There is a sentence in Section Four A (Lawlessness in Athenian Life) that I cannot understand.
(This is from Reading Greek, JACT series)
The sentence is on line 16 of Four A, following the verb ‘Don’t let that worry you.’
The sentence doesn’t have a verb. Is a form of ‘to be’ the verb that is missing? I know that ‘to be’ can be left out but taken as understood in sentences. But in this case, does ‘the city’ take this verb ‘to be?’ Or is it rather ‘the land’ that goes with this verb?
And is ‘polis’ in the nominative or some other declension?
Finally, I have trouble with the logic. The city (the land) is without houses, it has just people. This is what Pericles may be saying to the farmers to encourage them to come to the city.
I have trouble understanding the relation between ‘city’ and ‘land.’ I may not yet know the declensions of ‘polis’ but wow, I have trouble with this.
I apologize if I am not as clear as I should be. Even expressing the problem is difficult. I will send this but I will try to be clearer with questions in the future. Maybe practice will help!
I have tried to work on this problem but I am still perplexed.
Reading the start of 4A in the first edition this seems to be line 33. I’ll copy the sentence out here, and give others a chance to answer your questions.
Thank you for that reply; it is much appreciated. I am still working on the logic as I see it. I still don’t know what Pericles is getting at.
My apologies for the issue regarding the line number. My text is an old edition (maybe the first one) and it gave the line as line 16. In future, I will mention that matter and will give good indications as to what line is at stake. And I will have another question, but for tomorrow!
I don’t know if I will be able to put Greek text into the Greek alphabet…
Well, I am going to try to read this sentence now! The city doesn’t have dwellings or land (for farmers?) but it does have people. So if that is close to a good idea about what the text means, then I think the text is quite beautiful. The sentiment is good. But am I close to being on the right track? And it doesn’t give an indication as to how ‘land’ and ‘dwellings’ might be related. There doesn’t seem to be a marker for ‘or.’ I am surprised, though, that the text is that difficult just at Section Four! I will persist.
Hi KHay. Looking at your translation, I can see perhaps two problems. One is that you are adding words that are not there (apart from the verb ‘be’, I mean, which you do need to add!). There is no ‘have’ in the Greek, for example. The second problem is that you are focusing too much on Pericles’ logic (‘what he’s getting at’). Don’t get me wrong, that is important, but first you need to establish what he’s saying, the basic meaning of the sentence. So try to translate it using only the verb ‘be’ and the Greek words in the sentence.
I was playing a bit loose there, trying to move from ‘to be’ to ‘to have.’
And I see a solution very well laid out by paveln.
I think…οἰκήσεις must refer primarily to farm houses and not city dwellings? And for the link between οἰκήσεις and γῆ, it must be the case that ‘and’ can be left out, being understood, just as ‘to be’ can be left out, being understood.
I may have a question for tomorrow but I hope the help I got on this one will help me there too!
Thanks to all and yes, it is still very enjoyable!
I did a search for οἰκήσεις and farm houses, and found: πολλὰς δὲ οἰκήσεις γεωργικὰς καταβαλεῖν - destroyed many farm houses (Dionysius of Halicarnassus: Loeb Classical Library). Still no assurance that οἰκήσεις means farm houses, but it seems to be the case.
No. It means houses, and in this context refers specifically to city houses.
And for the link between οἰκήσεις and γῆ, it must be the case that ‘and’ can be left out, being understood, just as ‘to be’ can be left out, being understood.
No. The link is ἤ, which means “or”.
I did a search for οἰκήσεις and farm houses, and found: πολλὰς δὲ οἰκήσεις γεωργικὰς καταβαλεῖν - destroyed many farm houses (Dionysius of Halicarnassus: Loeb Classical Library). Still no assurance that οἰκήσεις means farm houses, but it seems to be the case.
οἰκήσεις γεωργικαί are farm houses there only because of the γεωργικαί. γεωργικός is an adjective meaning “farm-related”. οἴκησις by itself is just a noun formed from the verb meaning “to inhabit” (οἰκεῖν). Without an adjective, it means habitation/house.
To Joel Eidsath: I didn’t see that ἤ meant ‘or;’ I just saw it as being the definite article. I should have seen something was amiss when ‘dwellings’ came in the sentence without an article. Thanks for pointing that out. My vocabulary is building up slowly but I think I know now the Greek word for ‘or’!
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KHay: It’s actually not “neither … nor.” The form of expression is more stark, simply “A city is not dwellings or land, but men.” Here a perfectly literal translation might best represent the Greek (it’s rhetorically stronger), and what you need to work on is not more flexibility but more accuracy. First you need to see exactly how the Greek goes. (Of course, mistaking ἢ for ἡ would inevitably throw you off. These pesky diacritics!)
That said, the force of the contrastive ἀλλά could well be captured with “no, it’s men.” (ἄνδρες gender-specific; “people” would be ἄνθρωποι.)