Od. 4.754
μηδὲ γέροντα κάκου κεκακωμένον…
κάκου actually the imperative from κακόω. Is there a term for this, when the same word is repeated but with different morphology? A noun and a verb, such “fearing a great fear” is the schema etymologica, and the simple repetition of sounds parachesis (assonance, consonance), but what about the same word in different forms?
I don’t know if there’s a specific word this, but surely for Homer, who lived his entire life blissfully unaware of the classical studies and linguistics, this would not have been too different from schema etymogica?
I’d go with paronomasia: a play upon words. κακόω is being used in two different senses: troubling someone versus someone who’s troubled enough, or perhaps closer to the mark, polyptoton.
Btw, the term is schema etymologicum, not “schema etymological”, as we should all know that σχῆμα is neuter…
Ah, but in Latin schema is feminine!
Indeed it appears to be, even if “schema etymogicum” is neuter! (I’m sorry for the spurious letter “l” I put there…)
I think Quintillian would have agreed with you!
This brings to my mind the traditional (and in my opinion, unfortunate) way of writing medical diagnoses in Latin in Finland, especially perpetuated by orthopedic surgeons. Since nobody knows Latin anymore, this leads to things like “distorsio genu” and much worse. In a neurology book (by an American, I think), the author thought that the plural of “vasa nervorum” is “vasa nervora”! In the 4th edition of this (otherwise excellent) book this was still uncorrected.
Smyth discusses participle-verb “Pleonasms” in the Figures section, and gives an example in 2147b: καὶ εὐχόμενος ἄν τις ταῦτα εὔξαιτο Ant. 6. 1.
Kühner gives a bunch of examples (2.2.490.3), but doesn’t have a special name for it, just “ein eigentümlicher, aber echt griechischer Gebrauch der Partizipien”
But this isn’t quite the same as the Kühner examples, as the κεκακωμένος can’t be the result of the κακοῦν.
After reading a little more closely, I discovered that there is a neuter form of schema in Latin: schema, schematis. Its usage is Post-Augustan.
Pleonasms employ redundancy, whereas in this line κάκου κεκακωμένον is not redundant; κεκακωμένον is associated with the object of the verb. Essentially, it’s “don’t trouble a troubled man”. That’s why I went with polyptoton. There’s a good example of this in English:“Judge not, lest ye be judged”
Okay, you major in the minors sorts of people (but then again, that’s part of what classicists do, God and the devil both being in the details), both are correct:
schēma, scēma ~atis (~atos) neut. Also ~a ~ae f..
Glare, P. G. W. (Ed.). (2012). Oxford Latin Dictionary (Second Edition, Vol. I & II). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
But I suppose I could have saved the universe from the creation of more bytes by using the more common figura etymologica, for which there can be no debate.
Polyptoton fits the usage nicely, I think.
Aetos, I mentioned at the end of the post that this was different, “as the κεκακωμένος can’t be the result of the κακοῦν”. But the Odyssey line example is very closely related, and it really is worth looking up the examples from Kühner. A couple of them (the φεύγων ἀποφύγοι and ἐκφύγω φεύγων examples) seem likely enough to take the present finite verbs in their perfect senses (fleeing escape), and therefore not pleonasms either, but all related to this, I’d think.
Polyptoton is fine in English, but I thought it was really referring to the actual πτώσεις in Greek:
Περὶ σχημάτων:
Πολύπτωτον δέ, ὅταν ἤτοι τὰς ἀντονομασίας ἢ τὰ ὀνόματα εἰς πάσας τὰς πτώσεις μεταλαμβάνοντες διατιθώμεθα τὸν λόγον, ὡς παρὰ Κλεοχάρει·
„Δημοσθένης ὑπέστη Φίλιππον· Δημοσθένους πένης μὲν ὁ βίος, μεγάλη δ’ ἡ παρρησία· Δημοσθένει πολλῶν διδομένων οὐδὲν οὔτε πλῆθος οὔτε κάλλος ἄξιον ἐφάνη προδοσίας· Δημοσθένην Ἀλέξανδρος ἐξῄτει· τὸ διὰ τί παρ’ αὑτοῖς λογίζεσθε· ἀδίκως ἀπέθανες, ὦ Δημόσθενες“.
ἔστι δὲ τὸ τοιοῦτον σχῆμα καὶ παρά τισι τῶν ποιητῶν, ὡς παρ’ Ἀρχιλόχῳ καὶ Ἀνακρέοντι. καὶ παρὰ μὲν Ἀρχιλόχῳ·
νῦν δὲ Λεώφιλος μὲν ἄρχει, Λεώφιλος δ’ ἐπικρατεῖ,
Λεωφίλῳ δὲ πάντα κεῖται, Λεώφιλον δ’ ἄκουε …παρὰ δὲ Ἀνακρέοντι·
Κλευβούλου μὲν ἔγωγ’ ἐρῶ,
Κλευβούλῳ δ’ ἐπιμαίνομαι,
Κλεύβουλον δὲ διοσκέω.