Χαίρετε!
Thrasymachus is walking with a guide and learning a little about Sisyphus, who was condemned to roll a stone up a hill only to have it fall when it reaches near the top. Thrasymachus wants to learn more about it, and his guide replies in page 42 in line 21, “ἐρώτησον οὖν, ὦ Θρασύμακε, αὐτὸς αὐτὸν τὸν Σίσυφον.” I was wondering if line is translated, "Ask therefore, Thrasymachus, Sisyphus himself.
ἐρώτησον οὖν αὐτὸς αὐτὸν τὸν Σίσυφον.
Lit. “So ask Sisyphus [him]self (αὐτὸν) [your]self (αὐτός).”
αὐτὸς is nominative, so it refers to the subject οf ἐρώτησον, i.e. Thrasymachus. And αὐτὸν is accusative, so it refers to the object, i.e. Sisyphus. αὐτὸς and αὐτὸν are both “intensive” uses of αὐτός; in juxtaposition they neatly complement each other. Thrasymachus can himself ask Sisyphus himself (οr in person or directly), since he’s now on the scene.
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If you do not mind, I would like to ask about one more line this evening: Line 29 toward the top of page 43. Χαῖρ, ὦ γέρον ποῖον τι ἀδίκημα ἀδικήσαντος κατεδίκασέ σου ὁ Ζεύς; I know the first three words are just Thrasymachus greeting Sisyphus. This is the first time that I have used the word ποῖον, so I am wondering if the phrase ποῖον τι stands independently or goes with ἀδίκημα since the first two are accusative and ἀδίκημα is a neuter noun that can be in the accusative case. I know that ἀδικήσαντος is a genitive masculine singular aorist participle. So far I am coming up with an awkward translation, “What is this wrong (or injustice) Zeus condemned your wrongdoing?”
κατεδίκασέ σου ὁ Ζεύς “Zeus condemned you”
ποῖόν τι ἀδίκημα ἀδικήσαντος “having done what sort of wrong?” or “having committed what sort of crime?”—ἀδικήσαντος agreeing with σου, and ποῖόν τι ἀδίκημα a cognate accusative with ἀδικήσαντος.
So “What sort of crime did Zeus condemn you for committing?”
Do you see how the pieces fit together now, Lukas? Do ask if anything isn’t clear.
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I am having difficulty with the line which begins at the end of line 41 and goes through most of line 43: ἐγὼ δ᾿ ἀπαντήσας αὐτοῖς ἐν τῇ νήσῳ εὐθὺς πάντα τῇ Ἥρὰ ἐδήλωσα τῇ τοῦ Διὸς γυναικι. So far, I think it is saying, "I appeared immediately having met them (the daughter and Hera the wife of Zeus). What troubles me is πάντα. It is either a masculine accusative or neuter nominative or accusative plural. I cannot figure out how to fit it in no matter which case it is. ἐγὼ δ᾿ ἀπαντήσας αὐτοῖς “and I having met them,” ἐδήλωσα “appeared (first-person aorist) ἐν τῇ νήσῳ (at the island). Perhaps εὐθὺς 'immediately” goes with ἐδήλωσα? Would πάντα be a way of saying “to all”?
ἐδήλωσα doesn’t mean “I appeared,” it means “I showed” or “revealed," and πάντα (neuter plural) is its object, “everything.” So now you can probably see how it goes.
ἐγὼ δ᾿ ἀπαντήσας αὐτοῖς ἐν τῇ νήσῳ “I, having met them on the island,”
εὐθὺς πάντα τῇ Ἥρὰ ἐδήλωσα τῇ τοῦ Διὸς γυναικι “immediately revealed everything to Hera, Zeus’ wife.”
I am having trouble with the next line, especially the beginning: ἡ δὲ πάντα ταῦτα ἀκούσασα και τὸν Δία δἰ ὀργῆς ἔχουσα ἐζήσεν αὐτὸν τε καὶ τὴν παρθένον. Does the definite article go with ἀκούσασα and mean “the one hearing”. If yes, is that the one that goes with the verb ἐζήσεν? If yes, I take it that the one hearing and Zeus are searching for him and the girl?
τὸν Δία is accusative!
That would be “she lived”. The word in the chapter is ἐζήτησεν
Sorry I misspelled it.
ἡ δὲ πάντα ταῦτα ἀκούσασα, especially, and the rest of the sentence is confusing me. Would ἡ δὲ πάντα ταῦτα ἀκούσασα be “She having heard everything”? If yes, who is the one hearing everything? Is she having heard everything the subject of the verb ἐζήτησεν ?
ἡ δὲ… tells us that there’s a change of subject, and as you say, the new subject is feminine, so it must be Hera. So we’ll translate it as “She”. A different masculine subject would have been specified with ὁ δὲ…
In this sentence, ‘She’ is the subject of two participles and one finite verb. You’ve correctly identified the first one as aorist, which is because it happened before the action of the main verb (ἐζήτησεν). The other participle (ἔχουσα) is present, because it happened at the same time as the main verb.
πάντα ταῦτα means ‘all these things’ - we’d say ‘all this’ in English.
Here is an attempted translation, "She, having heard all this and having anger at Zeus, sought both him and the maiden.
Lukas, I had hoped that my pointing out that τὸν Δία is accusative would be enough to get you closer, since you were apparently taking Zeus as the subject. You realized that ἐζήτησεν meant “searched” (so Joel’s telling you what ἔζησεν would mean was an irrelevant tidbit of information; you’d merely mistyped), but you needed Matt to explain that the subject will be Hera.
The situation is that Zeus, a habitual philanderer, has abducted the girl, and Hera is pissed off about it—which brings us to τὸν Δία δι᾿ ὀργῆς ἔχουσα, which you translate or mistranslate as “having anger at Zeus.” Literally it’s “having Zeus through anger,” an idiom that does in fact approximately mean “being angry with Zeus." The rest you understand correctly.
I had to pad out the (relevant) comment by a few characters to get me over the discourse min comment character limit. Michael hadn’t noticed the nonsense Greek that he was responding too, and it made reading the thread difficult.
The idiom appears in Thucydides, but I was surprised that I couldn’t find a good spot for the usage in the LSJ entry
It’s under διά A IV in the middle Liddell - διʼ οἴκτου ἔχειν τινά to feel pity for one, Eur., etc.
What διά is doing is normal, but the ἔχειν + adv. (phrase) + acc. pers. is what seemed unique to me.
Thank you very much to everyone for the help. For some reason I had a mental block, and it was not getting through to me that it was “she” and not Zeus that was having ___ through anger. This is the first time that I have read a sentence with a definite article that was referring to someone from a previous sentence. I have read relative pronouns before, but not a sentence beginning with a definite article. I learned a lot with this.
If I may ask about one more sentence, the second to last one on page 44: φθάνει γὰρ ἡμᾶς ἐξορμήσας πάλιν πρὸς τὸ πέδιον. I was wondering if it would be translated, “The stone is preceding (anticipating?) us again dashing forth to the plain.”
You’ll also have seen the definite article referring to another sentence thing in chapter V. In real Greek it’s even more common.
–
Adapting Odyssey χ91-92 for a φθάνειν example.
αὐτὸν φθάνει Τηλέμαχος βαλών - “Telemachus strikes first”
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