I need to translate the following sentence into English: πάντες ἄρα, ὡς σὺ φῄς, Ἀθηναῖοι καλοὺς κἀγαθοὺς ποιοῦσι τοὺς νεανίας πλὴν ἐμοῦ, ἐγὼ δὲ μόνος χείρους ποιῶ;
I am trying to find the pattern as to what I would call this sentence. Is it a neutral comparative clause?
So far, my translation is, “Therefore all, as you are saying, Athenians make young men fine and good except me, while I alone make them worse?” I am not certain if ποιῶ and φῄς are indicative or subjunctive. I think indicative, but I could be wrong.
Not sure what you mean by “neutral,” but yes ποιῶ and φῄς are both indicative. (You could ask yourself what sense subjunctives would make.) If you haven’t yet read Plato’s Apology of Socrates, this might be a good time to do so. It must be stultifying to only read single sentences in isolation, however grammatically instructive.
Thank you. The textbook considers the pattern Protasis: εἰ + indicative ; Apodosis: indicative or any other independent clause construction, to be a neutral condition.
Then the textbook says, "Clauses introduced by a relative pronoun or adjective,
a relative adverb, or a temporal conjunction contain the indicative when they
refer to present or past action that is asserted as a fact applying to a specific occasion.
So I approach these exercises by:
Finding the pattern.
Then translating.
I thought this seemed like a neutral, rather then general condition, but I wanted to make sure.