The Beginner's Greek Book by John Williams White

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1

Hi everyone, I wanted to post here that I’m working my way through The Beginner’s Greek Book (1892) by John Williams White (“JWW”) so that if anyone else is working through this book perhaps we can compare notes.

Here is my progress so far:

I’m in the middle of doing the exercises for Lesson XXI - Attic Second Declension & Declension of Οὗτος.

There are 139 lessons in total. The book includes the first eight chapters of Book I of Xenophon’s Anabasis. There are copious exercises. The lessons move at a rapid pace.

2

I’m also currently studying the -mi verbs. They come later of course in The Beginner’s Greek Book but I want to get an early start on memorizing the forms.

3

I’m learning to translate such gems as “Cyrus sent gifts to this man, a horse and a mina of silver”; “Cyrus, the brother of Artaxerxes, sends to the bowmen ten days’ pay, five minas of silver.”

Gotta have those minas of silver!

4

One mina=100 drachmas. One drachma is about the daily wage of a skilled worker.

5

Thanks for that definition of “mina”.

I have my first question on Professor White’s textbook. Can anyone suggest anything?

On page 20 (Lesson XI) JWW states the following “Rule of Syntax”: “A neuter plural subject regularly has its verb in the singular.”

He gives the following two examples:

οὐκ ἦν πλοῖα, there were no boats.
τὰ δῶρα καλὰ ἦν, the gifts were beautiful.

But on page 55, sentence #9 of the Greek to English exercise reads as follows:

τὰ δὲ ἆθλα ἧσαν στρεπτοὶ χρυσοῖ, which I translate as “And the prizes were gold necklaces.” Is the verb in the plural because “gold necklaces” is plural, so that the rule on page 20 doesn’t apply here? I’m surprised that the normally meticulous JWW did not place a footnote here.

Thanks!

6

Smyth grammar 959 describes the exception to the rule:

[*] 959. A plural verb may be used when stress is laid on the fact that the neuter plural subject is composed of persons or of several parts: ““τὰ τέλη τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων αὐτὸν ἐξέπεμψαν” the Lacedaemonian magistrates despatched him” T. 4.88, ““φανερὰ ἦσαν καὶ ἵππων καὶ ἀνθρώπων ἴχνη πολλά” many traces both of horses and of men were plain” X. A. 1.7.17.
a. With the above exception Attic regularly uses the singular verb. Homer uses the singular three times as often as the plural, and the plural less frequently with neuter adjectives and pronouns than with substantives. In some cases (B 135) the metre decides the choice.

7

Thanks for the explanation! Perhaps JWW thought it was too detailed to include in the footnotes and figured that the teacher would explain it to the students.

8

I’m currently working on Lesson XXVII which presents the paradigms for the aorist, perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect middle. The tricky one is the second person singular. The lesson concludes with a list of new vocabulary items and 19 Greek sentences to be translated into English, and 14 English sentences to be translated into Greek.

Coming up: Lesson XXIX introduces the aorist and future passive and Lesson XXXIII introduces the Principal Parts of verbs.

I really like this textbook. Every so often there is a review lesson with a recap of new words introduced since the last review lesson as well as a connected reading passage based on the Anabasis. I also regularly go back and review the earlier lessons by reading out loud the Greek sentences to be translated into English. I find that regular review is essential.

9

I came across a fascinating rule of syntax in Lesson XXIX (re: the indicative passive). According to this lesson,

“[t]he agent is usually expressed, in the passive construction, by ὑπό with the genitive. . . . With the perfect and pluperfect passive the agent is sometimes expressed by the dative. . . .”

Very interesting that how you express the agent depends on what tense of the passive is used. I don’t believe Latin is like that.

10

You may find my favorite comparative syntax interesting, here discussing the dative of agent:

A Parallel Of Greek And Latin Syntax

11

Interesting. Thanks!

12

This appears to be (if I’m translating it correctly) a third way of expressing the agent with a passive verb. On page 70, Section 228, Part I, sentence #9 reads:

ταῦτα σῴζεται διὰ Κῦρον τῇ στρατιᾷ.

which I translate as “these things are saved by Cyrus for his army.”

The word διὰ is footnoted as follows: “through, by.”

This is an example of where having a knowledgeable teacher around would be helpful.

If I were in one of Professor White’s ancient greek classes at Harvard University in the 1890’s I would raise my hand and ask “could we also say ταῦτα σῴζεται ὑπὸ Κύρου τῇ στρατιᾷ? Is there a different shade of meaning?”

When I have a chance I’ll delve into this further in Goodwin’s Greek Grammar (and/or Smyth’s).

13

See Smyth article 1685.2 “διά with the Accusative”
which discusses agency and cause with διά.

14

Thanks. After reading this section of Smyth I would translate the sentence as follows:

ταῦτα σῴζεται διὰ Κῦρον τῇ στρατιᾷ.

“These things are saved for the army thanks to Cyrus.”

15

Well, I made it to Lesson XXXII. This is a review lesson with a recap of vocabulary since the last review lesson, a short reading passage based on the Anabasis, and, for the first time, a continuous Greek prose composition exercise. I would appreciate comments on my attempt at continuous Greek prose composition!

Here is the English passage that I had to turn into Greek:

[page 81, section 251] Cyrus, the son of Darus and Parysatis, was satrap of Phyrgia. When Darius died, Artaxerxes, Cyrus’s brother, became king, and dishoured Cyrus. But his mother loved him and rescued (him). When he had been sent back again to his province, he immediately collected an army, both Greek and barbarian. For he planned to become king instead of Artaxerxes. He collected his army in the following manner. He gave money to Clearchus and Aristippus and bade them to enlist solders with this. And they did so.

Here is my Greek version. Please note that the textbook has not specifically taught participles yet so there aren’t any in my translation. I am aware, however, from looking at “An Introduction To Continuous Greek Prose Composition” by Nash-Williams that Greek uses participles a lot, and authentic Greek would probably use them at various places in my translation.

Κῦρος , ὁ τοὺ Δαρεὶου καὶ τῆς Παρισάτιδος ὑιὸς, τῆς Φρυγίας σατράπης ῆν. ἐπεὶ δὲ ἐτελεύτησεν ὁ Δαρεῖος, ὁ τοῦ Κύρου ἀδελφὸς ὀ Ἀρταξέρξης ἐβασίλευσε καὶ τὸν Κῦρον ἠτίμασεν. ἀλλὰ ἡ μήτηρ ἐφίλει αὐτὸν καὶ ἔσωσεν. ἐπεὶ δὲ ἀπεπέμψατο πάλιν ἐπὶ τὴν ἀρχὴν, εὐθὺς στρατιὰν ἤθροισε, καὶ Ἑλληνηκὴν τὲ καὶ Βαρβάραν. ἐβούλευε γὰρ βασιλεῦσαι ἀντὶ τοῦ Ἀρταξέρξοῦ. ὀ δὲ ἤθροισεν τὴν στρατιὰν τὸνδε τὸν τρὸπον. τῷ Κλεάρχῳ καὶ τῷ Ἀριστίππῳ ἔδωκε χρήματα καὶ τοὺς ἐκέλευσεν ἀπὸ τούτων τῶν χρημάτων στρατιώτας λαμβάνειν. καὶ οὗτοι ἐποίουν οὕτως.

Question: how could this be modified to make it more authentically Greek? For example, how could participles be incorporated?

Thanks!

By the way, I’m really loving this course!

16

Hi everyone, I came across a translation question I’m not sure about, and I can’t find the answer in Goodwin or Smyth.

The question is this: if a verb is used in the middle voice in order to generate a specific active meaning (call it “X”), how do you express the passive version of X?

In this particular instance, I have to translate “They have been hired by the general.” into Greek. Now, “to let for hire, to let” is expressed by the verb μισθόω. On the other hand, “to have let to oneself”, or “to hire” is expressed by the middle voice of μισθόω, i.e., μισθόομαι->μισθοῦμαι.

So “we have hired the soldiers” is μεμισθώμεθα τούς στρατιώτας.

How would you say “the soldiers have been hired by us”? If you said "οἱ στρατιῶται μεμισθῶνται ὑπὸ ἡμῶν would that not mean that the soldiers had been “hired out” by us to a to a third party, i.e., the third party did the hiring?

17

You probably need to rephrase it. It is a general difficulty with Ancient Greek. My German is not so good, but you can read about it in the introduction of Sprechen Sie Attisch?.

18

Agreed. First I looked to see if there is another Greek verb that means “to hire” which I could use instead of μισθοῦμαι. I checked Woodhouse’s English - Greek Dictionary but didn’t find anything suitable.

So I think the answer is to rephrase it as follows:

“They have been hired by the general” => “The general has hired them”: ὁ στρατηγὸς αὐτοὺς μεμίσθωται.

Smyth’s Greek Grammar has this interesting footnote in relation to μισθοῦν [active] vs. μισθοῦσθαι [middle] [section 1723]:

“μισθώσας αὐτόν hiring himself out D. 19. 29 (not μισθωσάμενος, which means hiring for himself),…”

μισθώσας of course is the aorist active participle whereas μισθωσάμενος is the aorist middle participle.

I find going off on a tangent like this and researching grammatical issues in the course of working through The Beginner’s Greek book fascinating and rewarding. It’s part of what makes learning ancient Greek so much fun.

19

I’ve reached a milestone in the textbook, Lesson XXXV: The Subjunctive Active. The syntax taught includes conditional sentences of the “future more vivid” type (to use the term used in Latin textbooks):

e.g., “If we provide a market, you will have supplies.”

What is interesting is that in the protasis the Greek uses the subjunctive mood, but Latin prefers the future perfect indicative.

I wonder which way is more correct, theoretically speaking? Maybe it’s an unanswerable question. If anyone reading this has any thoughts on this, please share!

20

This question makes no sense. Both are correct for their own language, except that Latin uses the future, with the future perfect more common in the apodosis.