσεύχεσθαι
I’m not sure I used the subjunctive and imperative correctly there.
εὖγε, φίλτατε!
εἰς ποταμὸν καταβάς,
ἵνα προσευχόμενος τὴν ἁγίαν ὀδὴν μάθω,
εἶπον
τίνι, Κύριε, ὁ ἀστερώδης στέφανος?
τὴν δ’ ὁδόν σου φανέρωσόν μοι.
Letters - You’re aware your κατέβην εις τόν ποταμόν προσεύχεσθαι echoes the opening of Plato’s Republic?! κατεβην χθες εις Πειραια … προσευξομενος …
That tells you προσευξόμενος—or rather -μένη?—would be better than infin. in your version too.
Not sure what next line is meant to mean (I forget the words), but your participle is masculine. (Markos makes his singer male, I guess with ref to himself.)
δεινυε με: μοι
καταβωμεν.
καταβηθι is singular.
Now you can try “You woke up this morning
Got yourself a gun, “ etc.
ἠγείρας ὁ ὄρθρος, σεαυτῇ
ἔσχες τὸ πυροβόλον ὅπλον.
λέξασα ὁτὶ ἔκκριτος ἔσῇ
μήτηρ οὗτως ἀεὶ ἦν.
Sorry Joel, that really doesn’t make much sense. Minimal amendment:
ὄρθριος εγερθεὶς
ελαβες οπλον πυροβολον·
ἡ γαρ μαμμη αει προὔλεγεν
ὡς (συ δη) γενησῃ ὁ εκκριτος.
ορθριος εξ υπνου ανόρουσας· δη τοτ’ ελαφρως
εξελθων ελαβες χερσιν εκατηβολον ιον·
…
υπνου : υπνων coni. Qimmicius
χερσιν εκατηβολον ιον: χειροιν εκατηβολα τόξα coni. Qimmicius, fort. recte
@mwh That makes far more sense to me than my own. A good sign, probably.
And as far as Qimmik’s conjectures:
υπνου → υπνων. Is this because slumber is often plural with a preposition? There’s no metrical reason for it?
χερσιν → χειροιν. Because this makes it scan.
ιον → τόξα. Again, no metrical reason, but bow seems a more likely representation of gun than arrow?
υπνων avoids hiatus, which would probably entail correption.
τόξα because why would you pick up a single arrow with both hands?
@Qimmik
And I was hoping for the continuation!
ορθριος εξ υπνου ανόρουσας came of its own accord while I was writing ορθριος in Joel’s, so I carried on a bit. Instinct told me that υπνου was right as against υπνοι(ο), and now that I check I find that it is (e.g. Il.10.138 |εξ υπνου ανεγειρε, Od.4.839 η δ’ εξ υπνου ανορουσε|). Maybe it started out as υπνοιο? υπνων would hardly do.
The rest is clumsy, and should teach me not to extemporize hexameters without first immersing myself in Homer etc. But I didn’t want to spend time improving it. Your dual χειροιν rings unepic to me.
@jeidsath
Hope you got something out of my amendments to yours.
As to my jeu d’esprit
But it is admittedly awkward with pl. χερσιν, which has something else about it that I don’t like too (position?).
You’ve placed it at foot 3.5 which would be unique for the Iliad. Here’s the placement histogram for χερσίν and its 71 appearances in the Iliad:
1.0 21.4%
2.0 8.5%
2.5 1.4% (once)
3.0 20%
4.5 1.4% (once)
5.0 28.5%
6.0 18.6%
Very rare on the on second half of the foot, and it never appears on the first part of the 4th foot. I assume the caesura is the explanation for the second fact.
In its three appearances preceding a word beginning with a consonant, it’s moved up to the middle of the foot twice. W.S. Allen would explain this with his stress theory: stress should land on the long for a _ . word (χερσίν). and it should land on second long for _ _ (χερσίν τε). χερσίν seems to fit the theory well enough.
Your placement at 3.5 should be fine according to his theory, but χερσίν does seem to like to sit on the beginning of a foot. And Allen could be wrong – maybe χερσίν sits at the beginning of a foot all the time because that’s just the easiest place to put it.
Thanks Joel. Good to know my instinct matches the stats!
But iambics are so much easier:
πρωος δ’ εγερθεις τοξον ευθυς ημπολας.
μητηρ γαρ ελεγε πολλακις· “συ παι κυρεις
οὑξαιρετος τε χὡ θεοις ειρμαρμενος.”
Easy as pie.
@mwh
Εκατηβολος qualifying a bow or an arrow (insteaf of being an epithet of Apollo) doesn’t seem a Homeric usage to me. Not that it’s important.
@jeidseth
How did you produce those stats?
I also tried my hand at this; it proved fiendishly difficult to keep to the meter, at least at my level, with no previous experience of composing hexameters. I actually though it would be easy, as the original has an obviously “Odyssean” flavor. The γε especially is weak, but I can’t keep to the meter otherwise.
εἴμ᾽ ἀνὴρ δύστηνος τις, ὧι κήδεα θυμῶι
μυρί᾽, ἃ αἰὲν ἴδον γε διαμπερὲς ἤματα πάντα
In constant sorrow all through his days
I am a man of constant sorrow
I’ve seen trouble all my days
I bid farewell to old Kentucky
The place where I was born and raised
[…]
The γε especially is weak, but I can’t keep to the meter otherwise.
That’s exactly what the aoidoi did–throw in a convenient particle to fit the meter. ra might work better.
The hexameter is ill-adapted to Greek. Iambs are closer to actual Greek speech. In fact, Aristophanic dialogue, which admits more metrical liberties that tragedy, is colloquial Attic.
ws ar’ egwn dusthnos anhr, ktl.
Or perhaps
εἴμ᾽ ἐγώ ἀνήρ δύστηνος, ὧι κήδεα θυμῶι
μυρί᾽, ἃ αἰὲν ἴδον ρα διαμπερὲς ἤματα πάντα
This gets rids of the τις that really isn’t in the original. How about ρα instead of γε? Not much better, but well.
I too was surprised how difficult it is to write decent hexameters, but then I’ve never gone in for composing them either. Iambics seem to come quite naturally, though.
ανηρ has short alpha. You could write ἁνηρ (ὁ ανηρ crasis) but that’s unepic? Qimmik’s ως αρ’ would mean “In this way.” I guess he means ως exclamatory, but that wouldn’t be followed by αρα. You can’t just go throwing in particles at will. ως δυστηνος ανηρ τις εγωγ’? Νο, τις wrong with ως. δυστηνος τις εγω(γε/ν) wd make a possible kick-off.
ἃ αἰὲν ἴδον won’t do (α αιεν hiatus, and Widon). α μ’ αμφιβεβηκε??
My/Q’s use of εκ(ατ)ηβολος extended the word’s reference from the god to his arrows, and then to any arrows. That kind of extension of epithets beyond their Homeric application is characteristic of post-Homeric authors, e.g. the Hellenistic poets and even Stesichorus. If you want to be strictly Homeric, we can stick with πτεροεντας οιστους. My distinctly unhomeric ολεσηνορα τοξα alluded to a scene in Stesichorus that was in my mind at the time. — But I have no wish to defend my verses, which were tossed off on the spur of the moment and are quite horrid. The iambics are better I think.
εἴμ᾽ ἐγώ [hiatus!] ἀνήρ δύστηνος – doesn’t scan as dactylic hexameter. _ v _ v _ _ _ v _
δύστηνος ἀνήρ ὧι κήδεα θυμῶι this much (w/ feminine caesura) would scan.
How about ὤμοι ἐγώ δύστηνος ἀνήρ ὧι κήδεα θυμῶι
ὤμοι ἀνήρ ws eimi talas ὧι κήδεα θυμῶι
For the hiatus and correption, Il. 1.149.
Well, ἀνήρ does occur with a long α although it’s not very common. According to LSJ, “Ep. Poets mostly use ᾱ in arsi, ᾰ in thesi; but in trisyll. forms with stem ἀνέρ- always ᾱ; so also Trag. in lyr., S.Tr.1011, OT869. But in Trag. senarians ᾰ always.” At a quick glance, the nominative is not uncommon as the last word of the verse, when the α is in arsis (forgive me the use of the word 
).
But there is also:
IL.12.382 χείρεσσ’ ἀμφοτέρῃς ἔχοι ἀνὴρ οὐδὲ μάλ’ ἡβῶν
For ἐγὼ, I thought correption would shorten the ω–correption being the rule, not the exception, although correption of ω is less frequent than that of diphthongs (so West, Greek Metre, p. 12). So although ἀνήρ with long α in thesis is irregular, I’m not convinced yet my line is totally un-Homeric, just clumsy (a modern commentator would call it “tired style”, I guess)!
For ϝἴδον, I thought I needn’t always respect the digamma, although I did in the previous line (ϝὧι).
For the hiatus in ἃ αἰὲν, point taken.
So, another clumsy attempt (Not that I dislike the other versions above):
εἴμ᾽ ἐγώ ἀνήρ δύστηνος, ὧι κήδεα θυμῶι
μυρί᾽, ἃ ρ᾽ αἰὲν ἴδον γε διαμπερὲς ἤματα πάντα
I quickly went through all the occurrences of ἀνήρ nom. sing. and didn’t find a single one with long α in thesis, although it’s not wholly uncommon in arsis.
Thanks for setting the record straight on ανηρ Paul.
For my own edification I looked through Homeric occurences of ιδον in TLG, 76 in number. The erstwhile digamma is almost always effective. The exceptions, real or apparent, are:
εγων ιδον 4x Od.: obviously should be (or originally was) εγω ιδον.
ουκ ιδον 2x Il., 1x Od. Likewise, i.e. ου ιδον.
εμοισ’ ιδον 1x Od.: εμοις ιδον.
τον δ’ ιδον Od.4.556. Already corrected by Bentley to τον ιδον, which everyone accepts (except presumably van Thiel, who accepts in the medieval tradition); the syndeton is idiomatic.
τοιουτον ιδον βροτον Od.6.160. Old v.l. (and pap.) τοιουτον εγων ιδον, to be preferred (εγω ιδον, see above).
Residue is very small: two instances, both in Od.:
καλλιστον ιδον Od.11.522. To be accepted? (but cf. the case of 6.160 above).
ενθ’ ιδον Od.12.258.
Results are similar for other forms:
ιδεειν: always digamma except for τ’ ιδεειν (Od.), which will originally have been τε ιδειν (as in Il.).
Similarly ιδειν (not counting e.g. εν μεγαροισιν ιδειν).
Similarly ιδε(ν), most of the time, but line-init. |νυν δ’ ιδεν, |τον δ’ ιδεν (but also τον δε ιδεν), |ως δ’ ιδεν. In some of these the δ’ is no doubt a false metri gratia addition (cf. the classic τον {δ’} ιδον at Od.4.556), but not all?
In other forms, which I haven’t thoroughly checked, the digamma is the norm but not invariable. 19th-cent. attempts to “restore” digamma absolutely everywhere in Homer didn’t succeed. It was a relic, compositionally built in but already beginning to fade by Homer’s time. But without question it was falsely eliminated in many places in the course of later transmission (see above for instances). I forget if it’s observed less often in Od than in Il, but I’d expect so.