Hello fellow travellers,
δεινὸν πρᾶγμα τὸ ἐκ τῆς πατρίδος ἐκβάλλεσθαι· οὐ γὰρ ἔτι τὴν γυναῖκα ὁρᾶν οἷός τ’ ἂν εἴης οὐδὲ τοὺς γονέᾱς.
Being thrown out from the homeland (is) a terrible thing; for no longer would you be able to see your wife or your parents.
Is the “οἷός” relating to an unexpressed Future Less Vivid protasis? If so how exactly does that become the translation seen here? (It’s from Keller and Russel) I also was not aware that the verb “to be” (εἴης) could mean “be able”. Can anyone clarify this.
SLMSN
οιος τε + infinitive is an idiom:
οιος τ οραν ειμι - I am able to see
Answering your question about ειναι, though unrelated to this, εστι οραν can mean “it is possible to see” (impersonal). There’s an example of this in the next thread.
ὀνομάσαι μόνον <εστι> - it’s only possible to name
jeidsath
Ah that’s right, I do remember that idiomatic usage. It’s kind of like “to be such a man as to see”…
Cheers
SLMSN
Speaking of idiom, are there any books that contain lists of Classical Greek idiom? Would you be able to recommend some?
Regards,
EM
The idiom is usually οἷός τ’ εἰμὶ ὁρᾶν (note word order, with εἰμί closer to τε).
The form of εἰμί can be omitted, which would be οἷός θ’ ὁρᾶν (note the aspiration of τ)
On idioms, I cannot recommend Donovan’s Theory of Advanced Greek Prose Composition, with Digest of Greek Idioms highly enough, especially after you have read and composed a good amount of Greek.
It is a good point that the copula usually comes after. Although it is violated so frequently that it’s never any surprise to see οἷός τε moving around independently. For the τ/θ, with Demosthenes, αὐτὸς οὐχ οἷός τ’ ἀντειπεῖν εἰμί. Sorry for the typo.
Yes, it can be violated, especially to avoid hiatus, as in the example from Dem you provided.
Just to be clear on τ vs. θ: τ’ ἀντειπεῖν is τ’ because the following vowel is not aspirated. θ’ is written if an aspirated vowel follows.
Ah ok, I must remember these subtleties. They really do help.
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On idioms, I cannot recommend Donovan’s Theory of Advanced Greek Prose Composition, with Digest of Greek Idioms highly enough, especially after you have read and composed a good amount of Greek.
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Marvellous! 
SLMSN
Correct. I doubt that an editor would ever leave in a τ/θ substitution found in a manuscript before an aspirate, and quite rightly, though I believe that they do occur in inscriptions every so often.
The original version of the quote was αὐτὸς οὐχ οἷός τ’ ἀντειπεῖν ἔσται. The following would have a “hiatus”: αὐτὸς οὐχ οἷός τ’ ἔσται ἀντειπεῖν. It’s the sequence “αι α” where two vowels come together. αι can’t be normally elided here, so one presumes that the speaker would have had to say it precisely or otherwise sound awkward, and Demosthenes avoids it.
(I suppose that any sequences in Demosthenes involving “και” would involve crasis even if not explicitly written down, i.e. καὶ ἐν → κἀν, but I have no idea.)
Correct. I doubt that an editor would ever leave in a τ/θ substitution found in a manuscript before an aspirate, and quite rightly, though I believe that they do occur in inscriptions every so often.
Confusion with aspiration is not infrequent in later Gk. E.g., you’ll find things like κατ’ ἕκαστα (instead of καθ’) and, more interestingly, οὐχ ἔδωκα (instead of οὐκ) in papyri, especially as word-initial aspiration was gradually dropped in the post-classical period (called “psilosis,” it happens much earlier in non-Attic dialects). The latter form, οὐχ ἔδωκα, would then be a hypercorrection due to the loss of the fricative h-. [OK, now I must really stop getting distracted by interesting topics on Textkit…]
Here’s an example of the non-manuscript “every so often” that I mentioned, from 353/2 BC. See line 50 in IG II² 120 : https://inscriptions.packhum.org/text/2338
“μέγα οὐκ ὑγιές”
He (but probably they) use οὐχ ὑγιές elsewhere in the document. Evidently, just a typo.
(The inscription appears to be a decree calling for an inventory, and then the inventory itself, mentioned here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalkotheke )