The syntax of a love-crazed boar

Greek Learning Greek
1

I recently ran across a poem which used to be attributed to Theocritus (Kiessling makes it number 30), but which Gow (O.C.T. editor of Bucolici Graeci) puts after Bion in the anonymous section.

It’s a very curious thing, about the boar who castrated and killed Adonis getting interrogated by Adonis’ girlfriend, Aphrodite. The boar claims he didn’t want to kill the boy:
οὐκ ἤθελον πατάξαι· 27
ἀλλ’ ὡς ἄγαλμ’ ἐσεῖδον,
καὶ μὴ φέρων τὸ καῦμα,
γυμνὸν τὸν εἶχε μηρόν
ἐμαινόμαν φιλᾶσαι[/size]

(Dialect note: Bucolic Doric! ἐμαινόμαν = ἐμαινόμην).

The syntax of the lines I’ve underlined is driving me nuts, in particular, the exact syntax of τὸν εἶχε. At the moment I assume it is a relative clause, mostly because I can’t work it in otherwise.

“I did not want to kill (him)
But I saw (him) like a statue,
and not bearing (not able to bear) the burning desire,
his thigh, which he had naked,
I was mad to kiss.”

Can anyone chart out what exactly is going on with the syntax?

2

Naturally, after parading my perplexity in public, another solution presents itself as at least possible:

“I was mad to kiss the naked thigh which he had.”

This isn’t very elegant English. I don’t know how elegant it is in Greek. But it fills out the meter and seems a correct possibility.

3

You are right : it’s a relative pronoun. See LSJ sv o(, h(, to/, C. As Relative Pronoun in many dialects … Never in Comedy or Attic prose.

4

Oh, it’s not the pronoun that upsets me - Homer does this all the time - but the wild syntax. A relative phrase separating a noun and its adjective? I know poets have license, but line 30 seems extreme.

5

Hmm… I’m not too sure wether philasai belongs to meron, as philasai meaning kissing is normally with the dative (though of course it could be different in this dialect); philasai tw| stomati
With the accusative it often means: do something gladly or just normally or gladly.
mainomai with accusative means to hunger for something.
Could ton be the young man?
Naked that (guy) had his thigh (and) I gladly hungered for it?
or as a relavtive clause:
I gladly hungered for his thigh, which he had naked.
or
I gladly hungered for his naked thigh, which he had.

Lots of choice here :stuck_out_tongue:

just my thoughts :wink: , probably all wrong

6

L&S gives c.acc. for this meaning, possibly 2 accusatives, so the dative usage seems flexible.

I think I have to accept that Hellenistic and later poets took more liberties with syntax.

7

I think that we have here a prolepsis : the adjective γυμνὸν is part of the relative phrase where it is complement of the direct object τόν. The relative phrase in turn is put before the antecedent. In my mind, the syntax is :

ἐμαινόμαν φιλᾶσαι μηρόν τὸν εἶχε γυμνὸν
It translates as you said.

Another similar prolepsis from Theocritus’ διόσκουροι
(number uncertain : is it 20, 22, 23 ?), v. 195 :

… πολλὰ δ’ ἔνυξεν ἀκριβὴς ὄμμασι λυγκεύς
τοῖο σάκος, φοίνικα δ’ ὅσον λόφον ἵκετ’ ἀκωκή
… "so that the (spear) head reached the (helmet’s) red crest.

More mixed up syntax : Theocritus’ ἐγκώμιον πτολεμαίου (=Idyll 17), v. 13-14 :

[size=150]ἐκ πατέρων οἷος μὲν ἔην τελέσαι μέγα ἔργον
λαγείδας πτολεμαῖος[/size]
“It is a big work to explain which sort of man Ptolemaios son of Lagos was by his ancestors”

8

22 in Gow’s edition.

More mixed up syntax : Theocritus’ ἐγκώμιον πτολεμαίου (=Idyll 17), v. 13-14 :

I’m starting to get the feeling that the Bucolic poets enjoyed this sort of thing. The Dioscouri example doesn’t bother me so much, since even Homer does that from time to time. I had thought about the possibility that the ἐμαινόμαν φιλᾶσαι μηρόν, τὸν εἶχε γυμνόν reading was correct, but tended to dismiss it at first. I agree now that it’s the best interpretation.

Thanks for your comments.