Although I know that Greek can use double negatives, and I have to switch one to a positive, I still get a little tripped up when I see it. I wanted to check on how I did translating this passage,
I wrote, "Nobody should be angry at those choosing our polis instead of the other; for these were wrong in their hopes.
Not even they were wrong, neither anyone of the good nor anyone of the bad who each has in their power [to choose].
If I am correct, I may even drop a few words with the negatives and write, “neither the good nor the bad. . .”
Have a look again at p. 151
"The negative adverb οὐδέ (or μηδέ wherever μή must be used instead of οὐ) is used as a connective after a clause or phrase that also contains a negative. It can also be used adverbially, corresponding to the adverbial use of καί. When even, also is to be applied to a word or phrase in a sentence containing a negative, then οὐδέ is used
instead of καί:
οὗτος ὁ νεανίας οὐδὲ τοῖς φίλοις πείθεται.
This young man does not obey even his friends.
Formal English does not tolerate double negatives, but in Greek idiom a simple negative can be followed by additional negative forms in the same clause with reinforcing emphasis. (The English translation has to convert the additional negatives to positive equivalents.)
οὐκ ἐπαινέσομαι οὔτε τοὺς Ἀθηναίους οὔτε τοὺς βαρβάρους.
I shall not praise either the Athenians or the Persians."οὗτοι γὰρ οὐχ ἥμαρτον τῶν ἐλπίδων
I goofed on the verb also. As far as I can tell, οὐδὲν is in the accusative and so is the object of ἠγνόησαν. It is part of a double negative in Greek, so I would switch it from “nobody (or nothing)” to “somebody (or anything)” Would it modify τῶν ἀγαθῶν and τῶν κακῶν?
"Nobody should be angry at those choosing our polis instead of the other; for these were not wrong in their
hopes.
Not even they were unaware, neither anything of the good nor anything of the bad who each has in their power [to choose].
I am not as far as page 268 yet, but I looked at it. I am not sure if I am understanding this. If οὐδὲν is an adverbial accusative, does it mean “not at all” and does it modify ἠγνόησαν?
οὐδ connects οὗτοι γὰρ οὐχ ἥμαρτον τῶν ἐλπίδων" with the rest of the sentence. You need to show in your translation you understand that.
You put a full stop after “τῶν ἐλπίδων” and then started a new sentence. That misses out the connective “οὐδ’”.
"for these people were not wrong in their hopes, nor (=and not οὐδ’)
were they at all unaware either of the good… or of the bad… that each of the two powers has.
Its the final οὔτε … οὔτε … (neither … nor) which we have to translate as “either…or” to avoid the double negative in English because that part of the sentence is introduced by a negative οὐδ’ (and not ).
In Greek there is no double negative. Negatives just pile up as many as you like. In English not .. not is conventionally a positive (like maths!).
What do you think “ἑκατέρα” refers to in the last part of the sentence? What are the two powers?
Even Dr. Mastronarde uses the term “double negatives”
“Formal English does not tolerate double negatives, but in Greek idiom a simple negative
can be followed by additional negative forms in the same clause with reinforcing
emphasis. (The English translation has to convert the additional negatives to positive
equivalents.)
οὐκ ἐπαινέσομαι οὔτε τοὺς Ἀθηναίους οὔτε τοὺς βαρβάρους.
I shall not praise either the Athenians or the Persians.” – Page 151.
I believe “ἑκατέρα” refers to each of the two powers. Besides that, this is getting over my head. I think I am going to stop with this sentence now. I do not have any other ideas as to how to write the sentences.
Yes Greek doesnt have the idea of double negatives as we do in English. I am not disagreeing with what M. says
Maybe you just need to think about this a bit more and read through the posts.
My question about ἑκατέρα was to see whether you had followed the sense of the whole sentence which is a little convoluted.
“Nobody ought to be angry at those who preferred our city instead of the other (one of two). For these people were not wrong (mistaken?) in their hopes, nor were they at all unaware either of the good things/features or of the bad things/features that each of the two powers has.”
So we have two cities and the speaker is not going to censure someone who prefers their own city to the other because those who favoured their own city were aware of both the merits and failings of each city. So the “powers” at the end refers to the two cities.
I am sorry if this was obvious to you and I have just added to your confusion by asking about it, but often when we have translated something from Greek we are faced with the problem what does it actually mean. (This is why I find Plato rather hard despite the fact that the Greek is often clear). Thinking of a paraphrase can help. Its important, however, that you understand the structure of the Greek and try to reflect that in your translation.
As Barry says in another thread don’t be afraid to make mistakes, I make lots of them (especially at this late hour!) and there is no shortage of people here who will point that out.
Well, two simple negatives in Greek can negate each other just like they do in English. See Smyth 2760. The first example there is: “οὐ διὰ τὸ μὴ ἀκοντίζειν οὐκ ἔβαλον αὐτόν” it was not because they did not throw that they did not hit him, from Antiphon’s second Tetralogy. However, unlike English, Greek has so many ways that the negatives can emphasize each other, especially if they are compounded with something, that you will usually see them stacking up instead. I don’t know what Mastronarde goes into about this, but I imagine that he’ll get into the details somewhere.
I wonder what prompted this question. M. says on p. 23 "The generally recognized parts of speech are noun, pronoun, adjective, article, verb, adverb, preposition, and conjunction. In Greek grammar certain connective and logical adverbs and conjunctions are also referred to as particles.
I think of the particles like δέ, οὐδέ, καὶ γάρ, καὶ δὴ καί as connectives and ἀλλά and καί etc as conjunctions.
Look at p. 69-70 unit 8 for a definition of “conjunction” and the two different types “coordinating” and “subordinating”. On p. 99 unit 12 there is more on Coordinating Conjunctions.
I might be able to provide more help if you are explicit about what’s on your mind. But maybe it’s more important to know how things are used rather than bothering with what they are exactly called, at least at your stage of studies.
I try always to give you help focused on the questions you raise and the textbook you are dealing with. Dickey in her Prose Composition book warns her readers that “almost every rule presented in this book has exceptions, most of which are not mentioned.” Greek grammar is complicated and I dont want you to feel overwhelmed by giving exhaustive answers. You can take Dickey’s caveat as applying to any general statement I make. Others can and do make their own comments and you can decide how helpful they are to you now. As I have said often in the past I make mistakes too and I am always grateful when that it is pointed out.
I have not dealt with the term “connective” before. When doing a search on the Internet and an English dictionary, I get the impression that a connective can connect a few words in the same phrase or be a conjunction. I get the impression that a “connective” has a wider net than a conjunction, but I could be wrong, and I am not sure if that is how it works in Greek.
Rather than searching on the internet which can give you a lot of wrong answers or answers that are not relevant It would be safer to read through M. and see how he uses the words.
M. says on p. 100 “δέ, and, but, a postpositive conjunction most often found joining clauses but occasionally linking phrases or single words. δέ can be either neutrally connective (and) or adversative in sense (but); the context normally helps decide which English equivalent is appropriate. (δέ is elided to δ’ before a vowel.)”
So you can see he calls δέ a conjunction and describes it as a connective.
I wouldn’t worry about it. Conjunctions connect and they are "connectives. Just read through the pages I referred to in M. and you will get the hang of it.
I get the impression that a conjunction is a subset of a connective.
From page 151, οὐδέ can be a conjunction or an adverb. If it is an adverb, I do not know why you did not like a full stop after τῶν ἐλπίδων.
If I begin a sentence with an adverb, like even, I use a period before the adverb.
You need to understand that οὐδ’ connects “οὗτοι γὰρ οὐχ ἥμαρτον τῶν ἐλπίδων” with what comes after “οὔτε τῶν ἀγαθῶν οὔτε τῶν κακῶν ἃ ἔχει ἑκατέρα τῶν δυνάμεων”.
You wrote “Not even they were unaware, neither anyone of the good nor anyone of the bad who…” That didnt convey the Greek correctly.
So my main problem with what you wrote is that you didn’t convert the double negative “not…neither ..nor” into a single negative “not..either… or.”
In your translation I don’t see the advantage in terms of clarity of turning the comma into a full stop. Nor do I understand why you would prefer adverbial “not even” to the simple “and not”. They do not to me mean the same. What in the Greek suggests an adverbial meaning here? “Not even” normally suggests something surprising or unexpected.
“Not even” makes sense to me. I do not think it will do any good continuing with this thread. I will tuck away the negatives and face them again another day. Time to move on.
Sounds like a good idea. Often things seem clearer when you come back to them after a time. There was a lot going on in this passage! I would just say that just because a Greek word has two meanings it doesn’t always mean they are interchangeable..
