My problem is not sure which verbs are modified by the ἂν, and the several translations I have read, didnt help me at all
About the first ἂν, I wonder if it is (a) “ἡγήσατ᾽ ἂν” or (b)“ἂν…εἶναι” (I would bet for the first option)
About the second ἂν, I think it goes with κεκτῆταί, but it is so far of the verb that maybe I’m missing something.
So, here some rough translations:
1.a) Frankly, anybody who had thought the facts, would have believed that beauty is naturally something kingly, but otherwise too, by modesty and discretion, as Autolykos then, anybody would have acquired it for himself.
1.b) Frankly, anybody who had thought the facts, would believed that beauty would be naturally something kingly, but otherwise too, by modesty and discretion, as Autolykos then, anybody would have acquired it for himself.
Probably my English doesnt help, migth be a better translation of ἂν + κεκτῆταί “would be capable of acquiring it for himself”?
I’m translating ἄλλως as “otherwise” because, I think, the point of the paragraph is that beauty can be in two ways. One, “by nature”, a royal inherit. The other, as Autolykos achieved it, by modesty and discretion.
The first ἂν goes with ἡγήσατο, as you thought – option 1a.
ἄλλως τε καὶ is an idiom, “especially.” The second ἂν is ἐὰν contracted, “if,” with subjunctive κεκτῆται, a “general” condition. “. . . especially if someone should possess it [αὐτό, beauty] with modesty and discretion.”
Is κεκτῆταί subjunctive? First I thought it, because Perseus identifies it as subjunctive mp., but later checking a grammar I saw that subjuntive mp. is compound, κεκτημένος ᾗ for third person, so I started taking it as indicative. Am I wrong? I could be, I’m not sure.
So: Bernard A Taylor, Anlaytical Lexicon to the Septuagint, 2009, p. 327.
According to Traut 1885 (Lexikon über die Formen der griechiscchen Verben). col 413, and Kühner-Blass II, 467, the perf. pass. has present-meaning (to own, possess).
Usually, the perfect middle subjunctive is formed with periphrastically, κεκτημένος ᾗ, but this subjunctive is not. LSJ cites the same subjunctive form (with ἂν contracted from ἐὰν ) at Plato, Laws 936b. The indicative would be κέκτηται, not κεκτῆται. And ἐάν/ἄν requires a subjunctive verb.
Smyth, in the appendix which lists verb forms (at the end of the hard copy), wrongly suggests that the subjunctive form should be κεκτῇται, but the accepted reading here and in Plato is κεκτῆται. On checking critical editions of X. and P. (the old but still respected Oxford editions of Marchant and Burnet, respectively), it appears that some or all mss. read κέκτηται in both places. The editors have specifically adopted κεκτῆται as the subjunctive form, instead of indicative κέκτηται, because, as noted, ἐάν/ἄν requires a subjunctive verb. The diacriticals – accents and iota subscripts – are not original (though κεκτῇται, if that reflects the true form, would have originally been written ΚΕΚΤΗΙΤΑΙ), and medieval mss. are not wholly reliable on these small details of orthography.
Κεκτηται = perf. MP Ind sg 3 (κταομαι)
So: Bernard A Taylor, Anlaytical Lexicon to the Septuagint, 2009, p. 327.
The non-periphrastic forms of the perfect middle subjunctive are Attic and rare, and it’s no surprise that they aren’t noted in a treatise on Septuagint Greek. Without accents, the 3rd sing. middle perfect subjunctive is identical to the indicative, but again, the subjunctive is accented κεκτῆται; the indicative, κέκτηται.
I have keep doing the analysis of this sentence, and every time I read what I have done, I realize I did something wrong and find a new problem.
I have discarded my idea of opposition between to ways of beauty, which I based on the sense of ἄλλως as ‘otherwise’, and now I go with the meanning of ‘especially’: beauty is kingly especially if/when…
But now, I’m not sure about the play of μὲν in sentence.
Do you think it is something similar to a “solitarium men”? Even when it’s not completly alone, could go “μὲν οὖν” with the same sense of affirmation?
Or do you think μὲν is coordinated with καὶ?
