[B-Greek] Genitive Absolute?
Richard Ghilardi
qodeshlayhvh at juno.com
Tue Apr 19 15:25:53 EDT 2005
Hi Folks,
I want to thank Dr. Conrad for the very helpful and enlightening answers
he gave to my questions about this couplet. I am especially impressed
with Dr. Conrad's observation that the clause ANDROS... hAPAX QANONTOS
ought to be taken with both hAIM' and ANASTASIS. This was a real
eye-opener for me. It made me realize that Aeschylus was a playwright who
certainly knew his TEKNHN. As for the text rewritten with a double gen.
abs., it looked very prosaic (in the worst sense of that word) to me even
before I wrote to the list. Thank you for confirming this for me.
Yours in His grace,
Richard Ghilardi - qodeshlayhvh at juno.com
New Haven, Connecticut USA
==================================================
On Mon, 18 Apr 2005 07:35:57 -0400 Carl W.Conrad <cwconrad at ioa.com>
writes:
>
> On Apr 17, 2005, at 9:49 PM, Richard Ghilardi wrote:
>
> > Hello Folks,
> >
> > ANDROS D' EPEIDAN hAIM' ANASPASHi KONIS
> > hAPAX QANONTOS, OUTIS EST' ANASTASIS
> >
> > Aeschylus, Eumenides (spoken by the god Apollo)
> >
> > I know this is not Biblical or even Hellenistic Greek and if
> Carlton
> > and
> > Carl decide that all responses should be offlist to me privately,
> so be
> > it.
>
> I've never felt that questions about Classical Attic or even Homeric
>
> Greek were out of bounds, but maybe that's because of the diachronic
>
> bias I hold toward ancient Greek.
>
> > Here are my 4 questions:
> >
> > 1) Can the words ANDROS... hAPAX QANONTOS be construed as a
> genitive
> > ablsolute or must they be taken as an adnominal genitive
> specifying the
> > head noun hAIM'?
>
> I would not understand it that way, although I can see how you might
>
> want to think of it that way.
> One problem is that in poetry, and especially in Aeschylus, language
> is
> strained far beyond the normal range of prose usage. But I
> personally
> think I'd prefer to understand ANDROS as adnominal genitive to
> hAIM(A)
> and hAPAX QANONTOS as circumstantial adverbial participle to ANDROS:
> "a
> man's blood, when once he has died, ... "
>
> But on the other hand, the marvel of this Aeschylean formulation is
>
> that ANDROS ... hAPAX QANONTOS can and probably should also be
> construed with the apodosis: "there is no resurrection for a man
> once
> he has died."
>
> > 2) In this present general condition do we have a double protasis:
> man
> > is
> > dead; dust soaks up blood or a single complex protasis: dust soaks
> up
> > dead man's blood?
>
> I suppose that one could understand hAPAX QANONTOS as equivalent to
> EAN
> hAPAX QANHi--that would be one way to conceive this circumstantial
> participle (and circumstantial participles CAN function as the
> protasis
> of a conditional clause, certainly). But I think I'd rather take the
>
> participle as a subordinate temporal qualifier: "Whenever the dust
> has
> sucked up the blood of a person once he has died, there is no
> resurrection."
>
> > 3) If the words ANDROS... hAPAX QANONTOS are removed (as they
> could be
> > if
> > they were an absolute construction), can the remainder of the
> sentence
> > stand by itself and make tolerable sense: EPEIDAN hAIM' ANASPASHi
>
> > KONIS,
> > OUTIS EST' ANASTASIS? Does spilt blood generally signify death?
>
> More or less, I think, even if not universally. It's somewhat like
> "bloodshed" in English. But I think that the complementary force of
>
> ANDROS ... hAPAX QANONTOS to both hAIMA and ANASTASIS makes this
> particular Aeschylean couplet all the more forceful an expression
> about
> homicide.
>
> > 4) Could this sentence be rewritten with two gen. abs. in the
> protasis
> > as
> > follows: ANDROS D' hAPAX QANONTOS KAI hAIM' AUTOU ANASPASASHS
> KONEWS,
> > OUTIS EST' ANASTASIS? In this case is the AUTOU needed?
>
> Well, I think that the Greek sentence is grammatically (not
> politically!) correct, but it seems very prosaic, doesn't it,
> compared
> to the Aeschylean couplet? You might add another AUTOU with OUTIS
> EST'
> ANASTASIS, too. But I do think that even in normal prose the AUTOU
> is
> superfluous, inasmuch as it would be understood in both places.
>
> > I would English it as,
> >
> > Once a man is dead and the dust soaks up the blood,
> > there is no resurrection.
> >
> > Here's Herbert Weir Smyth's translation:
> >
> > But when the dust has drawn up the blood of a man, once he is
> dead,
> > there
> > is no return to life.
> >
> > My translation does not seem to differ substantially from Smyth's.
> I
> > have
> > simply used parataxis where the Greek uses hypotaxis since the
> English
> > language prefers the former.
>
> I wouldn't quarrel with either version, but I wonder to what extent
> a
> real poet in English is restricted to writing paratactically--but
> that's another question altogether.
>
> > Finally, I'm only interested in the grammar and syntax of this
> > sentence,
> > not in any theological viewpoint that it may contain. So please
> > restrict
> > your replies to what the Greek grammar and syntax may legitimately
> be
> > taken to mean.
>
> Gee, that language sounds very familiar! Sounds almost like
> something I
> might have written!
>
> This was an interesting question to ponder, Richard.
>
> Carl W. Conrad
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list