So it’s been a while since I’ve been able to work on my Ancient Greek and I’m really feeling it. So I figure I’ll go through a sentence here every couple days (I’d say every day, but what happens if I miss a day?).
Tonight the randomly selected sentence is
οὐκ ἂν ἀφείην ὁπόσους ἂν ἕλωμεν πρὶν ἂν χρήματα δῶσιν.
Just Thinking
Okay, so upon just looking at the sentence I can see only a few words I know. So depressing! Without looking anything up, here’s my thoughts:
| οὐκ | “not, no, negation” |
| ἂν | This word is untranslatable, but is used (somehow! Argh!) with optatives generally, right? |
| ἀφείην | A verb, right? |
| ὁπόσους | Looks like a noun, plural masculine accusative. |
| ἕλωμεν | A verb (1st Person plural indicative?) ? |
| πρὶν | A preposition, right? |
| χρήματα | Neuter (from the -ματα) plural nominative? Burning? Krhmata ~ cremation? |
Well *that* was depressing!
Liddel & Scott
Now I’ll look up what I don’t know in my Middle Liddel.
| ἀφείην | Seems to be from ἀφίημι? Aha! This form is listed as an optative. I don’t remember optative endings. I’ll guess 1st Person singular. Upon working on the next words, maybe it’s plural. Means “Let go, free”? |
| ὁπόσους | Adjective, from ὁμόσος, “as great as” |
| ἕλωμεν | Having trouble finding this one. |
| πρὶν | adverb: before, until |
| χρήματα | Not finding this one. |
| δῶσιν | Verb, 3rd Person plural? Can’t find it either. |
Perseus
The end-all-be-all of finding this stuff: the Perseus Project Word Study Tool.
| ἀφείην | Verb, 1 Person singular, aorist optative = “I might have let go” |
| ἕλωμεν | Verb, 1 Person plural aorist subjunctive active = “We may have taken” |
| χρήματα | from χράομαι (should have looked with an α as well as a η!), noun, pl neuter nom/acc = “possessions” |
| δῶσιν | Verb, from δίδωμι, 3rd Person pl aorist subjunctive active = “they may have given/granted” |
Putting It Together
οὐκ ἂν ἀφείην ὁπόσους ἂν ἕλωμεν πρὶν ἂν χρήματα δῶσιν.
Not (ἂν) I might have let go as many as (ἂν) we may have taken before (ἂν) possessions they may have given.
I would not have let as many go free as we might have taken until they had given possessions.
I’m not very happy with this sentence. I feel I’ve got the general gist of it (probably some sort of promise), but the details are messed up. Optatives do screwy things like express wishes or intent and this sentence is full of them. Why or why can’t people just use the indicative? So I think the sentence is generally expressing some sort of promise about not letting as many go as they had taken before they (the enemy I presume?) have given them property.
Oh well. The more I do this, the better (and faster) I’ll get.