I’m starting now with Ἀγαμέμνος ὑπόθεσις! All in all the Greek of the hypothesis is quite straightforward. There’s a couple of things I’m wondering about.
The word ὑπόθεσις - what does it mean exactly? Does is mean “subject of the play” (like LSJ II.3), or (not so likely, I think) “starting point” (LSJ IV.3). Or “summary” or maybe “introduction”?
The end of the hypothesis. Does πρῶτος here just mean that this year Aeschylus was first, that he won?
“The drama was produced during the archonship of Philokleos in the second year of the 88th Olympiad. The winner [was] Aeschylus with Agamemnon, Choephoroi, Eumenides [and] the satyrplay Proteus.”
Do you read the dative as indirect object of the promise, or with the
participle as the purpose of his departure to Ilium?
Does the genitive of time here signify a time within which he will signal to her the
sacking of Ilium?
Why does he use the future optative in the protasis?
[edit #3:] ὑπισχνέομαι can take fut. inf. The promise by its very nature refers to the future.
Why then does he use pres. inf.?
I think you’re right, it’s a genitive of time, Smyth §1444. “As contrasted with the accusative of time (1582) the genitive denotes a portion of time. Hence the genitive of time is partitive.”
The idea of the promise’s fulfilment in the future is already expressed in εἰ πορθήσοι; an infinitive’s tense does not express time but aspect. Whether it is possible to use a future infinitive here, I don’t know, but I guess mostly it’s a choice between aorist and present infinitive.
But where can we find other examples of future optative in the protasis, other than future “most vivid”
condition, which has mostly the fut. ind. in both protasis and apodosis?
It being infinitive is alright with me. It complement the idea of the main verb.
According to LSJ, aor. inf. with this verb is more common (less so fut. inf.),
and pres. inf. means to profess to do a thing; not sure how different it
is from promise.
Try to revert this to direct speech:
ὑπισχνοῦμαί σοι, ὦ Κλυταιμήστρα· εἰ πορθήσω (fut. ind.) τὸ ἴλιον,
τῆς αὐτῆς ἡμέρας σημαίνω (pres. ind./subj.?) διὰ τοῦ πυρσοῦ.
I guess this is some uncommon form of a future condition.
I could only find a couple occurrences of the fut. opt. of this verb,
both of which are in the Scholia Vetera (Agamemnon’s Hypothesis & comment
on Homer’s Iliad 2. 12). A compound ἐκπορθήσοι was found in Medieval commentary
on Homer by Eustathius (c.1115-1195/6), and here it actually has ἄν, which baffles me even further.
Perhaps this was used as aor. opt. in those times when the Scholia was written.
A clue for that is in the second occurrence where aor. opt. for αἱρέω, ἕλοι, is given
two glosses, one of which is aorist: λάβοι & πορθήσοι.
Regarding the use of pres. inf. with ὑπισχνοῦμαι and its meaning, see Smyth 1868c.
Herbert Smyth’s translation (1926):
[25] Hallo! Hallo! To Agamemnon’s queen I thus cry aloud the signal to rise
from her bed, and as quickly as she can to lift up in her palace halls a shout
of joy in welcome of this fire, if the city of Ilium [30] truly is taken, as this
beacon unmistakably announces.
Well, this is annoying. I’ve written my humble translation here and again was redirected
to the login window even though I was logged in, and everything got lost.
It’s no use anyways. You can find most of the hypothesis translated here (pp. 25-26)
Agamemnon in performance translates:
“…and he has created a scene in which Aegisthus and Clytemnestra each claim responsibility for the murder on a single count, Clytemnestra for the murder of Iphigeneia, and Aegisthus for the sufferings of his father Thyestes at the hands of Atreus.”
I find this English a bit unclear, and unless I misunderstand the meaning of “on a single count”, this isn’t exactly how I understand the Greek. I would rather translate:
“…and he has created a scene in which Aegisthus and Clytemnestra each give/have their own separate reason for the murder, Clytemnestra etc.”
I think it boils down to the style of the translator, as both yours and the above essentially
mean the same. One could argue that ἑκάτερον διισχυριζόμενον already established that
they’d given their own separate motives for the act with ἑνι κεφαλαίωι being rather redundant.
