Sophocles Fragment 346 P

Greek Learning Greek
1

Hello there,

This one came up in the readings of the textbook which I am currently working through. I would be very grateful if somebody on this forum with more knowledge than myself could provide me with a translation, which I would then be able to check against the answer given in my key: of which I’m a little dubious, since I suspect that it may have been compiled by a beginner such as myself.

καλὸν φρονεῖν τὸν θνητὸν ἀνθρώποις ἴσα.

I got:

It is a noble thing for mortal man to have thoughts that are fair with regards to mankind.


Thanks in advance for your time and patience,

Regards,
Tom.

2

Yes probably something like that.

3

The grammar is that of (an accusative + infinitive) and predicate;
(φρονεῖν τὸν θνητὸν ἀνθρώποις ἴσα) καλὸν
with an omitted ἔστι
That a mortal think things similar to mankind is καλὸν
The range covered by καλὸν seems to defeat modern English. Ι always immediately jump to καλοὶ κ’ ἀγαθοί, and then to my my deepest political and moral assumptions (which rage against elitism); and from there to “good” which is so relative and non-PC as to be a candidate for the word.

Ed

4

I took it as saying that it is καλόν for τὸν θνητόν to φρονεῖν what is ἴσα to ἀνθρώποις. I think I’ve seen similar sentiments in Euripides and Herodotus. Examples could be τεκνα, etc.

Sophocles was a bit of an elitist himself. I saw this today:

κοὐκ οἶδ᾿ ὅτι χρὴ πρὸς ταῦτα λέγειν,
ὅταν οἵ γ᾿ ἀγαθοὶ πρὸς τῶν ἀγενῶν
κατανικῶνται·
ποία πόλις ἂν τάδ᾿ ἐνέγκοι;

And I don’t know what needs to be said in reply to this,
when the noble are borne down by the ignoble.
What sort of city could bear it?

5

You’re confusing a Sophoclean character with Sophocles himself, a very naive mistake.

6

Perhaps. But even worse I can’t find any example of φρονεῖν being used with really concrete accusative objects. Nothing like τεκνα. But I do see Iliad 5.440-1:

μηδὲ θεοῖσιν / ἶσ’ ἔθελε φρονέειν

7

For what it’s worth, the Loeb (Sophocles, Fragments) has:

It is fitting for a mortal to think like human beings.

8

It’s quoted from The Women of Kolchis, which involved Medea and Jason. (Presumably the chorus were local women.) But I reckon it would be better to read the plays that survive intact before fussing with single isolated lines with no context.

9

Thank you for the kind suggestions and input, I appreciate it.