ἅττ’ ἂν ἐμοὶ εἶπες

Greek Learning Greek
1

Why is the verb not in the subjunctive?
The context: Τουτωνί, ὦ Σώκρατες, οὐκ ἔστιν ἅττ’ ἂν ἐμοὶ εἶπες
ἡδίω. (Plato, Phdr, 243 b)

2

Kaegi calls it the “Potential Indicative”, to express past potentiality. 172.4, giving some examples from Anabasis:

ἔλεγεν (εἶπεν) ἄν τις diceres one (you) might have said
θᾶττον ἢ ὥς τις ἂν ᾤετο faster than you would have believed
Εἴ τις Κλεάρχῳ δοκοίη βλακεύειν, ἔπαισεν ἄν he would sometimes apply the cane: iterative ἄν

(The second two are from Anabasis, anyway. The first may be out of his own head.)

3

Isn’t this just the apodosis of a contrary to fact condition which you can think of as having an implied protasis, something like “if you tried” or “if you wanted to”? A similar idiom in English, “You couldn’t say anything that would please me more than that.”

I don’t think you need to invent a novel construction for this.

θᾶττον ἢ ὥς τις ἂν ᾤετο – this is the same construction.

Εἴ τις Κλεάρχῳ δοκοίη βλακεύειν, ἔπαισεν ἄν – this is quite different. This is a past “habitual” or “general” condition. See CGCG 49.13, Smyth 2341. Usually the apodosis would have imperfect and would not have ἂν, but here it has aorist with ἂν, if the text is sound. Interesting that the coordinate verb is imperfect without ἂν:

καὶ εἴ τις αὐτῷ δοκοίη τῶν πρὸς τοῦτο τεταγμένων βλακεύειν, ἐκλεγόμενος τὸν ἐπιτήδειον ἔπαισεν ἄν, καὶ ἅμα αὐτὸς προσελάμβανεν εἰς τὸν πηλὸν ἐμβαίνων

4

Thanks, guys! But am I right that subjunctive is something one might expect with ἅτινα ἂν?

5

Re: Tugodum, subj

I think only in German

Re: Hylander, (you are editing your post fast though!)

I imagine there are multiple possible buckets to put things into. However, I notice that Kühner treats “Potential der Vergangenheit” in 392.5, but splits out the ones with an implied protasis in 392.6, treating them as a subgroup “nur eine Abart” of 392.5.

(In response to the edit. Yes, habitual is different again, in 392.4. I only included the example because Kaegi grouped them all together, and I was quoting Kaegi.)

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=KG+392.5&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0020

392.4 “Sehr häufig wird…”

392.5 “Zweitens dient der Indikativ der historischen Zeitformen…”

392.6 “Endlich dient der Indikativ der historischen Zeitformen…”

An example from 392.5 (without the implied protasis) would be Pl. Ap. 18c ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ἡλικίᾳ . ., ἐν ᾗ ἂν μάλιστα ἐπιστεύσατε

The interesting thing, to me, was that he parallels the 392.5 usage to ὀλίγου/μικροῦ with aorist indicative, like the famous “ὀλίγου ἐμαυτοῦ ἐπελαθόμην” from Ap. 17.

6

am I right that subjunctive is something one might expect with ἅτινα ἂν?

In a present habitual/general relative clause, yes, present subjunctive, but not here.

7

ἔπαισεν ἄν – see Smyth 1933:

  1. Iterative Aorist.—With ἄν the aorist may denote repetition (1790) ““εἶπεν ἄν” he used to say” X. C. 7.1.14. Distinguish 2303.
8

ἅττ’ ἂν ἐμοὶ εἶπες
This is covered in the stickied thread on my guide to Conditionals (above), where I wrote (inter alia):

Indic. with ἄν (This is where people get confused):
Imperf. ἔλεγον ἄν = I would be saying (right now)
Aor. εἶπον ἄν = I would have said

So it’s not so much “There’s nothing you could say” (that would be opt.+αν) as “There’s nothing you could have said” (aor.indic.+αν). Since Socrates has already said it, this is the requisite construction..
Lit. “there’s not which you would have said more pleasing." The aor.indic.+αν is not affected by its being in a relative clause. Subjunctive+αν would make it a subordinate indefinite clause, quite unsuitable here. (The “iterative aorist” is something else again, which I didn’t see fit to mention in the Conditionals thread and doesn’t come into question here.)

9

Thanks, Michael! This brought it to perfect clarity for me.

10

The “iterative aorist” is not relevant to the original quote from Plato, but seems to explain the second quote from Xenophon, which is an entirely different construction from Plato. That’s the only reason I mentioned it, perhaps giving rise to more confusion than clarity.

11

p.s. I thought of subjunctive as I was assuming (wrongly) that Phaedrus refers here to whatever Socrates was going to say in his palinode (not to what he has already said, which the text as it stands implies).

12

I don’t like to disagree with Hylander, and this is a dreadfully pedantic point, but the construction is exactly the same (aor.indic.+αν). It’s its semantic function that’s different.

13

Point well taken.