Rutherford, in his Syntax, cites this phrase as an example of the dative used with verbs having the sense “to be like.” He translates it as “for he was like a quail.” I had a devil of a time finding this passage. I had no luck with Perseus or Logeion or the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (the free version, at any rate). Finally, in sheer desperation, I simply Googled it, and, to my astonishment, landed on Aristophanes, The Birds, in Perseus. It was there after all! I tried to parse ᾔκειν. Perseus was of no help at all. I think it is the pluperfect of ἔοικα, itself a perfect with a present sense “to be like.” In Liddel and Scott I found the pluperfect ἐῴκειν. Is the ῃ a contraction of εῳ? If so, could some kind soul refer me to a grammar that treats this? It seems logical that if the perfect has a present meaning the pluperfect should be translated as an imperfect.
Hi there,
The dictionary Bailly (Greek-French) shows it as an Attic form of the pluperfect of ἔοικα:
pl.q.pf. ἐῴκειν, att. ᾔκειν
Hope this helps.
Thank you. I could have sworn that I saw Bailly somewhere. I had never heard of this dictionary. It would be useful to me because I speak French. How did you find it on Bailly?
You can consult it online at: https://bailly.app
For ἔοικα, see: https://bailly.app/eik%C3%B4_(2)
You can download it as PDF at: http://gerardgreco.free.fr/IMG/pdf/bailly-2020-hugo-chavez-20200718.pdf
No comments about the Hugo Chavez tribute…
LSJ s.v. ἔοικα, citing the Aristophanes passage:
Att. plpf. ᾔκειν Ar. Av. 1298 (Dawes from Sch.):—Pass., 3sg. pf. ἤϊκται Nic. Th. 658: plpf. ἤϊκτο Od. 20.31, al., ἔϊκτο Il. 23.107.
Entering ᾔκειν into Logeion takes you to ἔοικα.
Hi Charlie,
The listing of the form is there in the LSJ, it’s just obscured by all the other forms! Rather than paste the whole entry, I’ll just show the specific part that you’re interested in:
Att. plpf. ᾔκειν Ar. Av. 1298
In the forms section at the beginning of the LSJ article for ἔοικα, you’ll find this almost at end of all the forms and there are quite a lot of them.
As Tico pointed out, it is indeed an Attic pluperfect. and the source following ᾔκειν is Aristophanes. Aves Line 1298:
πέρδιξ μὲν εἷς κάπηλος ὠνομάζετο
χωλός, Μενίππῳ δ᾽ ἦν χελιδὼν τοὔνομα,
Ὀπουντίῳ δ᾽ ὀφθαλμὸν οὐκ ἔχων κόραξ,
1295κορυδὸς Φιλοκλέει, χηναλώπηξ Θεογένει,
ἶβις Λυκούργῳ, Χαιρεφῶντι νυκτερίς,
Συρακοσίῳ δὲ κίττα: Μειδίας δ᾽ ἐκεῖ
ὄρτυξ ἐκαλεῖτο: καὶ γὰρ ᾔκειν ὄρτυγι
ὑπὸ στυφοκόπου τὴν κεφαλὴν πεπληγμένῳ.
I’ve been using this site to decipher any source abbreviations I don’t know:
http://www.stoa.org/abbreviations.html
EDIT: Cross posted with Porphyrios. Hopefully you can use this additional information.
Thank you kindly my friends. I can see that I must read my LSJ more attentively.
Hi Charlie
I assume you know how the pluperfect is regularly formed from the perfect. Pluperfects are uncommon in Greek except in verbs like ἔοικα which have no present /imperfect tense and use a perfect/ pluperfect instead.
This is what Mastronarde “Introduction to Attic Greek” has to say on augments as it relates to the imperfect but the same rules apply to pluperfects.
"b. Temporal augment is the lengthening of the initial vowel or diphthong of a verb stem that begins with a vowel. If the stem already begins with a long vowel or a long diphthong or ου-, no change is made; but otherwise the vowel is changed as follows: ᾰ → η, ε → η, ῐ → ῑ, ο → ω, ῠ → ῡ, αι → ῃ, ει → ῃ, αυ → ηυ, ευ → ηυ, οι → ῳ.
present stem imperfect stem
ἀγ- ἠγ-
αἱρε- ᾑρε-
οἰκε- ᾠκε-
ὠφελε- ὠφελε- (no change)"
(p 131)
M. also has this to say about "ἔοικα ":
"The verb ἔοικα has several irregularities. In poetry an athematic first person plural form ἔοιγμεν is found, and in poetry and prose the third person plural is sometimes εἴξασι and sometimes ἐοίκασι. The infinitive is ἐοικέναι or rarely εἰκέναι; the participle, ἐοικώς or εἰκώς, -υῖα, -ός. For the pluperfect one finds forms from ἐῴκη and also the third person singular ᾔκειν. "
(p. 372)
I think the pluperfect ἐῴκ- is used more in Homer but there is ἐῴκεσαν which Thucydides uses once and Xenophon uses 4 times according to TLG.
Given that M. describes the “irregularities” of this verb clearly something anomalous is happening here. It looks as if at some stage the “ο” of ἔοικα has dropped out when the augment ε was added to the perfect. But I can’t come up with a satisfactory explanation which isn’t guesswork and circular. Maybe this will provoke MWH to give us the proper explanation for this attic form? I only started this post because I didnt know the answer to your question!
Jack, I wondered why you were using Rutherford’s syntax it doesn’t seem to give very clear explanations.
I’m no expert on this sort of thing but I’d note that some forms look as if they’re based directly on εἴκω, cf. e.g. κατὰ τὸ εἰκός (participle) “in all likelihood” and cognate ἡ εἰκών “image.” And earlier in Aristoph. Birds (Av.96) we have εἴξασι = ἐοίκασι. That would have ᾔκει(ν) as its past (formally pluperf.) in the singular. Only in verse I expect.
@MWH Thanks very much for your reply.
That makes sense to me. M. says " in poetry and prose the third person plural is sometimes εἴξασι" but I hadn’t made the connection. A TLG search turns up a couple fo references to Plato.
The Homeric δέμας δ᾽ ἤικτο γυναικί belatedly comes to mind, Od.4.796 etc. That’s the corresponding passive, uncontracted. So Aristophanes’ ᾔκειν ὄρτυγι is not as strange as it seems at first sight.
PS Apparently ᾔκειν was restored by Dawes, who knew his stuff. On this -ειν ending (instead of -ει) as “a constant stumbling-block to scribes” see Rutherford’s Phrynichus 229-33 (which I happened to stumble across apropos a new query on the koine board blithely swept aside by Barry. Aetos would appreciate the serendipitous connexion).
I’ve now answered over there as best as I could, by the lights of my poor Greek. Hopefully someone comes along to do better. But these jabs, Michael! If you were able to get through the God stuff at the beginning, and the fact that C.S. Lewis was the world’s biggest hypocrite to be lecturing on that subject, his 1944 UCL memorial lecture on the construction of the real rings of power is worth a read.