I am supposed to read, “ὁ πλούσιος τάς τε βοῦς καὶ τὰς σῦς τῷ υἱῷ αὐτίκα ἐπιτρέψειν ἔφη, ἀλλὰ τὰς
ἵππους οὐκ ἐξεῖναι”
I am mostly wondering about the last word. I know εῖναι is an infinitive and the prefix is ἐκ (ἐξ), so would the translation be something similar to “out of to be?” Maybe a way to say, “Exists?”
I have this rough translation, "The wealthy person said that he is entrusting the cows and the swine to his son, but not to be (or not exist or not possible?) [entrusting] his horses. Something like that? It will need to be smoothed out.
So I can just get rid of the τι when going from ἔξεστi to the infinitive? I wish the author did not include this passage. It seems to be really pushing the envelope.
ἔξεστι is “ἔξειμι B.” in the LSJ., but has its own entry under ἔξεστι, because it’s always used impersonally. You conjugate it just like you would ἐξ + <the verb εἰμί> (which it is).
So standard forms of 3rd person ἐστί are ἦν, ἔσται, infinitive εἶναι, etc., which all get the preposition ἐξ attached for conjugation. Where εἰμί is enclitic (ἐστί), the accent goes on the preposition, ἔξεστι, otherwise, it stays on the verb, ἐξῆν, ἐξέσται, ἐξεῖναι.
Too much confusion here now. There are two main things to get straight (both neatly noted by Hylander):
(1) ὁ πλούσιος … ἐπιτρέψειν ἔφη. This means “the wealthy man said he would entrust …”. Note ἐπιτρέψειν is future. (English sequence of tenses: “He says he will, He said he would”; Greek retains the future.)
(2) ἐξεῖναι. Infin. of ἔξεστι. It’s an impersonal verb, so the meaning must be “… but (said) that it was not possible (οὐκ ἐξεῖναι) (for him to immediately entrust to him) the mares.”
Lukas, I suggest that before going any further you thoroughly review:
how indirect speech works in past sequence (English, unlike Greek, changes “will” to “would” and “is” to “was”); and
how ἔξεστι and other impersonal verbs work (e.g. δεῖ).