To me:
Action in the real world is easiest.
Description is a little harder.
Abstract idea are far harder than both.
That Anabasis was traditionally the first text to be given to learners makes me think that I am not alone in this but some text books almost exclusively focus on the abstract so maybe people differ on this.
It goes with out saying, I assume, that long complicated sentences, obscure words and unusual declensions and tenses will make any text harder irrespective of which of the above 3 an extract fall into.
I agree with you, but in addition I’d say that a particularly difficult category are concrete descriptions of things that are removed from my own life experience. Some times these involve technical vocabulary but not always. I’m thinking about things like descriptions of buildings, Attic law and botany. One thing I found particularly difficult in my first reading of Homer were descriptions of seafaring, which involved technical vocabulary of ancients ships and natural phenomena. Working through the Greek text, how many times I first had to look up the Greek word in English and then the English word in my own language, only to notice that I still didn’t know what it was!
The syntax is simple, the vocabulary isn’t particulary difficult, and I get the gist of what is happening (she closes the door), but that’s as far as it goes. Luckily enough Ameis spends almost half a page explaining how to the lock of this particular door functions.
Yes, that door is exactly the sort of thing I meant! I remember spending quite a bit of time with those lines. But the funny thing is that a year or two later on a cycling trip in the Åland archipelago, when I was walking in a church graveyard, I saw something that made me go “Heureka!” - there was a gate at the entrance which I believe worked exactly (or almost) as described here. I should have taken a photo. Maybe I will yet, because we’re going there again next month… The problem is that I don’t remember which church it was, because there are several very beautiful medieval churches there. I guess I’ll have to visit them all.
“Gravity latch”. Sounds good! But the ones I see with a quick Google search don’t have a strap, unlike the unique one I saw in that graveyard. Not that I’ve generally payed much attention to locks, latches, and that sort of thing.
To return to the original topic: I think Plato is a case in point. Of the few texts I’ve read, I suppose the Apology might be a pretty good introductory text to Attic Greek. Phaedrus, on the other hand, is quite difficult. I don’t think there’s much difference in the language except that it’s an abstract text, and it’s difficult to make an educated guess as to what Plato is trying to say at each time.
On doors, I just happen to be reading Aeneas Tacticus 18.9 where he describes a cunning method to measure a bolt so a group of conspirators can create the hook needed to open it. The bolt and key clearly have the same function as a lock and key but work on a very different principle. Clearly also the writer is leaving stuff out rather than insult his reader’s intelligence by saying things “everyone knows” but that doesn’t bother me as I know what is being left out. When I lose my way in an abstract text I don’t even know that.
(I do hope, Paul, you will post any pictures you get as I suspect that the Aeneas lock and Homer’s will turn out to have a lot in common. I will check out Ameis too)
Plato’s dialogs often have very accessible sections as he starts them with mini stories but they are accessible because they action episodes even thought the text as a whole is abstract philosophy.
Certainly abstract ideas are going to be the hardest, as I would say it is for me in English. But just like Homer bit with the door description, the most difficult part that I remember reading in Plato’s Ion was the description of the magnets.
Sorry, I didn’t answer your question because I’m not sure I can make a valuable contribution to this discussion. First of all I’haven’t read that widely in Greek, secondly I have the distinct impression that difficulty in Greek depends more on the author than on the topic. For what it is worth, what keeps me from fluency in reading Homer (and I haven’t read much else last year) is vocabulary, whether abstract or concrete. And those bloody doors of course.
One more thing concerning ‘abstract texts’: of course, a difficult argumentation is difficult in any language, but I don’t think abstractness itself, for me at least, is a problem. On the contrary, academic texts, scientific papers, essays, newspaper articles about political subjects, history books etcetera are often much easier in a foreign language than the idiomatic expressions of direct speech or written dialogue.
[/quote] Umm, does there exist an English translation? (But thanks for the link).[/quote]
I don’t think so, no. Which is a pity, for it really is the best commentary out there for the beginning and intermediate reader of Homer, better even than Steadman.
I agree with all of this. Authors make the difference.
Dialogue within tragedy is easier than long speeches.
Prose narrative is constrained by certain conventions of story telling. An episode will fit a cultural scenario which will have certain predictable participant roles and patterns of action. Participants in the story are introduced and they engage in dialogue with and perform actions which impact other participants. Their actions follow cultural scripts for the given scenario.
Speeches are often more difficult than narrative.
Analytical discourse can be very difficult to follow.
Here is the Homeric door latch I promised to photograph… This might well be a very common type of door, but for me it was an eye-opener, as I’m by no means acquainted with the locksmith’s trade. (Pictures taken in the churchyard of the late medieval Föglö church in the Åland archipelago in southwest Finland.)
looks like a hybrid, parts from more than one source. The latch arm and retaining strap look “home made” but other than that the basic design is common enough. The implementation is somewhat more elaborate that I have seen before, particularly the extra tab mounted with a rivet that connects the release cable to the arm. Also, the metal hook which the strap slips behind in the locked position looks like a found on hand part that had some other purpose but was suitable.
I assume that the cable is removable and that it will slip into the hole in the tab provided that the cable is the right length so acting as a key.
I am trying to relate it to the lock mentioned in On the Murder of Eratosthenes which the wife, according to Euphiletos, uses to lock Euphiletos into their bedroom. The lockable latch that you show can only be locked from one side. Given that in a typical Greek house most doors opened out either directly onto the courtyard or onto an open 1st floor walkway that was easily accessible from the courtyard I can see the need for doors that can be locked from the outside so that neighbors can’t slip in and nick your stuff. Why though would you install locks that can only serve to imprison someone in a room?
Vegetables… Trees, flowers, fragrances, Greek lettuces, mushrooms, and other annoying immovable living beings… It is quite difficult for me to understand these weird discussing things. I remember it was a living hell to read the Georgics. Does anyone have the same problem?
Anyway, I wonder how people learn botanical vocabulary.
p.s. I did not notice the thread was dead, but now that I have typed the post I will let it be.
Not that I’ve generally payed much attention to locks, latches, and that sort of thing.
