[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



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