Πλάτωνα καὶ Πλούταρχον ἐξέλοιό μοι

Greek Koine and Biblical and Medieval Greek
1

I found the following prayer of John Mauropus, 11th century on the Laudator Temporis Acti blog.

Εἴπερ τινὰς βούλοιο τῶν ἀλλοτρίων
τῆς σῆς ἀπειλῆς ἐξελέσθαι, Χριστέ μου,
Πλάτωνα καὶ Πλούταρχον ἐξέλοιό μοι·
ἄμφω γὰρ εἰσὶ καὶ λόγον καὶ τὸν τρόπον
τοῖς σοῖς νόμοις ἔγγιστα προσπεφυκότες.
εἰ δ’ ἠγνόησαν ὡς Θεὸς σὺ τῶν ὅλων,
ἐνταῦθα τῆς σῆς χρηστότητος δεῖ μόνον,
δι’ ἣν ἅπαντας δωρεὰν σῲζειν θέλεις.

I hadn’t realized that iambics were still written so late. He seems to have a 3rd/4th foot caesura in every line, but he also seems to avoid resolution. The final cretic doesn’t seem to be respected in the second to last line.

2

Mauropus’ admiration of Plato and Platonic philosophy was shared by Michael Psellus and many others, and belongs in the context of the Byzantine renaissance of classical studies. Psellus wrote a syncrisis of Euripides’ verse and George of Pisidia’s. (Good edition by Andrew Dyck).

Egregious breach of Porson’s law in line 2. (The “law” applies only to tragic iambics, but rigorously there, as Porson recognized at the end of the 18th century.)
A question I don’t know the answer to: When did knowledge of the law disappear?

3

It’s an example of the Byzantine dodecasyllable. They invariably have 12 syllables (i.e., no resolution allowed) and, by the 11th c., end with a paroxytone (like Babrius’s choliambics). The caesura is always (I think) penthemimeral or hepthemimeral, even marked with στιγμαί in some mss. In learned poetry of this period, dodecasyllables can often be scanned as true trimeters, though there’s more variability with dichrona. …It’s a different story with less refined dodecasyllables, where there’s no distinction between short/long and the syllable count is (basically) all that matters. The classic essay is Maas’ “Der byzantinische Zwölfsilber.”

I am not really sure about the disappearance of Porson’s bridge. It’s a great question. In the fragments of Hellenistic tragedy (+ Lycophron), it’s strictly observed. (Is it ever violated in the Pleiad frs.?). Ezekiel the Tragedian is a minor exception. I know it’s often violated in Gregory Nazianzus and other late ancient iambic poetry. Part of the [Eur.] IA tradition may fit in here.

4

I’d rather call these trimeters, since the proper quantities are strictly observed, and as you point out, Babrius was already accenting the penult of his choliambs a millennium earlier. But we needn’t argue over nomenclature.

We are definitely in the wrong forum!

5

For Johnny Darkfoot et al., there’s of course no real distinction between saying trimeter and dodecasyllable, since they distinguish quantities. The important thing is to read this sort of poem in the wider context of the Byzantine poetry, where the Byzantine trimeter/dodecasyllable was a prevalent form. I prefer to think of Byzantine meter as like a spectrum, with poets like Mauropous on one end and a dodecasyllable like the following somewhere in the middle (and maybe this will bring the topic around to “Koine and Biblical Greek”….):

Τράγος δὲ πάλιν διψήσας ἐν τῷ θέρει
κάτω κατῆλθε πιεῖν εἰς φρέαρ ὕδωρ.
Ὁ δὲ κορεσθεὶς ἀνελθεῖν οὐκ εὐπόρει,
ὃς μετενόει καὶ βοηθὸν ἐζήτει,
ὅπως ἀνέλθῃ ἐκ τοῦ βάθους ὁ τράγος.
Ἡ δὲ ἀλώπηξ τοῦτον ἐκβλεψαμένη
ἐμειδίασε καὶ πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐλάλει·
ὦ ἀνόητε καὶ βραδὺς τῇ καρδίᾳ,
εἰ εἶχες φρένας ὡς ἐν πώγωνι τρίχας,
οὐκ ἂν κατῄεις, εἰ μὴ ἄνοδον οἶδας.

Οὕτω τῶν ἀνθρώπων τοὺς φρονίμους δεῖ πρῶτον τὰ τέλη τῶν πραγμάτων σκοπεῖν, εἶθ’ οὕτως αὐτοῖς ἐπιχειρεῖν.

This metrical fable, from Vaticanus gr. 777 (14/15th c., contains fables in Byzantine dodecasyllables alongside Babrius’s choliambics), has been mentioned in a few recent publications on account of the interesting parallel with the trimeter in Luke 24:25 (ὦ ἀνόητοι καὶ βραδεῖς τῇ καρδίᾳ).

6

It appears that this was discovered by Steve Reece, of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure fame, whom we’ve discussed before, at least if “‘Aesop’, ‘Q’ and ‘Luke’” is the original article about it. I’m trying to find a copy now.

There’s a very similar prose version from the Teubner (but not with the quotation from Luke):

https://books.google.com/books?id=pHI5zvE0zXQC&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23

Τράγος, ἐν θέρει σφοδρῶς διψήσας, κατῆλθεν εἰς βαθύκρημνον ὕδωρ πιεῖν. Πιὼν δὲ και χορτασθεὶς οὐκ ἠδύνατο ἀνελθεῖν καὶ μετενόει καὶ βοηθὸν ἐζήτει. Ἀλώπηξ δὲ τοῦτον ἰδοῦσα ἔφη· “ὦ ἀνόητε, εἰ τόσας φρένας εἶχες, ὅσας ἐν τῷ πώγωνι τρίχας, πρότερον οὐκ ἂν κατέβης, ἢ μὴ τὴν ἄνοδον ἐσκέψω.”
Ὅτι δεῖ πρότερον προσκοποῦντα τὰ τέλητῶν πραγμάτων, οὕτω ποιεῖσθαι (ποιεῖν?)

And there is a discussion of the metrical elements of the better known prose version where the fox and goat both fall into the well here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=3UE-AAAAcAAJ&pg=PR245&lpg=PR245

It points out the following from that version:

– – κατῆλθεν εἰς βαθὺν κρημνόν.
– – μετενόει, καὶ βοηθὸν ἐζήτει.

And, I can’t tell the origin of the following since I don’t understand Latin, but I think these are simply reconstructions:

Τράγος θέρους ποϑ’ ὥρᾳ σφοδρῶς διψήσας
Ὕδωρ πιων κατῆλθεν εἰς βαθὺν κρημνόν

7

@dikaiopolis. Nice. Yes spectrum is a good way of looking at it. Luke’s ὦ ἀνόητοι καὶ βραδεῖς τῇ καρδίᾳ is not a trimeter by classical standards, but might well have registered as one to a Byzantine. As the opening words of Jesus’ reproof I guess it will have made a strong (and strongly metrical) impression when read in church. If these dodecasyllables are anything to go by, it seems to have become something of a meme. Oh what fools these mortals be.

Steve Reece (an ex-student of mine—he’s primarily a Homerist) argued that it came to Luke from Aesop, but I reckon it was the other way round. Unless there’s evidence for it in any other version of the fables.

In your dodecasyllabized version of the fables I see we have it again in this one:
Ἡλίῳ ποτὲ γάμος θέρους ὑπῆρχε.
Οἱ δὲ βάτραχοι ἠγάλλοντο μεγάλως
ἐπὶ τῇ λαμπρᾷ τραπέζῃ τοῦ Ἡλίου.
Εἷς δὲ ἐξ αὐτῶν μέγα ἀναστενάξας
ἀνακέκραγε καὶ πρὸς αὐτοὺς ἐβόα· (5)
«Ὦ ἀνόητοι καὶ βραδεῖς τῇ καρδίᾳ,
εἰς τί βοᾶτε μεγάλα κεκραγότες
ὡς ἐπ’ ἀγάθῳ τινὶ προσδοκωμένῳ;
Εἰ οὖν Ἥλιος μονώτατος ὑπάρχων
ὕλην ἅπασαν καὶ τὴν γῆν καταφλέγῃ, (10)
εἰ γήμας παῖδα ἀνθόμοιον ποιήσει,
τί μὴ πάθωμεν ἡμεῖς κακόν, εἰπέ μοι.»
Ὅτι πολλοὶ τῶν τὸ φρόνημα κουφότερον ἐχόντων
χαίρουσιν ἐπ’ ἀδήλοις.

@jeidsath. Your books are too old (and εἰς βαθὺν κρημνόν is bad, ruled out by accent). Use Perry for the Aesopica, and there’s been important progress in Babrius.

8

@jeidsath. Your books are too old (and εἰς βαθὺν κρημνόν is bad, ruled out by accent). Use Perry for the Aesopica, and there’s been important progress in Babrius.

Yes, I noticed the bad accent. Unfortunately I’m traveling for work just now, and only have access to what I can find on the internet. My Perry is at home.

However, I thought that the short prose version (not the long prose version), which is essentially the same as the metrical version, was very interesting. As is the idea that there is an actual Babrius version floating around.

9

Steve Reece was kind enough to reply to my email and directed me to academia.edu, where I was able to download his article.

The second half of the expression, βραδεῖς τῇ καρδίᾳ ‘slow in heart’, occurs nowhere else in Jewish or Christian literature. In fact, in the entire Septuagint and New Testament the adjective βραδύς occurs only here and in Jas 1.19, in an equally aphoristic expression, again with Classical rather than Septuagintal or New Testament resonance: ἔστω δὲ πᾶς ἄνθρωπος ταχὺς εἰς τὸ ἀκοῦσαι, βραδὺς εἰς τὸ λαλῆσαι, βραδὺς εἰς ὀργήν ‘let every man be swift to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger’. From Classical and Hellenistic literature, on the other hand, one can compare such similar expressions as προνοῆσαι βραδεῖς ‘slow to understand’ (Thucydides 3.38.6) and βραδὺς πρὸς ὀργὴν ‘slow to anger’ (Menander’s Sententiae 60). In short, the expression ὦ ἀνόητε/ἀνόητοι καὶ βραδὺς/βραδὺ/βραδεῖς τῇ καρδίᾳ is lexically and syntactically more Classical than Koine, and it resides more comfortably in a pagan context, such as in Aesop’s fables, than in a Jewish or Christian context, such as in the gospel of Luke.

I don’t think that he’s correct about this. The “βραδεῖς τῇ καρδίᾳ” is a very stark Septuagintism, and doesn’t really have classical parallels.

καὶ Ροβοαμ ἦν νεώτερος καὶ δειλὸς τῇ καρδίᾳ
καὶ πᾶς πρόθυμος τῇ καρδίᾳ ὁλοκαυτώσεις
καὶ συνῆλθον αὐτῷ πάντες οἱ εὔψυχοι τῇ καρδίᾳ

I could continue. In the NT, famously:
πραΰς εἰμι καὶ ταπεινὸς τῇ καρδίᾳ

Perseus doesn’t include Septuagint uses, but it’s worth searching for the string “τῇ καρδίᾳ” or even “καρδίᾳ” and noting that the use is mainly NT Greek.

And his point about βραδύς is a bit overstated, in my opinion. The adjective is rare, but there are forms like: βραδύγλωσσος, various uses of βραδυνῶ, βραδέως, βραδυπλοοῦντες, βραδυτής.