[B-Greek] SIKELOS OMFAKIZETAI What kind of middle?

Vasile Stancu stancu.c.vasile at gmail.com
Tue Jan 4 15:52:19 EST 2011


There is a proverb in some of our villages in Romania which reads
something like, 'Well, you have done a business like Pista with the
vinegar'. ('Pista' is a Hungarian diminutive masculine name - very
common in some places). Suppose this proverb were discovered after
2000 years: there are good chances that nobody would understand its
meaning if there was no testimony on that by somebody who lived in
those times. Now, this is my testimony for the reseachers 2000 years
from now:  Pista found out that vinegar may be obtained from wine, so
he started a 'new business': he transformed all the wine he had in the
cellar into vinegar in the hope that he would make good money out of
that. His neighbours learned about Pista's new enterprise and assigned
his experience to anything that was a bad business. And now this
proverbs applies to anything which is unprofitable business.

It might be (this time I am joking...) that our Sicilian guy just
found that he could make pickles, for instance, of the grapes, and not
only wine, so he decided to harvest the grapes while good-sour.

Vasile Stancu

P.S. On middles, I believe that there could hardly be a definition -
however extensive - that encompasses all possible meanings and facets
of it. As an alternative method of study, why not study other
languages (that are currently spoken) like Romanian, where there are
three voices, active, passive and reflexive. The latter one is very
much similar to the Greek middle. We have, for instance, a verb for
'laugh'; but also a middle for of it - something like 'laugh oneself'.
However, for 'smile' we only have the active - no middle. Then
sometimes one says angrily to another who happened to have laughed at
him: 'Why are you laughing yourself?' Then the other says, jokingly,
'I did not laugh myself; I just smiled myself...' How to explain such
details apealing to such formulas as 'in his own interest', or 'for
himself'? Cannot, I guess... But using middles in so many examples
that can be found in other languages (like Romanian), would widen
one's mind on that, without having to apeal to all those funny
categories that have been defined, which prove, at times, to be quite
limited.


2011/1/4 Mark Lightman <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>:
> Thanks, Carl and Stephen.
>
> I think I understand the proverb better now.  To produce sour grapes for
> oneself, for one's own interest, is comic paradox and it is not surprising that
> the middle is found only here.  The proverb in the form quoted in LSJ has an
> ellipsis, κλεψας KLEYAS or the like, so the Sicilian, having stolen something
> worthless, finds himself with sour grapes, which he himself produced, but for
> naught.
>
> One is tempted to call this the comic middle.   The only other example which
> comes to mind is the cuckold, of whom it is said, even though he is  male,
> γαμεῖται  GAMEITAI.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  Mark L
>
>
>
> FWSFOROS MARKOS
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Stephen Carlson <stemmatic at gmail.com>
> To: Mark Lightman <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>
> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Sent: Sat, January 1, 2011 11:08:34 AM
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] SIKELOS OMFAKIZETAI What kind of middle?
>
> On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 11:37 AM, Mark Lightman <lightmanmark at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> LSJ defines ὀμφακίζω (OMFAKIZW) "to be unripe, properly of grapes" and refers
>>to
>> Isaiah 18:5 where the active is found.  Then it goes on to say "in Mid.,
>> Σικελὸς  ὀμφακίζεται the Sicilian steals sour grapes, proverb. of one who will
>> steal anything worthless, Epich. 163 Ahr., cf. Aristaen. 2.7 Erasm. Adag. p.
>> 240."
>>
>> I don't get how the middle is working here.  If the active means to produce
>>sour
>> grapes, how does the middle come to mean steal sour grapes?  I understand that
>> this is a free translation, but what is going on here?  Is this some special
>> kind of a middle that I am unfamiliar with?  Are there other examples?
>
> According to TLG, this verb occurs in the MP only here in this
> proverb, which is cited multiple times and explained as stealing
> something worthless (whence the explanation in LSJ).
>
> I'd view it as a middle: "the Sicilian sours," presumably because he
> stole sour grapes and ate them, leaving a sour taste in his mouth.
> The Sicilian is experiencing the sourness of the grapes, so I'd
> consider this a middle of perception (per Allan's classification) like
> γεύομαι GEUOMAI ("I taste").  The LSJ's proposed gloss of "steals
> sours grapes" comes from the explanation of the proverb, rather than
> anything inherent in the verb or its morphology.
>
> Stephen
> --
> Stephen C. Carlson
> Graduate Program in Religion
> Duke University
>
>
>
>
> ---
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