How do the underline words fit in this sentence?
“[persuading you, whether young or old,] to neither take care of your body nor your money first,
nor yet so much,…, so that it (your conscious-self) will be as best as possible.”
It seems that he meant to use a negative result clause, “nor yet so much that your conscious-self becomes as bad as can be”,
but changed to positive result clause while speaking.
Hey there! Stupid fake nails make it hard to type so my apologies for the brevity
μήτε σωμάτων ἐπιμελεῖσθαι Don’t take care either of your body μήτε χρημάτων or money πρότερον (either) before/prior to μηδὲ οὕτω σφόδρα nor as strongly ὡς τῆς ψυχῆς as your soul ὅπως ὡς ἀρίστη ἔσται so that it (your soul) will be the best
Don’t give attention either to your body or (your) money prior to or as diligently as your soul so that it (the soul) will become the best possible.
You shouldn’t take care of your body and your money before (you take care of) your soul or as diligently as (you take care of) your soul
Thanks, Ireney. I understand now that πρότερον + gen. [without an implied inf.] is the same as
the more frequent πρότερον ἢ + ind./ inf. here (LSJ A.IV).
But ὡς got in the way because of οὕτω, so it is with implied inf. and the gen. is due to the verb.