[B-Greek] Translation OK?
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Jan 6 09:39:15 EST 2005
At 3:31 PM +0200 1/6/05, Kevin Smith wrote:
>TOUS D' hELLHNAS TOUS PALAI DIA TOUTO KAI NUN TIMWMEN, hOTI THN T'
>ELEUQERIAN EFILOUN, KAI THN ALHQEIAN KAI TO KALON. KAI hUPER MEN THS
>ELEUQERIAS OLIGOI PROS POLLOUS POLEMOUNTES POLLAKIS ENIKAHSAN, THN D'
>ALHQEIAN KAI TO KALON ZHTOUNTES POIHMATA KAI DRAMATA KAI hISTORIAS
>EGRAYAN KAI ANDRIANTAS EGLUYAN KAI hIERA WiKODOMHSAN, WN ENIA KAI EF'
>hHMWN PERIESTIN. hAUTH hH BIBLOS PERI TWN Q' hELLHNWN KAI PERI TWN ERGWN
>APANGGELEI.
>
>Here is my translation. Do I have it about right?
>
>We honour the Greeks, both past and present, because of this, namely,
>that they have always loved freedom, as well as truth and goodness (or
>"what is true and good"). For the sake of freedom, few used to wage war
>against many, and often conquered. When seeking truth and goodness,
>however, they wrote poems, plays and histories, carved statues and built
>temples. A few of them are still (going) around in our time. This book
>reports about both the Greeks and their deeds.
Not exactly: there's nothing about honoring present-day Greeks. Rather it's
"For this reason do we honor even today (now) the ancient Greeks, ... "
That is, the object of TIMWMEN is only TOUS hELLHNAS TOUS PALAI and the KAI
NUN must construe adverbially with the verb TIMWMEN.
The rest is pretty well on target, although one might question whether TO
KALON should so readily be equated with "goodness"--it really means "the
beautiful", and at least for some Greeks of antiquity, goodness was a
subspecies of beauty. A sense of beauty might also than "goodness" better
account for carving statues.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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