Professor Mastronarde Unit 35 Part II Exercise 10

Greek Learning Greek
1

I am supposed to translate the following sentence into English:

[Cephalus narrates:] ἐπειδὴ εἰς Ἀθήνας [“Athens”] ἀφικόμην, κατ’ ἀγορὰν
ἀπήντησα Ἀδειμάντῳ καὶ Γλαύκωνι· καί μου λαβόμενος [mid.: “take hold of,” gen.] τῆς χειρὸς ὁ Ἀδείμαντος, “χαῖρε [“greetings”],” ἔφη, "ὦ Κέφαλε, καὶ εἴ
του δέῃ τῶν ἐνθάδε ἃ ἡμεῖς δυνάμεθα ποιεῖν, φράζε [“tell (us)”]." “ἀλλὰ,” εἶπον
ἐγώ, “πάρειμι ἐπ’ αὐτὸ τοῦτο, δεησόμενος ὑμῶν.”

I am having some trouble with the last couple of sentences, especially the definite articles without nouns. δέῃ can be an indicative or subjunctive of δέομαι. I believe it is an indicative in this case. Should the pronouns be translated: τῶν (of the things) του (Belonging to me)?

So far my translations is, "When I arrived at Athens, I met Adeimantus and Glaucon along the Agora and Adeimantus took hold of my hand and said, “Greetings Cephalus, and if you need the things belonging to me here which we are able to do, tell us, but I said I have come for this thing, intending to ask of you.”

The last couple sentences are awkward, so I must be doing something(s) wrong.

2

του δέῃ τῶν ἐνθάδε

I read του as Attic genitive instead of τινός, meaning any (of the things here). I agree that δέῃ is indicative, since there is no ἄν after εἰ.

1 Like
3

Yes, του (enclitic) is not the definite article but the Attic indefinite pronoun (here neuter), and τῶν ἐνθάδε is a partitive genitive with it. So it’s “and if you have need of anything here” (lit. “any of the [things] here”).

In Cephalus’ reply, πάρειμι ἐπ’ αὐτὸ τοῦτο is “I’m here for this very thing” (lit. “this itself,” αὐτὸ intensive), I.e. “this is precisely what I’m here for.”

This is from the beginning of Plato’s Parmenides, a dialogue that gets more difficult as it goes along.

1 Like