[B-Greek] Homerisms (was Something Else ... )
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Thu Jun 11 08:24:33 EDT 2009
On Jun 10, 2009, at 11:53 PM, Mark Lightman wrote:
> 9. Γεωργε, ποιον σε επος φυγεν ερκος
> οδοντων!
> (GEWRGE, POION SE EPOS FUGEN hERKOS ODONTWN!) Od. 5:23
Yes, this was one of my favorite Homeric locutions too, although I
don't recall it ever being addressed to a farmer; farmers don't play
that big a role in the Homeric canon;, although they're there. I
think I might have used the common line-opener, W POPOI, or even the
extended Aeschylean phrase OTOTOTOI POPOI DA ... That's got sound
effects almost as fascinating as POLUFLOISBOIO QALASSHS. I can recall
those heady sophomoric days when we usesd to address such Homeric
curses to each other as, OINOBARES, KUNOS OMMAT' ECWN, KRADIHN D'E
ELAFOIO or address a girl friend good-naturedly as DAIMONIH.
Then there was the first-year Greek composition class in first-year
grad school at the same time I was plowing through 12 books each of
Iliad and Odyssey; we were supposed to be writing Attic Greek, but I
found myself repeatedly using genitives in -OIO and dative plurals in -
ESSI. Not very Platonic, to be sure, although one could get away with
duals like ANQRWPW or accusative pronouns like hE.
While there's enlightenment to be had from every era of ancient Greek
literature, those who have resolved to abide strictly within "the
friendly confines" (as Chicago northsiders might put it) of NT Koine
deprive themselves of a wealth of different kinds of gratification to
be had from browsing through the Homeric corpus: linguistic
archeology, lots of gripping story-telling, wondrous epithets for
features of nature (OINOPA PONTON, hRODODAKTULOS HWS, PARA QIN' hALOS
ATRUGETOIO, ... ), and phrases like "escape the hedge of (your) teeth."
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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