αποθνησκουσι και οι φιλοσοφοι, νεοι δε τασ ψυχας αει

Greek Learning Greek
1

Hi, I’m having trouble with the second half of this sentence. Why is τασ ψυχας in the accusative, and what does the phrase mean?

Thanks,
Bjoleniacz

2

If it means anything, which looks doubtful, it means “Philosophers too die, and young people continually (die) in their souls.” τας ψυχας acc. of “respect.”

3

The second half is from a famous quote (ie., I remembered it from Crosby and looked it up):

Ὦ Σόλων, Σόλων, Ἕλληνες ἀεὶ παῖδές ἐστε, γέρων δὲ Ἕλλην οὐκ ἔστιν. νέοι γάρ ἐστε τὰς ψυχὰς πάντες.

EDIT:

Michael, why wouldn’t the sentence be translated like this? (I’m a bit confused by the accusative τὰς ψυχὰς in both sentences.)

“Even philosophers die, but their souls are always young.”

Source appears to be here: https://books.google.com/books?id=PDxeGmFCrJ8C&pg=PA64

4

Which suggests it means “Even philosophers die, but are always young at heart.” Much better.

5

I think we cross-posted. But as I mentioned, I’m confused by the accusative τὰς ψυχάς.

6

It’s not unusual. It’s called Accusative of Respect. When it appears in Latin, it’s called Accusativus Graecus.

See Smyth 1600-1605

7

Because if you translate it that way, you do two things wrong:

  1. τας ψυχας is accusative, meaning that it should not be translated as the subject of the second part.
  2. νεοι is masculine, τας ψυχας feminine, so they can’t belong together (also different case ofc!)

Litteracy is very important!

8

Well, see Roberto and Michael, who both teach me about the “accusative of respect” – so the philosophers are “young at soul.” That’s not good English, so it has to change to “young at heart” like Michael does, or “have young souls” – “young in the soul” is too far a stretch.

Out of the different options, “young at heart” is the closest grammatically (and a good pedagogical choice by Michael), but the farthest removed in meaning. Here the collision with the English idiom is unfortunate. To be “young at heart” in English is to be an old person who still feels young on the inside. That’s not what either Greek statement is saying.

So I still don’t see a better gloss than “young souls” – a New Age-y English idiom, but a little closer to the image being described.

This is unrelated, but on the subject of grammar fidelity in translation, I think that sometimes the best way to translate Greek is to follow Andy Gaus and try to preserve word order rather than verbal voice. In English, a lot of the choice between active and passive voice is entirely in service of word order (topic words and emphasis words go up front, supporting words go behind). This is more apparent in spoken English than literary English, which often has an affected style in regards to passive voice. Greek word order has a similar meta-meaning, but it has other ways to connect sentence constituents, and so doesn’t have to make the verbal trade-off. Notice that Greek verbs make meaning distinctions in voice much more often than English.

9

How about, “Even philosophers die, but they are young in respect to (the age of) their souls.” Could it be about the brevity of the flesh as compared to the eternal age of the soul? The preposition kata could be purposely left out but included with the accusative plural noun.