Does anyone know about a book on Xenophon’s Anabasis that I can get to begin reading the Greek which may contain the english translation with notes etc? I just finished a class in Attic Greek and I would love someone to recommend a book to begin reading on my own starting with Xenophon’s anabasis.
thanks,
Dimitri
Hi Dimitri,
You might try “Xenophon, the Persian Expedition”, ISBN 0-906515-11-4. It’s a Bristol Classic Press/JACT venture first published in 2003.
It doesn’t have a translation, but has good notes.
Cordially,
Paul
Goodwin’s edition + his illustrated dictionary - available here(under “learn greek”) could be nice, but it is - in my opinion - too “didactic” in the old-bad sense of the word, i.e. his comments aren’t always useful and he too often skips passages. It seems to fit better to an old class format, in which there is a need to immortalise the teacher’s so-called “superiority” over the “lazy”, “trying-to-find-shortcuts” etc. students, and illustrate them how hard it is to get a proper “translation”.
Xenophon’s Anabasis: Book 1-4, edited and annotated by Maurice W. Mather and Joseph William Hewitt(0806113472) is far better. It includes a detailed vocabulary at the end, which doesn’t fall from Goowdin’s “dictionary” and includes all grammatical constructions needed to each word, plus - and this is a great plus - etymological and derivatives incites. This in addition to a thorough line by line commentary on all the first 4 books, which even refers you to the relevant paragraphs in Smyth and Goodwin.
29.95$ for 516 pages, though still in soft-cover(not a cheap trade paperback), it worths every penny.
The only caveat about this book is that it is also, as most commentaries written before the new millennium, written for translations classes, rather than reading classes. Hence, it sometime tells you how to translate. The notes, however, speaking from an autodidact point of view, are more than sufficient for self study. This book helped me with acquiring reading ability.
One might want to look at those provided by Focus, the publishers of lingua latina in the US.
http://www.pullins.com/txt/Greek.htm (scroll down to the bottom of the pages). Their Plato’s edition seems to be far better than the Cambridge Alcibiades for a beginner(http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2004/2004-05-12.html), as well as their Thucydides(according to a review in Amazon).
PS
Just to feed my curiosity, has your class read any continuous and/or authentic text?
Beatus Pistor,
Thanks very much for the information about The Xenophon books 1-4 Maurice Mather! I will look into this now. Does this contain the Greek with the equivalent english translation in addition to all the other notes, vocabulary that you mentioned?
In the class that I just graduated from we spent the entire semester on the Athenaze book. We finished at chapter 11 which has a paragraph from Herodotus in it! Unfortunately, there was no reading of Authentic Greek texts which is why i’m itching to do this now. I spoke to the professor after class last night and told her that I really want to begin reading some actual texts. My interest is in Homer, and Herodotus and Plato. She said that Xenophon is a good start to begin with. She also said that Homer is a good start too but the vocabulary is larger. I took an entire course in Homeric Greek using the Pharr book which I enjoyed very much. She said that Herodotus is also a good choice. I did purchase a book called Selections from Herodotus by Barbour which also seems nice.
What is your opinion about where to begin?
thanks,
Dimitri
Hi Dimitri, it sounds like you’ve done enough Greek to start reading whatever interests you most, and I think you would make better progress reading something that you’re passionate about. If you’ve done a course with Pharr’s book, then you’ve probably read most of Iliad I and could continue with Homer easily. I think he’s easier than Herodotus or Plato, and I found Herodotus a bit easier than P. Having done some Homer, you won’t have much trouble with the forms in Herodotus. The book by Barbour has excellent notes compared to some other student editions I’ve used. If you want to read some more epic Greek, see the Aoidoi.org website, where I’ve fully parsed two documents for beginning/intermediate readers, the Shield of Achilles section from Iliad 18, and the entire Hymn to Demeter. You should be able to read both of those without looking at a dictionary or grammar very often. There are also two of the shorter hymns done by William Annis, plus several other poetic texts with beginners notes. Best of luck, and let us know how it’s going, N.
Swiftnicolas,
Thanks very much for your response! I agree with you that Homer is a good place for me to continue now! I will do that and keep Herodotus nearby for the reading after Homer.
thanks,
Dimitri
It only contains the original Greek. The commentary sometimes translates complex sentences, or which contain grammatical usage not found in traditional course books. I think you should first try and read, rather than translate, as I’ve said in my former post, in order to avoid “transverbalizing”, i.e. translate as you read, instead of thinking in the original language. As you have probably noticed, Greek has different grammatical usage and construction far more complex(complex, not hard!) than English. Reading in a dual-language might make things even worse, in regard to reading the original. I don’t say to completely avoid translations/commentaries, especially in such an early stage, in case you run into a difficult sentence or passage. But, do bear in mind that it isn’t that bad not to know several words per-page or not to understand a sentence or two every 3-4 pages, as long as you generally understand what you read.
Take into account the translation is a different faculty than reading comprehension. The former is good as a starting exercise, if at all, but should be abandoned as soon as you get to original texts.
As has already been said, read what interest you most and/or is in your immediate needs. Just make sure, and if necessary do make a compromise, to get a text with a commentary and a basic vocabulary attached, so you would not have to use the ancient monument of 19th century scholarship and archaic English called Liddell & Scott, which might be an over-kill even to intermediate students.
Barbour’s Herodotus indeed seems like another good edition of Oklahoma University Press(the same one of Mather’s Xenophon).
Some useful links:
http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/LatinBackground/transverbalizing.html
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2006100203
Thanks very much for your response! I will go back and begin reading Homer for now. The Pharr book seemes to be a good refresher. I’m very familiar with it because thats the book we used in my Homeric Greek class.
Thanks,
Dimitri