[B-Greek] TARASSW/TARASSOMAI: Concluding unscientific postscript

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Wed Feb 27 08:39:38 EST 2008


Unscientific? Certainly. Concluding? Unless ...
But I do want to offer another comment on Elizabeth's quest as well as  
to thank both her and Iver for what has been an illuminating exchange  
over the verb(s?) TARASSW/TARASSOMAI and to reiterate a couple of my  
conclusions/convictions about the matter under consideration.

> On Feb 22, 2008, at 3:30 AM, Carl Conrad wrote:
>
>> My own impression is that this reflexive usage of TARASSEIN hEAUTON
>> is exceptional, although perfectly intelligible: the middle is the
>> normal usage.

1. I continue to believe this is right. In general verbs of (strong)  
emotion tend to be middle verbs; active forms of such verbs, when we  
do encounter them, seem to be fundamentally causatives indicating the  
endeavor to rouse the emotion in another.
	AISCUNOMAI (+ dat.) 'be ashamed about'-- AISCUNW 'dishonor'; ELPOMAI  
'hope, expect, fear' (Hom.) --  ELPW 'cause to hope'; hHEDOMAI (+  
dat.) 'enjoy oneself' -- hHDW/hANDANW 'please, delight'; KHDOMAI (+  
gen.) 'care about, care for' -- KHDW 'trouble, distress' (Hom.);  
LUPEOMAI (+ acc.) 'to be grieved about' --  LUPEW 'grieve, vex';  
ORGIZOMAI (+ dat.) 'be angry with' -- ORGIZW 'make angry'; TERPOMAI (+  
dat.) 'enjoy' (Hom.) -- TERPW 'please' (Hom.); FOBEOMAI (+ acc.) 'flee  
in panic' (Hom.) 'fear' -- FOBEW 'make flee in panic (Hom.); alarm'.  
These are from Allan's listing. He also notes "a significant number of  
media tantum": AGAMAI (+ acc.) 'admire';  AIDOMAI/AIDEOMAI (+ acc.)  
'respect';  ACQOMAI (+ dat.) 'be grieved with';  ACNUMAI (+ gen.)  
'grieve for" (Hom);  MAINOMAI 'rage';  MEMFOMAI 'be angry,  
discontent';  SEBOMAI (+ acc.) 'respect, revere (typically a god);   
CWOMAI (+ dat.) 'be angry with' (Hom., poetry).

I am not surprised that Elizabeth has had difficulty finding instances  
of reflexive usage with verbs of emotion. What she's found (in what  
must have been a difficult search) have been instances of KATECW and  
EPECW, generally with noun objects of an emotional state to be  
repressed or held in check, once with a reflexive pronoun (EPESCON  
EMAUTON). But it seems to me that verbs of restraint are indeed more  
likely to be active -- even when the object/patient is coreferential  
with the subject. I think that the verbs of emotion more commonly  
describe spontaneously arising feelings or states of feeling, perhaps  
triggered by something external, but not necessarily. With the verbs  
of restraint such as KATECW and EPECW when used with an object, it  
seems to me that the object is conceived as an unruly force or beast  
that one is attempting to bring under control. Plato in the Republic  
and elsewhere describes the struggle within the self between a  
governing aspect and an appetitive or emotive aspect -- in the  
Phaedrus he speaks of a charioteer trying to control a black horse and  
a white horse that are both aspects of one's selfhood. In general, it  
seems to me that unless one is a very good actor or perhaps a good  
politician (perhaps one is a subspecies of the other?), it's not easy  
to turn one's emotions on -- but we commonly endeavor to get control  
over our feelings.

Iver says that ETARAXEN hEAUTON used of Jesus in John 11:33 expresses  
a particular nuance that translators might do well to do justice to.  
But the effort to imagine a way of expressing this makes the  
difficulty clear: "He stirred himself up"? "He distressed himself"?  
"He brought himself into turmoil"? "He worked himself up into a  
lather"? The last comes closest, perhaps, to what Iver has in mind,  
particularly as this follows upon ENEBRIMHSATO TWi PNEUMATI. But  
EMBRIMAOMAI is itself an intransitive verb or perhaps a "direct  
reflexive" middle similar perhaps to SPLAGCNIZOMAI, a verb, the  
coarseness of which reminds me of the vulgar admoniton to someone  
flying into a rage: "Don't get your balls in an uproar!"

2. I am grateful to Iver for responding graciously to my rather huffy  
message of February 25, 2008 9:44:06 AM EST. I suspect that we shall  
continue to have differences of opinion about whether middle-passive  
forms (MAI/MHN as well as QHN) of one or another verb should be  
interpreted as middle or passive. But one point I was attempting to  
make there is that the combination of syntactic and semantic analysis  
of the Greek verb doesn't consistently work with ancient Greek middle- 
passive verb-forms. While I would hope that we no longer make the  
assumption that any aorist in -QHN must necessarily be semantically  
passive (the existence of so-called "deponent" verbs is itself  
undeniable proof that such an assumption cannot be true), I think that  
it is still too easy to suppose that any verb that has an active-voice  
form or even an active-voice lemma in the lexicon (lexica are  
notorious for listing active-voice forms of verbs for which no active- 
voice form is extant in the literature) -- any such verb having an  
active-voice form that takes an accusative complement must be  
interpreted fundamentally in terms of active usage with a passive  
transformation -- so that -QHN forms must necessarily be interpreted  
as passive semantically. I think that's dubious in the case of TARASSW/ 
TARASSOMAI, and I also think it's dubious in the case of several other  
verbs that are more frequently used intransitively in the middle  
although they have active causative forms.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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