Zuntz lesson 20

Greek Learning Greek
1

I’m starting to lose hope on using Zuntz, even in parallel with Athenaze. Lesson 20, introducing the third declension, has two spots where I’m lost. First, this sentence in the text:

Γλαῦκας Ἀθήναζε · έπὶ τῶν ἀχρήστων, ὅτι πολλαὶ Ἀθήνησι γλαῦκες.

“(Send) owls to Athens; (something) that there are many owls in Athens.”

What’s έπὶ τῶν ἀχρήστων? “According to the useless people”? “On useless occasions”? Zuntz gives me no clue but forces me to sift through the dictionary for combinations of meanings that make sense. It doesn’t make it any easier that the sentence is given for translation/understanding with no context whatsoever.

And then this question in the exercises:

Ἆρα ὁ φίλος αὐτὸς τῶι κόλακι;

αὐτὸς after the noun makes it “the friend himself”, no? I don’t understand how it works together with the dative. Just looking at the words and disregarding the grammar, it would make sense if it meant “Is the flatterer a friend of himself?”. Is that right?

This sort of thing is all over the place in Zuntz. The readings are fragments from actual sayings and quotes from authentic authors, which I suppose is a good thing, but the downside is that scarcely anything can be taken in context. When you look it up, it often turns out that it didn’t make much sense because it was a quirky poetical statement of some sort. And since most of the time, the quotes are adapted, you can’t just google them and find a translation on Perseus.

Add to that the fact that nothing is repeated. Conditional statements were introduced in lesson 10 or so, but haven’t yet reappeared even for casual practice in the readings. Still he stresses with irritating confidence at certain intervals that unless you master everything so far taught, you should not proceed any further.

What I do like are the grammatical explanations, including comparisons with Latin grammar. And the authentically sourced material makes it feel like I’m learning actual ancient Greek and not some playground version.

Has anyone gone further than this into Zuntz? Does it get any better?

2

The first is an explanation of a proverbial expression. "Owls to Athens: on useless occasions/circumstances/things because [ὅτι] there are many owls in Athens, " like English “coals to Newcastle.”

Does the second pick up from something earlier in the text? It looks like a verb is understood.

3

Γλαῦκας Ἀθήναζε· ἐπὶ τῶν ἀχρήστων, ὅτι πολλαὶ Ἀθήνησι γλαῦκες.
“Owls to Athens. (Said) of useless things, because there are lots of owls at Athens." This is επι w/ gen. in the sense of “in the case of.” It’s not always easy to translate, but is routinely used when explaining the application of proverbial sayings.

Ἆρα ὁ φίλος αὐτὸς τῶι κόλακι; makes no sense as it stands. Should αὐτὸς be αὑτὸς with rough breathing, i.e. ὁ αὐτὸς? Then it means “Is a friend the same as a flatterer?”
I don’t have the Zuntz book.
[Crossed with Hylander]

4

That makes sense. Thank you! Quite impossible to work out from what had been taught so far. Zuntz is really fond of having the student do puzzle work.

Indeed, you are right. That was my mistake, and it’s not the first time I confuse the two!