Lysias' Λόγος ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἀδυνάτου

Discussion of Greek texts that do not fall into the other categories, including texts in other dialects or texts from other periods.
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Wes Wood
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Post by Wes Wood »

Unfortunately, my leisure time has expired again. I will look over the feedback and try to make corrections either tonight or early tomorrow morning. Regarding composition, I would love to do this, but I would fail SPECTACULARLY if I attempted it. I know my grasp of the language is not sufficient to do anything more than solidify error. I know I don't understand the language. With effort, however, I can get the sense of it a good bit of time. Maximas tibi gratias ago. Maybe I got that phrase right...
Ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν.-Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους 29δ
Stephen Hughes
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Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

§12 - Lysias 24.12 Text and hints

Post by Stephen Hughes »

After the stillness of that calm and slow-moving stretch of river in the previous Section, Section 12 contains a few small rapids that may send occasional little shudders through prow of our canoe.

Lysias tries to make a car seem to be functionally the same a wheel chair (continued discussion of the horse-riding)
Lysias, On the refusal of a pension to the invalid (Speech 24), 12 wrote: καίτοι πῶς οὐκ ἄτοπόν ἐστιν, ὦ βουλή, τοῦτον ἄν,1 εἰ μὲν ἐπ᾽ ἀστράβης ὀχούμενον ἑώρα με, σιωπᾶν (τί γὰρ ἂν καὶ ἔλεγεν;), ὅτι δ᾽ ἐπὶ τοὺς ᾐτημένους ἵππους ἀναβαίνω, πειρᾶσθαι πείθειν ὑμᾶς ὡς δυνατός εἰμι2; καὶ ὅτι μὲν δυοῖν βακτηρίαιν χρῶμαι, τῶν ἄλλων μιᾷ χρωμένων, μὴ κατηγορεῖν ὡς καὶ τοῦτο τῶν δυναμένων ἐστιν: ὅτι δ᾽ ἐπὶ τοὺς ἵππους ἀναβαίνω, τεκμηρίῳ χρῆσθαι πρὸς ὑμᾶς ὡς εἰμὶ τῶν δυναμένων; οἷς ἐγώ διὰ τὴν αὐτὴν αἰτίαν ἀμφοτέροις χρῶμαι.

1 ἄν Weidner: αὐτόν MSS.
2 εἰμι Kayser: εἴην MSS.
Hints for §12: (Here are some hints that might explain the twists and turns here.)
  • δυοῖν βακτηρίαιν - dual (referring to a paired set of walking sticks).
  • τῶν ἄλλων μιᾷ χρωμένων - genitive absolute giving the wider context / backdrop against which to judge the actions of this particular disabled person.
  • κατηγορεῖν - legal term, argue against somebody in a court.
  • τοῦτο - this (proof).
  • αὐτὴν - very same.
  • ἀμφοτέροις - i.e. the horse and the pair of sticks.
  • οἷς ... ἀμφοτέροις - a plural form.
[/size]
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
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Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Wes - Man of letters, but not yet of the whole alphabet.

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Wes Wood wrote:Maximas tibi gratias ago. Maybe I got that phrase right...
Maybe not... Your syntax and word-breaks don't seem to be very accurate.

Maximas tibi gratias ago -> Max "I'm ti bi grat" I as ago -> Max thinks he will be as great as I used to be. :lol:
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Wes Wood
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Joined: September 20th, 2013, 8:18 pm

Re: Sintax and brake words

Post by Wes Wood »

I am glad to know I still speak "standard" American English. :lol: I know it was off-topic but could not resist.
Ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν.-Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους 29δ
cwconrad
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Re: §11 - Lysias 24.11 Text and hints

Post by cwconrad »

Lysias, On the refusal of a pension to the invalid 24, 11 wrote: εἰ γὰρ ἐκεκτήμην οὐσίαν, ἐπ᾽ ἀστράβης ἂν ὠχούμην, ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἐπὶ τοὺς ἀλλοτρίους ἵππους ἀνέβαινον: νυνὶ δ᾽ ἐπειδὴ τοιοῦτον οὐ δύναμαι κτήσασθαι, τοῖς ἀλλοτρίοις ἵπποις ἀναγκάζομαι χρῆσθαι πολλάκις.
I had always thought that the appropriate version of this would be:
If I were a rich man,
Yubby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dum.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Stephen Hughes
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Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Homophonic puns

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Wes Wood wrote:I am glad to know I still speak "standard" American English. :lol: I know it was off-topic but could not resist.

You only speak "standard" American!? Because you live south of that line surveyed by the Novocastrian, I imagined you spoke something like this.
Sintax and brake word -> Sin tax-an d' bra k e w ord -> Some Texan done brang y'all (to) Juárez?
From the look of your spelling, your American English dialect is "exceptional".

We find this sort of hidden word play in the greatest of writers in English. Here is the least ribald of the examples I found listed in various lists of puns and word-plays:
Shaekspeare, Act II, Scene 7, Jaques wrote:And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
Where "hour" is to pronounced as "prostitute", "ripe" as "forced indecency". (Say it all in a silly "pirate" accent.) The experts do not go so far as to "notice" the similarity between "rot" and the past tense of "ride". That raises the problem of the reality of these flights of homophonic fancy. Chances are that they as much creative as they are actual. That is what we expect though. They need to be deniable - "I'm sorry, it is not my words that are a problem, but rather your dirty / guilty / perverse ears that are."

I've been trying to find any of these as we have been going through the speech, but I'm much too right-brained about my Greek, to even try to find them. I thought I had a good place to look for one at 24,9, but then realised it was the same sort of contrast as, "The hook was only this big (showing the distance with fingers being brought together), but the fish was this big (extending the arms apart)." It was gesture based means of communication, rather than a homophonic word-play.

My Greek is probably not good enough actually to pick these up in Lysias, even if they are there. There are some little things which seem to become other words when rearranged, but the surroundings don't make any sense.

I think it is great for us to apply this sort of brain-on-idle-and-imagination-on-over-drive listening to the speech. Every language that I know has people who do that. I, at least, would expect to see it in Comedy or Iambic Poetry verses(if your display font is sans-serif, then that is a capital "i", not a lower-case "L"). I wouldn't be surprised if it were to be found here in this exemplary speech writer's work too. It's the sort of thing that you can do with classical and secular texts without fear of people becoming "cabbalistic" about what might turn up.

It raises the important question too about how Lysias' work was pronounced back in the late 5th century too. Unfortunately, a topic beyond my knowledge or interest.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

§13 - Lysias 24.13 Text and hints

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Read this Section 13 with the assumptions that hyperboles were a valid way to argue, and that being in the group not an excluded individual was actually desirable.

Hyperbole about who should get what.
Lysias, On the refusal of a pension to the invalid (Speech 24), 13 wrote:τοσοῦτον δὲ διενήνοχεν ἀναισχυντίᾳ τῶν ἁπάντων ἀνθρώπων, ὥστε ὑμᾶς πειρᾶται πείθειν, τοσούτους ὄντας εἵς ὤν, ὡς οὐκ εἰμὶ τῶν ἀδυνάτων ἐγώ. καίτοι εἰ τοῦτο πείσει τινὰς ὑμῶν, ὦ βουλή, τί με κωλύει κληροῦσθαι τῶν ἐννέα ἀρχόντων, καὶ ὑμᾶς ἐμοῦ μὲν ἀφελέσθαι τὸν ὀβολὸν ὡς ὑγιαίνοντος, τούτῳ δὲ ψηφίσασθαι πάντας ὡς ἀναπήρῳ; οὐ γὰρ δήπου τὸν αὐτὸν ὑμεῖς μὲν ὡς δυνάμενον ἀφαιρήσεσθε τὸ διδόμενον, οἱ δὲ θεσμοθέται1 ὡς ἀδύνατον ὄντα κληροῦσθαι κωλύσουσιν.

1 θεσμοθέται add. Frohberger.
Hints for §13: (Beware of suppletives and verbal constructions.)
  • διενήνοχεν - suppletive in the same sense as previous sections.
  • κληροῦσθαι - Pass., to be appointed by lot.
  • οὐ ... κωλύσουσιν - the negative is separated from its verb by a long distance.
  • τὸ διδόμενον - the dole.
  • οἱ θεσμοθέται - legal officers.
[/size]
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Wes Wood
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Joined: September 20th, 2013, 8:18 pm

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Post by Wes Wood »

Y'ain't that far off 'ere. Perhaps it is better if οὐ πολὺς ὁ λόγος. In the vein of repeating themes, "I will not say much."
Ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν.-Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους 29δ
Wes Wood
Posts: 693
Joined: September 20th, 2013, 8:18 pm

Lysias §12 Wes Wood

Post by Wes Wood »

And indeed thus is it not out of place, O Council, if indeed this [man] keeps silent seeing me sitting on a mule’s saddle? (For what else was he saying?) But because I ride horses by begging, he is trying to persuade you that I am well; and because indeed I need two walking sticks, when others need one, but this is not taken as a sign of one who is healthy, is it?: but because I ride on horses, do I give you a sure sign that I am one who is well? But I need either of them because of the same cause.
Ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν.-Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους 29δ
Wes Wood
Posts: 693
Joined: September 20th, 2013, 8:18 pm

Lysias §13 Wes Wood

Post by Wes Wood »

"But as much as this man excels in impudence above all men, in this manner he tries to persuade you, being one of you, as though I am not one who is disabled. And indeed if this [man] will persuade some of you, O Council, what prevents me from casting lots [to become?] of the nine [/dumb?] rulers, and indeed what prevents you taking away from me the obol as [you do to] ones who are healthy, but to (vote to give?) this maimed man all [of the obol?]? For perhaps you will not take away the same thing [obol?] you indeed gave as to one who is healthy but the legislators prevent from casting lots because he is disabled."

I feel this is my worst one yet. Self grade D-. I have the feeling I will be spending some time here.
Ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν.-Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους 29δ
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