I think that’s precisely the point. In Greek prose, using και as a connective in this sort of context is only expected “by default”, whereas in French (or in English) a conjunction like this in the beginning of a sentence carries some emphasis. You could easily drop out “et” from the French original, while the Greek sentence without any connective at all would be odd.
I might be having a mental glitch yet, I have to admit, I have a full impression that I saw quite a few of such sentences in classical texts.
p.s. Just as in English or French, it all depends, in my view, on how closely the author intends to connect the particular parts of his narrative. Modern languages have more means than Greek for indicating the break: comma, semicolon, period, paragraph. Without those, the connection appears as smooth enough, whereas “and” adds even more smoothness. But in the time of Plato there were no punctuation marks at all; the default smoothness of a transition between two sentences in any classical text thus seems to be higher than in any modern one. If this reasoning is correct, an explicit connective at the beginning of a French text need be not strengthened but, rather, reduced in a translation.
I’m not saying it doesn’t ever happen, I’m saying that having a connective in Greek is more usual than not having one, while in French not having a connective is more usual than having one. For that reason, και isn’t the exact equivalent of “et”. Also, you dropped out the definite article from my quote “the Greek sentence” – I was referring to this particular instance. 
This is true, but be it as it may, we are used to prose texts with less connectives than in Greek prose texts. Probably we use connectives a lot more in speech than in writing.
You asked for some parallels for the use δε earlier. I found some from The Greek Particles by Denniston, p. 163. (A good book with a lot of examples, but not easy!)
Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1405 οὗτός ἐστιν Ἀγαμέμνων, ἐμὸς πόσις, νεκρὸς δέ “This is Agamemnon, my husband, dead”
Herodotus 7.10a.2 ἐγὼ δὲ καὶ πατρὶ τῷ σῷ, ἀδελφεῷ δὲ ἐμῷ Δαρείῳ ἠγόρευον μὴ στρατεύεσθαι ἐπὶ Σκύθας “I told Dareius, your father and my brother, not to attack the Scythians.”
Herodotus 1.114.5 ὑπὸ τοῦ σοῦ δούλου, βουκόλου δὲ παιδὸς ὧδε περιυβρίσμεθα “from your slave, the son of the herdsman, we have suffered such outraging treatment.”
Sure. So, in the original we have a case that is less usual in French. We should, then, expect a translator to render it by what is less usual in Greek. And this could be either no connective at all or “και δη και” or something else. I am interested in the logic of his choice between these options.
This is a good point.
My apologies. Yet my question remains: would this Greek sentence without a connective be more “odd” than a French sentence starting with “Et”?
Thanks for the δε examples. Yet in all of them there seem to be some contrast in meaning between the δε part and its parallel in the main clause (“here is my husband, but he is dead” etc.), whereas in our case it is a pure afterthought: (je te donnerai aussi une corde pour l’attacher pendant le jour. Et un piquet.")
Sorry, yes, "harder to read. I see now I didn’t make that clear.
EDIT
Having read Paul Derouda’s posts it does seem that the case for “και δη και” is rather stronger than I first assumed.
Thanks, David. But making it harder to read needs some justification, right? Making it harder to read for no reason is just a bad style, it seems to me.
Tugodum, I’m a bit late to the party, but let me offer what I can to the questions you raised.
The function of και δη και is to add something in such a way as to draw attention to what’s being added. Here και by itself would “do the job,” as you put it, but maybe not quite so well. It would lack the punch of και δη και.
No connective (“asyndeton” ασυνδετον), on the other hand, would be quite inappropriate. The best way to understand the use of asyndeton is to observe the occasions on which it’s used in your reading. There won’t be very many, and you should be sure to register them when you encounter them. It’s often used where English might use a colon. A good example of typical usage is Xenophon’s … ειδεν οναρ· εδειξεν αυτῳ … σκηπτος πεσειν, “… he had a dream. A lightning bolt seemed to fall …”, where the asyndeton gives the content of the dream. Smyth 2165-7, esp. 2167b.
As for that σκολοπα δε, adding a second item to an extended first one, I too find it odd, and hard to defend. That’s why it’s best to stick to real ancient Greek texts.
EDIT. Here, exceptionally, are three asyndeta in a row, from a passage in Herodotus discussed in a recent thread: ἐόντων δὲ αὐτονόμων πάντων ἀνὰ τὴν ἤπειρον, ὧδε αὖτις ἐς τυραννίδα περιῆλθον. ἀνὴρ ἐν τοῖσι Μήδοισι ἐγένετο σοφὸς τῷ οὔνομα ἦν Δηιόκης, παῖς δ᾽ ἦν Φραόρτεω. οὗτος ὁ Δηιόκης ἐρασθεὶς τυραννίδος ἐποίεε τοιάδε. κατοικημένων τῶν Μήδων κατὰ κώμας, …. You can see how the first one (ανηρ …) picks up the ωδε in the preceding sentence; the second (ουτος …) continues that explanation; and the third (κατοικημενων …) picks up the preceding τοιαδε.
A statement such as “It happened like this:” will routinely be followed by asyndeton.
mwh–Thanks a lot, this is very helpful!
Now I clearly see the translator’s intention (whether he is faithful to the original is another matter, for a French language forum perhaps ) Also, I’ve been struggling with the concept of “asyndeton,” as I’ve been encountering the term lately in running commentaries and could not get why it is such a big deal; your illuminating examples are right on time. But in this context, “connectives” include particles like μεν, δε, ουν, δη etc., right?
Walking across the NB Quad in quiet discussion with another scholar, John Dewar Denniston was once heard to say: “And καί can also mean ‘and’.”
Am wondering now, as I’m coming to grips with the concept of asyndeton, whether or not this sentence on p.29 counts as one: “… ’ τουτο το εργον λυπηροτατον μεν εστιν, ραστον δε.”
μεν . . . δε isn’t asyndeton. Two elements are linked by contrasting particles.
I meant this sentence as a whole in its relation to what precedes it.
It may be formally asyndeton, but τουτο links it back to the preceding sentence, whatever that is.
And this kind of asyndeton, which is merely formal, is not anything non-typical or inappropriate, right?
Yes that sentence is in asyndeton. Whether it’s appropriate or not depends on its relation to what precedes it. It’s not a very typical example. This translation is probably not the best text to give you a sense of how asyndeton is used. For that it’s best to read authentic Greek, as I said.
As to your question about connectives: δε and ουν are sentence-connective particles, also γαρ. και too of course, but also connects lesser units than sentences (as can δε). δη not properly a connective, though can serve as one. μεν not a connective at all.
mwh–That’s awesome! Thank you so much. (I am reading this text on the par with “real” ones, of course; it has the advantage of allowing me to read without looking into the dictionaries too often, let alone that I love the story)
The problem with using a modern text as a basis for questions about the subtle points of ancient Greek is that it’s difficult to know how well the person who composed the text knows Greek or how carefully he or she checked to make sure the text is correct.
In the text you’re reading we’ve seen several examples of questionable expressions: ουδενος μεν ποιησονται without περι, σκολοπα δε. Maybe they’re right, maybe not, but it’s hard to tell without having the entirety of ancient Attic Greek literature at your fingertips. I find it difficult to answer questions like these, and perhaps I shouldn’t try.
Debating whether he should have written και instead of και δη και is unhelpful. After a certain elementary point in our study of ancient Greek, we want to base our knowledge of ancient Greek and our feeling for the language on actual ancient Greek texts, written by ancient Greeks, not on modern attempts to replicate ancient Greek, which may or may not be fully idiomatic.
I’m sure that the translator knows ancient Greek much better than I do, but he can’t possibly know it as well as the ancient Greeks themselves.
Hylander–I understand your point but, as a saying goes, it is a bad soldier who does not want to become a general; so, although I am far from ready to emulate this or any other translator into Ancient Greek, I am willing to be able to do this in some future and, accordingly, to learn as much as I can their devices and–no less importantly–mistakes.
(Let alone that I’ve already filled quite a lot of lacunae in my knowledge of Greek thanks to this discussion)