- Μετὰ τὴν μάχην τῶν ὁπλίτων οἱ μὲν ἐτεθνήκεσαν ὑπὸ τῶν πολεμίων οἱ δὲ ἔφευγον.
τῶν ὁπλίτων should be placed before οἱ μὲν . . . οἱ δὲ.
ἔφευγον not ἐφεύγοντο
Thanks! Actually, that’s the word order that I’d instinctively choose myself, but for sentence 5 the key gives:
Μετὰ τὴν νίκην οἱ μὲν τῶν πολεμίων ἐτεθνήκεσαν, οἱ δὲ ὑφ᾽ ὁπλίτων ἐφυλάττοντο.
For this reason I used the same word order in 12 as well. But I suppose both are correct then?
I wonder if it’s French se sauver that influenced my ἐφεύγοντο…?
Well, maybe οἱ μὲν τῶν ὁπλίτων is ok, then.
Paul, Word order. Yours tends to be perfectly “correct” but rather stiff and Latinate, with all the verbs held up till the end. (The Roman Cassius Dio does that in his Greek.) But maybe at this point that’s what Dickey wants you to be doing, and with such syntactically simple sentences it might be best.
In 11, though, I’d have put ματην εβουλετο εarlier in the sentence, after χρυσον or οικιας. λαβειν is fine where it is but could also be brought further forward (but not before εβουλετο). It’s just a matter of style and flow.
As to 5, των πολεμιων “properly” belongs ahead of οι μεν, but would seem rather formal and would make the sentence appear unbalanced. In 12 Hylander’s version is certainly more correct than yours, but your οἱ μὲν τῶν ὁπλίτων ἐτεθνήκεσαν, οἱ δὲ ἐφεύγον{το} is acceptable, as in 5 as you point out. The gen. carries over to the οι δε bit.
I don’t have the English (nor the key) so I won’t venture more.
Thanks, mwh! That’s exactly the sort of advice that I needed.
There’s a key only for sentences 1-10 in this exercise, that’s the reason I’m posting only from 11 on.
I suppose you’re correct about my sentences being Latinate. The thing is that when I started the book my sentences were much less so, but Dickey really seems to want me doing it like this. There’s no way for me of knowing whether my sentences are “more natural” than the key or just wrong, so I just try to emulate her. But you saying that encourages me to think that I weren’t always wrong placing the verb elsewhere than where Dickey wanted it.
Is this ok?
Ὁ ξένος μάτην ἐβούλετο τὸν χρυσὸν ἐκ τῆς τοῦ ἐχθροῦ οἰκίας λαβεῖν.
And can I separate μάτην and ἐβούλετο?
Ὁ ξένος μάτην τὸν χρυσὸν ἐκ τῆς τοῦ ἐχθροῦ οἰκίας ἐβούλετο λαβεῖν.
And can I separate μάτην and ἐβούλετο?
Ὁ ξένος μάτην τὸν χρυσὸν ἐκ τῆς τοῦ ἐχθροῦ οἰκίας ἐβούλετο λαβεῖν.
Seems to me μάτην should be closer to ἐβούλετο. Otherwise the reader loses sight of the adverb, and the adverb and verb ought to be tightly connected.
What about ματην εβουλετο ο ξενος . . . ?
Isn’t it ὁπλιτῶν, i.e. perispomenon? 1st declension masculina in pl.gen. are like 1st declension feminina in their accentuation? Sorry to mention so minor a point. — And apologies for posting to this thread as I am yet to own Dickey’s book.
Thanks, both of you!
I guess she’s just trying to wean beginners off english word order.
Ὁ ξένος μάτην ἐβούλετο τὸν χρυσὸν ἐκ τῆς τοῦ ἐχθροῦ οἰκίας λαβεῖν reads well enough, though the weak labein is a long way from ebouleto.
mathn unlikely to be separated from ebouleto, but it could possibly go up front and ebouleto deferred a bit, e.g. mathn o xenos ebouleto … “It was to no avail that the xenos wanted …” (more emphasis on o xenos than with mathn ebouleto o xenos …, which wd be less unusual).
In 20, μετὰ τὸν πόλεμον οἱ τῆς νήσου οἰκηταὶ οὐκέτι ἐβούλοντο τεθνηκέναι, did they really no longer want to be dead (they’re wannabe zombies?), or did they no longer want to die (αποθανεῖν)? Sounds a bit strange either way.
And οικηταί is an odd choice of word, rather than e.g. ἔνοικοι. The normal way of saying “the island’s inhabitants” would actually be οἱ την νῆσον ενοικοῦντες.
Yes, they really wanted to be dead:
“20. After the war the inhabitants of the island no longer wished to be dead.”
As I mentioned in another post, it must be difficult constructing sentences for translation with limited vocabulary and grammar, but Dickey seems almost to take a perverse delight in thinking up strange sentences. Markos’ sentence above is a case in point: “For unworthy women to kill courageous men Is almost impossible.” Or “It is impossible to teach an animal virtue.” “Being on guard against sailors is still prudent.” “The wild animal is not yet being released by the wise sailor.”
Usually it’s amusing, but occasionally I feel the sentences are so bizarre they get in the way of learning Greek.
Reminds me of the lightning-struck postillion discussion we once had, or was it postillion-struck lightning? 
We can say weird things in english, so why not in greek? We just need to get the grammar right.
On occasion, the sentences are so strange they border on unintelligibility.
οικητης and οικετης are introduced in the same lesson, I think in order to contrast masculine nouns in -της with short and long antepenult vowels, accented for the most part paroxytone and oxytone, respectively (but πολιτης, οπλιτης). Although morphology isn’t explicitly addressed, Dickey develops the vocabulary systematically from lesson to lesson to focus attention successively on different patterns of declension and conjugation. That exerts a further constraint on the vocabulary she can make use of, especially in the earlier lessons, but it forced me to review many obscure points I’d lost sight of. She recommends reading large chunks of Smyth on both morphology and syntax for each lesson.
“On occasion, the sentences are so strange they border on unintelligibility.”
Really? None of the sentences you quoted are remotely unintelligible. So long as they’re well-formed, we should be able to produce Greek counterparts.
And what’s wrong with learning how to say "It is impossible to teach an animal virtue” or any of your other examples? Once we know how to say that, we can then say "It is impossible to teach a woman virtue” (a perfectly Greek thing to say, and perhaps deliberately varied by Dickey?), or “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”, and so on ad infinitum. It’s just a matter of slotting the appropriate words into the appropriate slots.
Here’s some more. I’d be thankful, again, for any comments.
- ὦ ἄνθρωπε, οἱ δυνατοὶ ταύτην τὴν δίκην δικάζειν (δικάσαι?) τεθνήκασιν ὑπὸ τῶν ἐχθρῶν.
- ἔτι ἄδικος ἡ τοῦ δικαστοῦ ἀδελφὴ καὶ λόγωι καὶ ἔργωι. (I’d rather write ἔτι ἀδικεῖ, but it’s not in the vocabulary)
- αἱ μὲν λούσαντο, αἱ δὲ κακὴν νόσον ἔπαθον.
- οὐ δυνατὸν τὴν ἀρετὴν ζῶιον διδάσκειν.
- μόνος ὁ οἰκέτης ἐφυλάττετο τὰ θηρία.
- σχεδὸν ἄξιον ἄθλου τὸ γενναῖον δῶρον.
- τὸ θηρίον οὐ λύεται ἔτι ὑπὸ τοῦ σοφοῦ ναύτου.
I’ll just comment on
27. τὸ θηρίον οὐ λύεται ἔτι ὑπὸ τοῦ σοφοῦ ναύτου.
ου … ετι shd be together, ουκετι (“no longer”, or οὔπω if it’s “not yet”), and in front of verb.
And adverbial phrases too tend to go ahead of the verb (though less closely attached than adverbs), so better order wd be το θ. υπο του σ.ν. ουπω λυεται.
(Or if put σοφου in predicative position, υπο του ναυτου σοφου, you’d be implying he was wise to hold off.)
Likewise in 25, despite what I said earlier, the verb wd be better at end, after its object. SOV is the most neutral order. And in 26 the subject wd be better up front.
I shouldn’t be doing this without the book, so I’ll bow out now.
Wow, Paul, those look great! My latest versions differ from yours only slightly.
- ὁ ξένος μάτην τὸν χρυσὸν ἐκ τῆς τοῦ ἐχθροῦ οἰκίας ἤθελε λαβεῖν.
- τὰ θηρία τὸν οἰκέτην εἰς μέσην τὴν ὁδὸν ἐδίωξεν.
- τὰ ῥᾴθυμα ζῶᾳ ἤδη τέθνηκεν.
Nice. I’ll try to take a look at these in the next day or two. ἔρρωσο.
Paul:
- probably δικάσαι is better here.
- καὶ λόγωι καὶ ἔργωι should be adjacent or at least closer to ἄδικος, I think. I’m not sure about beginning a sentence with ἔτι. Somehow it doesn’t feel right, but I may be wrong. Also, I think it might work better with the copulative verb for the adverb to modify. Maybe αδικος καὶ λόγωι καὶ ἔργωι ετι εστιν . . .
- αδυνατον?
- Should be ουπω, “not yet”; ουκετι is “no longer”.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dou)ke%2Fti
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dou)%2Fpw
Cross-posted with mwh but I’ll post anyway.
Markos: See mwh’s and my comments above about placement of μάτην and ἐβούλετο/ηθελε.
χαίρετε ὦ φίλοι.
At this point, what I’m trying to do with the sentences for which Dickey does not provide a key is to produce sentences that SHE would produce if she were providing a key for those sentences. So, if you guys find something in my sentences that you think she would not want in such a key, please correct these mistakes, or, better yet, rewrite them the way you think Dickey would rewrite them. χάριν δώσω ὑμῖν.
From page 32:
- τὸ γενναῖον δῶρον σχεδὸν ἄξιον ἄθλου.
- τὸ θηρίον οὔπω λύεται ὑπὸ τοῦ σοφοῦ ναύτου.
- ἴσως καὶ ὁ νῆσος καὶ ὁ ποταμὸς εὐθὺς ἡρπάσθησαν.
- (a) μόνος ὁ ξένος τοὺς πολεμίους δικάσει. 2. (b) ὁ ξένος μόνους τοὺς πολεμίους δικάσει.
- τὸ φυλάττεσθαι τοὺς ναύτας ἔτι φρόνιμον.
ἔρρωσθε.
mwh: Please continue commenting, especially about word order. Dickey doesn’t provide much on that topic.
Thanks for your comments!
Markos’ latest seem fine to me. I’d perhaps change the word order in 30:
30. τὸ τοὺς ναύτας φυλάττεσθαι ἔτι φρόνιμον.