I have kept pretty close to the original. I’m not sure that all the vocab I’ve used quite fits. I am attempting here to use ἁμαρτία in the sense of a falling short (of the task) which maybe isn’t quite valid. However, I have managed to get quite intimate with the structure of the original which was the point of the exercise.
The section of Virtues and vices that I used as a model is this:
τριμεροῦς δὲ τῆς ψυχῆς λαμβανομένης κατὰ Πλάτωνα, τοῦ μὲν λογιστικοῦ ἀρετή ἐστιν ἡ φρόνησις, τοῦ δὲ θυμοειδοῦς ἥ τε πραότης καὶ ἡ ἀνδρεία, τοῦ δὲ ἐπιθυμητικοῦ ἥ τε σωφροσύνη καὶ ἡ ἐγκράτεια, ὅλης δὲ τῆς ψυχῆς ἥ τε δικαιοσύνη καὶ ἡ ἐλευθεριότης καὶ ἡ μεγαλοψυχία.
κακία δ᾽ ἐστὶ τοῦ μὲν λογιστικοῦ ἡ ἀφροσύνη, τοῦ δὲ θυμοειδοῦς ἥ τε ὀργιλότης καὶ ἡ δειλία, τοῦ δὲ ἐπιθυμητικοῦ ἥ τε ἀκολασία καὶ ἡ ἀκράτεια, ὅλης δὲ τῆς ψυχῆς ἥ τε ἀδικία καὶ ἀνελευθεριότης καὶ μικροψυχία.
Though my starting point was my own views on the problems facing the European Union the point was to practice the Greek so I don’t intent to defend the stance as it has finally come out after having made to conform to the structure of virtues and vices.
Please be free to post your own composition using the V&V as a template on the EU or any other theme.
And of course any corrections/criticism of the Greek would be very welcome.
I’m confused about your three parts, which don’t seem to line up in the first sentence, and where ἐσχατιάς is repeated twice in the second. Your genitive absolute needs a verb. Here’s my rewrite, using three slightly different parts (τὸ ἐντός, τὸ τῶν ἐσχατιῶν, τὸ ἐκτός) but trying to follow the substance of your analysis.
An excellent rewrite by Markos. ευγενεια reads very oddly, and also αμαρτια, but I understand you’re trying for counterparts to Aristotle’s αρετη/κακια in a taxonomy that doesn’t really lend itself to that. εις τους αναστατους better, and προς τους κινδυνευοντας, then ἐκ πολεμίου better εν πολεμιοις. At the end ἡ πρὸς ξένους ὑποψία would be neater.
EDIT. I was too hasty, looking only at the surface Greek. I see Markos got it all wrong.
In your first half you have
εκτος: βοηθεια to those at risk
εσχατ.: ευνοια to the displaced
ενδοθεν: ομονοια
and in the 2nd half
εκτος: δειλια
εσχατ.: υποψια
<ενδοθεν> (I presume you meant this rather than repeating εσχατ.): αμιλλα, οργιλοτης.
All that is perfectly good, both in its organizational structure and in its sense. (And I pretty well agree with your analysis, though that’s by the way.)
Markos inexplicably reverses the internal order of both halves and makes a real mess of the correlations throughout. I’ll be very happy to be corrected if I’m wrong.
First off, thanks for spotting that τριμέτρων should be τριμεροῦς. I think I briefly played around with giving the EU three tasks and then realized this was diverging from my model but forgot to change τριμέτρων back.
Michael is right however in that you have greatly changed the sense. For instance in relation of to the displaced (ἀναστάτοις) I am thinking of those refugees who are crossing the Mediterranean ( and often drowning). You are on the other hand seem to be seeing it in terms of giving better support to refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. It’s only natural that the reporting on the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean (which is after all Europe’s southern border) is far greater in Europe than America. Michael is right, I should have used ἔνδοθεν rather than repeating ἐσχατιάς.
My basic threefold division was internal, on the borders and external.
ie
ἔνδοθεν= internal (and I had in mind first of all the leadership of Europe here)
ἐσχατιάς= on the border
ἐκτὸς=external. This could of course mean the rest of the world but in fact I had in mind the Ukraine and Syria and indeed toyed with something meaning across the border.
I am interested how you intended those three ‘spheres’?
I did think about writing an explanation as to what I intended but decided it was best to see what other people took to be my intention would be a useful check to see how clear my Greek was. And the fact that what you have written something with a slightly different meaning is of course no way a problem - quite the reverse.
τοῦ μὲν ἐντός: internal problems, the biggest problems facing the EU from members within its midst. I had in mind above all Greece here.
τοῦ δὲ τῶν ἐσχατιῶν: problems arising from members on the border, thinking of course here first and foremost of the Ukraine.
τοῦ δὲ ἐκτὸς: relations between the EU and other external entities.
Then I took εὔνοια τοῖς ἀναστάτοις not as concern for refugees, but as concern over rebells in the sense of Greece (and other members?) wanting to leave the E.U. With that topology I tried to fit in your terms.
Yes, I had the same experience. The original sentence is certainly not complicated, but as Scribo pointed out elliptical, and an exercise like this involving active production forces you to get intimate Greek structures. For many of these types of exercises the process is more important than the product, and that is certainly the case here.
In my opinion you have proven two things. 1. It is almost impossible to produce a syntactic skeleton which comes out as natural and unambiguous Greek. 2. The syntactic skeleton remains a good exercise for internalizing Greek.
I am encouraged that the basic structure is correct which was my main priority. The mistakes you pick out with prepositions are also useful and I shall take them to heart. I was already uncertain about αμαρτια and now you point it out ευγενεια does read oddly. Perhaps I shall stumble on better words or perhaps that is a symptom of me trying to use a grammatical structure that doesn’t quite fit the more concrete theme that I have tried to fit into it.