[B-Greek] him which is, and which was, and which is to come
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at ioa.com
Mon Nov 21 14:28:19 EST 2005
On Nov 21, 2005, at 2:11 PM, Harold R. Holmyard III wrote:
>> The nearest thing I'm aware of in extra-Biblical Greek literature
>> that is like this is from Hesiod's Theogony 36-38 where the Muses are
>> invoked:
>>
>> ... MOUSAWN ARCWMEQA, TAI DII PATRI
>> hUMNEUSAI TERPOUSI MEGAN NOON ENTOS OLUMPOU,
>> EIROUSAI TA T' EONTA TA T' ESSOMENA PRO T' EONTA.
>>
>> "Let us take our start from the Muses, who singing to Zeus the
>> father
>> give pleasure to his mighty insight within Olympus,
>> singing the things that are and the things that will be
>> and those that were before."
>
>
> HH: Thanks, Carl. It was nice of you to write out the quotation. I am
> not a Greek scholar, but it strikes me as though some words are
> either left out or understood towards the end of the last line above.
> Wouldn't it be good if there were something like a KAI TA before PRO?
Harold, what holds this expression together within the hexameter is
the threefold TE (T'): TA TE EONTA, TA T(E) ESSOMENA PRO T(E) EONTA.
While it's true that there's no TA before the third element, the
sense is nevertheless clear: "things not only (T') being but also
(T') to be and (T') being before." In Homer and in older Greek
generally TE ... TE is equivalent to TE ... KAI and can be used three
or more times to connect additional terms to the string.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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