Even given the differences in time-zones, I think I've waited long enough to be able to answer your points here.
Wes Wood wrote:Stephen Hughes wrote:This is another snippet of the dialogue, and there are two speakers. The optatives are always a good thing to bring up in conjunction with the fact that it is a dialogue. Do you know what mood Socrates would have used in his speech before he was changed into indirect speech?
If you would, please help me through any misunderstandings that I may have about this point. Since this is indirect discourse following a secondary tense, the optative might represent the indicative or the subjunctive. However, since Xenophon favors the indirect discourse (Smyth 2613), it seems to me that the subjunctive “ἐπίστηταί” reflects the mood of the original utterance and the optatives (πωλοίη and ἐπίσταιτο) reflect the present indicative. However, I am unsure why that part would change when this (πωλούμενοί εἰσι) does not. Unless it is to keep the relationship between the participle and the verb. Obviously, the bowels of my ignorance are bursting forth here.
Chapter 1, section 12 wrote:πρὸς ταῦτα δ᾽ ὁ Σωκράτης εἶπεν: ἂν ἐπίστηταί γε πωλεῖν. εἰ δὲ πωλοίη αὖ πρὸς τοῦτο ᾧ μὴ ἐπίσταιτο χρῆσθαι, οὐδὲ πωλούμενοί εἰσι χρήματα κατά γε τὸν σὸν λόγον. λέγειν ἔοικας, ὦ Σώκρατες, ὅτι οὐδὲ τὸ ἀργύριόν ἐστι χρήματα, εἰ μή τις ἐπίσταιτο χρῆσθαι αὐτῷ.
Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, 2613 wrote:The retention of the mood of direct discourse, where either the direct or indirect form is possible, lies solely in the option of the writer or speaker. The vivid form reproduces the time and situation in which the quoted words were used. The vivid form is preferred by some writers, as Thucydides; the indirect form by others, as the orators, Plato, and Xenophon.
I took "
the subjunctive “ἐπίστηταί”" was retained in the same way as you did. I took the comment itself as humorous, rather than sarcastic or snide - but there is as much of me in that interpretation as there is the text. I took the subjunctive as extending the duration for which we as readers should consider the question - not the duration of the verb's action, but the duration or intensity of thought that we should give to it. For the οὐ ... πωλούμενοί εἰσι, I take the use of that mood as expressing something formulaic or mechanically true - we are prompted to take it as a given. For εἰ ... πωλοίη and the other optatives, I take them as being the statements or assertions made in the dialogue - the substance of the speech act that is novel.
I think that τὸ ἀργύριον is referring to silver as coinage rather than a chemical element.
Wes Wood wrote:Obviously, the bowels of my ignorance are bursting forth here.
Well if we want to go back to thinking like we did when we were nine or ten year old boys when we believed that because we controlled the direction of some water's flow or made insects follow the paths we set for them, that we were somehow masters of the world around us, while in fact all that we were doing was narrowing our gaze and projecting our own imaginations of greatness onto a small part of the world, then I would say that we have indeed understood what is going on
both in this passage and, indeed, in the broader Greek language.
Wes Wood wrote:Stephen Hughes wrote:The position of αὖ could do with an explanation (as could its meaning).
αὖ is a postpositive. When coupled with δὲ it makes a stronger contrast. It could be translated here as “on the other hand.”
Something like that.
Wes Wood wrote:Stephen Hughes wrote:The meaning of πολεῖν something πρός something will probably need to be explained. It may be beneficial to note difference between πολεῖν something (+gen. - the measure of price) and πολεῖν something πρός (+acc.) reducing sale for coinage into a barter system of exchanging one thing for another, or then again it might not... Up to you.
I am definitely going to have to look at this. I had no clue how to take this, but have run out of time tonight to dig into it. I shall return to this a.s.a.p. (Hopefully, late tomorrow night after the festivities.) Thanks for your preemptive suggestions here.
That stuff about πρός is just straight from the dictionary. The constructions associated with ἀλλασσειν / ἀνταλλασσειν (
exchange,
barter) (+acc of thing exchanged, +gen. of thing exchanged for) don't help here. Temper the strength of your assertions, words are like people, there is often another side to them - good or bad - that you don't know, and you get to know them better the longer you spend with them, and in company with various others they seemingly change their character and behave in ways that you never thought possible. Some are more pliable than others, and indeed have varying degrees of pliability in the company of different others. If you introduce a word, don't talk to much about things, the person you are talking with is of equal humanity as yourself, and quite capable of their own observations, simply slightly direct their observations, after all that is what you would do if you were describing some mannerism or feature of a person you could both see.
Wes Wood wrote:Stephen Hughes wrote:Some people might be benefited by the suggestion to consider the οὐ and δὲ separately in both instances of οὐδὲ.
Would it be better to discuss the second οὐδέ in terms of the structure οὐδέ... εἰ?
I mean some people are in the habit of jumping to "neither", rather than assessing the structure first. It depends on their training, and their degree of reliance on another language to be able to understand the Greek. If you think it is warranted you could discuss the structure οὐδέ... εἰ. I see it as vaguely two structures, with a negative sub-structure in the first. You would need to make clear what part was negative, and what part was the if/then part.
Wes Wood wrote:Stephen Hughes wrote:I suspect that most readers will substantivise (reify / objectivise) the πωλούμενοί, rather than take it verbally - as you would take the participle with any other verb (if I've lost you I mean that the action of the present participle happens at the same time as the finite verb, and you could explain how that works here).
Is this better? “neither are the things wealth when they are sold...” I should have considered my options more carefully here. I was troubled by the lack of the article.
Lack of the article might be a clue, I'm not sure.
Perhaps better, yes. Are you understanding the verbal forms, the relative time-frame of the being wealth, being sold, then rendering it into English, or just translating from words to words? What strikes me as strange is that in the moment that the can possibly wealth, he no longer has them, that makes the translation "are" difficult, because they belong to another. "sold for", "exchanged for" or something that expresses that they are no longer his is okay. It sort of involves thinking about an instant "now" in an extended sense such as the
nunc fluens.