Page 1 of 3
Archilochus 30-31W: Afternoon of a nymph?
Posted: March 13th, 2015, 1:46 pm
by cwconrad
Archilochus (mid 7th c. BCE) is the earliest and one of the most versatile of the archaic Greek lyric poets. He wrote in many meters and in a great variety of genres and moods, including bitter invective, fable, and lyric reflections such as this sketch of something that he saw and liked.
Two full lines and two partial lines that seem to belong together even if they don’t quite fit together metrically. The vocabulary may be mostly new to you, but the syntax is simple
Meter: This rhythm is called Iambic Trimeter, meaning that the line consists of three metra (metrical units), each of which is configured in the pattern ˘ ¯ ˘ ¯ — except that the first syllable of each metron may be anceps (a word meaning “two-headed” but used of a syllable that may be either short or long). In the iambic metron the second foot must always be an iamb ( ˘ ¯ ). The final syllable of the line is considered a long syllable even if it has a short vowel; this is sometimes explained in terms of the line-end functioning like a rest in a musical sequence. As I have done previously with Sappho, so here too I shall mark the syllables bearing the metrical stress with bold letters.
1 ἔχουσα θαλλὸν μυρσίνης ἐτέρπετο
2 ῥοδῆς τε καλὸν ἄνθος.
3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ἡ δέ οἱ κόμη
4 ὤμους κατεσκίαζε καὶ μετάφρενα.
line 1: ἔχουσα: gender? This is the only clue regarding the subject of the verb ἐτέρπετο
line 1: θαλλός, -ου, m.: young branch, green shoot -- perhaps a "sprig"
line 1: μυρσίνη, -ης, f. (later Attic: μυρρίνη): myrtle
line 1: τέρπεσθαι: take one's pleasure, enjoy ("doing something" -- here with a participle as complement)
line 2: ῥοδῆ, -ῆς, f.: rose, rose bush (the noun is a contraction of ῥοδέα)
line 2: ἄνθος, -ους, n.: bloom, blossom
line 3: ἡ: the article construed with κόμη -- or, to be more accurate, this is perhaps more a weak pronoun than an article: "and that -- over her -- (her) hair ..."
line 3: οἱ = the dative sg. of the original 3rd-person pronoun; cf. Smyth, §§325, 325D.
line 3: κόμη, -ης, f., hair
line 4: ὦμος, -ου, m.: shoulder
line 4: κατασκιάζειν (κατὰ + σκία, “shadow”): overshadow, cast a shadow down over
line 4: μετάφρενον, -ου, n.: broad of the back; μετὰ τὰς φρένας (“beyond the midriff”)
Re: Archilochus 30-31W: Afternoon of a nymph?
Posted: March 14th, 2015, 4:30 am
by Stephen Hughes
Beautiful descriptive imagery. Very easy to use helps.
cwconrad wrote:line 3: οἱ = ἑαυτῇ; οἱ is the dative sg. of the original reflexive pronoun, orignally σϝοι (cf. Latin sibi)
Is referant of this pronoun the nymph (?) or the hair?
Re: Archilochus 30-31W: Afternoon of a nymph?
Posted: March 14th, 2015, 5:33 am
by cwconrad
Stephen Hughes wrote:Beautiful descriptive imagery. Very easy to use helps.
cwconrad wrote:line 3: οἱ = ἑαυτῇ; οἱ is the dative sg. of the original reflexive pronoun, orignally σϝοι (cf. Latin sibi)
Is referent of this pronoun the nymph (?) or the hair?
Text:
ἡ δέ οἱ κόμη
4 ὤμους κατεσκίαζε καὶ μετάφρενα
It's the girl, surely; ordinarily one would English this as "her hair ... " It's curious how the dative does duty for the genitive in some dialects. I remember an inscription in an old book in my family, "John, his book" -- and common usage in Bavarian German is a combination of the dative article and possessive pronominal: "dem Georg sein Buch".
Re: Archilochus 30-31W: Afternoon of a nymph?
Posted: March 14th, 2015, 10:41 am
by Stephen Hughes
cwconrad wrote:Stephen Hughes wrote:Beautiful descriptive imagery. Very easy to use helps.
cwconrad wrote:line 3: οἱ = ἑαυτῇ; οἱ is the dative sg. of the original reflexive pronoun, orignally σϝοι (cf. Latin sibi)
Is referent of this pronoun the nymph (?) or the hair?
Text:
ἡ δέ οἱ κόμη
4 ὤμους κατεσκίαζε καὶ μετάφρενα
It's the girl, surely; ordinarily one would English this as "her hair ... " It's curious how the dative does duty for the genitive in some dialects. I remember an inscription in an old book in my family, "John, his book" -- and common usage in Bavarian German is a combination of the dative article and possessive pronominal: "dem Georg sein Buch".
Is that original reflexive pronoun specific to a person or number?
Re: Archilochus 30-31W: Afternoon of a nymph?
Posted: March 14th, 2015, 11:46 am
by cwconrad
Text:
ἡ δέ οἱ κόμη
4 ὤμους κατεσκίαζε καὶ μετάφρενα
cwconrad wrote:line 3: οἱ = ἑαυτῇ; οἱ is the dative sg. of the original reflexive pronoun, orignally σϝοι (cf. Latin sibi)
Stephen Hughes wrote:Is that original reflexive pronoun specific to a person or number?
It is singular; actually this is the ancient 3rd person singular pronoun,
not reflexive, as I previously indicated. Cf. Smyth, §§325, 325D. These 3rd person pronominal forms are common in Homer. I believe that I mis-remembered when I wrote that οἱ was derivative from σϝοι; rather the very early Greek σϝε- that is cognate to the Latin reflexive pronoun
sui, sib, se, se is reflected in the ἑ- of the regular ancient Greek reflexive ἑαυτοῦ/ἑαυτῆς/ἑαυτοῦ κτλ. I'll go back and edit the original post.
Re: Archilochus 30-31W: Afternoon of a nymph?
Posted: March 15th, 2015, 12:01 am
by Stephen Hughes
What is the difference between a direct and an indirect reflexive?
Smyth 325d wrote:d. Of the forms of the third personal pronoun only the datives οἷ and σφίσι(ν) are commonly used in Attic prose, and then
only as indirect reflexives (1228). ...
Smyth 1228 N3 wrote:ἑαυτοῦ, etc., are
either direct or indirect reflexives, οἷ and σφίσι are
only indirect reflexives.
For the forms of this pronoun in Homer, cf.
Henry Clark Johnson. The First Three Books of Homer's Iliad with Lexicon. Second Edition. New York. 1890. Page 215. An edition of the Illiad written by an authour determined to keep it simple.
Re: Archilochus 30-31W: Afternoon of a nymph?
Posted: March 15th, 2015, 5:31 am
by Stephen Hughes
Clearly, my thinking is one step behind what is happening in this thread.
Here is how things unfolded:
- You read it as refexive.
- I questioned that by suggesting that reflexive would refer to the hair.
- You compared the Greek to a different Latin word and took it as an early form of the 3rd person singular pronoun.
- I tried to work out what type of reflexive it was.
ἐκ τούτου, I should wear the dunce's cap for the rest of the afternoon, and go and read some more early epic.
Another question, the verbs
ἔχουσα ... ἐτέρπετο ... κατεσκίαζε
are all present / imperfect.
Did Greek of this early period have similar aspect distinction to Hellenistic times? Why are the full verbs imperfect here?
Re: Archilochus 30-31W: Afternoon of a nymph?
Posted: March 15th, 2015, 6:15 am
by cwconrad
Stephen Hughes wrote:What is the difference between a direct and an indirect reflexive?
Smyth 325d wrote:d. Of the forms of the third personal pronoun only the datives οἷ and σφίσι(ν) are commonly used in Attic prose, and then
only as indirect reflexives (1228). ...
Smyth 1228 N3 wrote:ἑαυτοῦ, etc., are
either direct or indirect reflexives, οἷ and σφίσι are
only indirect reflexives.
For the forms of this pronoun in Homer, cf.
Henry Clark Johnson. The First Three Books of Homer's Iliad with Lexicon. Second Edition. New York. 1890. Page 215. An edition of the Illiad written by an authour determined to keep it simple.
"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."
(Attrib. to Albert Einstein)
I think that I must have been a six-year-old when I last understood the difference between a direct reflexive and an indirect reflexive! When the question arises regarding the difference between direct and indirect elements, what comes to my mind is the distinction between πῶς and ὅπως, between ποῦ and ὅπου, between τίς and ὅστις. The first of each of these pairs respectively is a
direct interrogative conjunction, the second is an
indirect interrogative conjunction. The
direct form is used in a
direct question: πῶς ταῦτα ποιήσετε;, the
indirect form is used in an
indirect question: ἐπιδεῖξατε ἡμἱν ὅπως ταῦτα ποιήσετε. The
indirect form is used in a subordinate clause. The same distinction holds for direct and indirect reflexives: the one is used in primary clauses, the other in subordinate clauses. Okay?
Re: Archilochus 30-31W: Afternoon of a nymph?
Posted: March 15th, 2015, 6:33 am
by cwconrad
Stephen Hughes wrote:Clearly, my thinking is one step behind what is happening in this thread.
Here is how things unfolded:
- You read it as refexive.
- I questioned that by suggesting that reflexive would refer to the hair.
- You compared the Greek to a different Latin word and took it as an early form of the 3rd person singular pronoun.
- I tried to work out what type of reflexive it was.
ἐκ τούτου, I should wear the dunce's cap for the rest of the afternoon, and go and read some more early epic.
My understanding of the sequence is a bit different: I laid out my accounting for that Archilochian text; you found and exposed my error. I might not have made the error if I hadn't left well enough alone, but I went on and tried to account for the origin of the dative pronominal form
οἱ -- it turns out that my account was off-base: it wasn't a reflexive at all but an ordinary pronoun, albeit not one that remained in use in later Greek prose. I tried to correct my error, but you, οἶστρος that you are, kept lighting on the drowsy horse ...
Stephen Hughes wrote:Another question, the verbs
ἔχουσα ... ἐτέρπετο ... κατεσκίαζε
are all present / imperfect.
Did Greek of this early period have similar aspect distinction to Hellenistic times? Why are the full verbs imperfect here?
Is there something more involved here than depiction of an event unfolding in the course of a (relatively) brief span of time? My reading is this: it is the unfolding of a scene; the poet caught a glimpse of the girl in a quiet moment of observation and described what was happening during that brief interval of his contemplation of the girl. Poets and six-year-olds -- and readers of lyric poetry -- tend to be quiet observers and eavesdroppers.
Re: Archilochus 30-31W: Afternoon of a nymph?
Posted: March 15th, 2015, 7:31 am
by Stephen Hughes
cwconrad wrote:Stephen Hughes wrote:Clearly, my thinking is one step behind what is happening in this thread.
Here is how things unfolded:
- You read it as refexive.
- I questioned that by suggesting that reflexive would refer to the hair.
- You compared the Greek to a different Latin word and took it as an early form of the 3rd person singular pronoun.
- I tried to work out what type of reflexive it was.
ἐκ τούτου, I should wear the dunce's cap for the rest of the afternoon, and go and read some more early epic.
My understanding of the sequence is a bit different: I laid out my accounting for that Archilochian text; you found and exposed my error. I might not have made the error if I hadn't left well enough alone, but I went on and tried to account for the origin of the dative pronominal form
οἱ -- it turns out that my account was off-base: it wasn't a reflexive at all but an ordinary pronoun, albeit not one that remained in use in later Greek prose. I tried to correct my error, but you, οἶστρος that you are, kept lighting on the drowsy horse ...
Well, what interested me was not the error - I have just recently stated in the
Shield of Hercules thread that various persons were standing to the left and right
of the picture (ie beside the picture) that they are quite evidently
in, and I will have to correct that when I actually work out what it should be corrected to... The only people who don't make errors are those who don't do anything, and that in itself is an error of sorts.
What I was interested in is the relationship between reflexives and subject affected verb forms, which is what your analysis proposed it as. I had wondered whether direct and indirect referred to them being used together with subject affected or object affected verbs. BUT of course the pondering persisted longer than the valid opportunity for it did. Not that there ever actually was an opportunity, but it is something that I have been meaning to get around to seeing if it exists to be looked at.
It seems, according to the Homer grammar I put the hyperlink to, that the reflexive in Homer is constructed of the third person pronoun (that we are discussing) plus a form of αὐτός. In itself, no problem, taking that at face value is as good a strategy as any, but the what then... It turns up later as a reflexive, and only in a narrow pattern of usage. That raises so many questions that fade into silence like shouting in the desert - where nothing reflects the sound back to us - without reply or answer. Why become reflexive within a quiet sort time, why only the dative ... ? The easiest question that there might be an answer for was the limitation of the range of usage one. So hence the question you answered so sanely in the previous post.
cwconrad wrote:Stephen Hughes wrote:Another question, the verbs
ἔχουσα ... ἐτέρπετο ... κατεσκίαζε
are all present / imperfect.
Did Greek of this early period have similar aspect distinction to Hellenistic times? Why are the full verbs imperfect here?
Is there something more involved here than depiction of an event unfolding in the course of a (relatively) brief span of time? My reading is this: it is the unfolding of a scene; the poet caught a glimpse of the girl in a quiet moment of observation and described what was happening during that brief interval of his contemplation of the girl. Poets and six-year-olds -- and readers of lyric poetry -- tend to be quiet observers and eavesdroppers.
I could be that the image lasted in his mind for a long time or recurrently. The "brief interval" that you mention become long in his memory.