Farrago

Friday 21 April 2017

Gerunds and Gerundives in the Wild

Aside from the state motto of New Mexico, crescit eundo, there is the motto of Millfield School in Somerset: molire molendo '(Loosely translated as "to succeed by grinding")'. 'Loosely', of course, because since molior is a deponent verb, molire is a second-person singular indicative or, better for this context, an imperative. The infinitive, as implied by the loose translation, is moliri.

As for the gerundive, and real Latin, there is the formula found in Pompeian electoral dipinti:

aed(ilem/iles) [or duovirum] v(iis) a(edibus) sacr(is) p(ublicis) procurandis oro vos faciatis.
See, for examples, I 1. nos. 11 and 18 in R. Wallace's An Introduction to Wall Inscriptions from Pompeii and Herculaneum (Wauconda, Illinois: Bolchazy-Carducci, 2005).

Wednesday 28 September 2016

The Imperial Cult and LSJ

s.v. ἐπιφάνεια <(A)>, , LSJ reports:

2. esp. of deities appearing to a worshipper, manifestation, D.H.2.68, Plu.Them.30; advent, D.S.2.47; τὰς ὑπ’ αὐτῆς (sc. Ἀρτέμιδος) γενομένας ἐναργεῖς ἐ. SIG867.35 (Ephesus,ii A.D.); a manifestation of divine power, τὰς ἐ. τᾶς Παρθένου Klio16.204 (Chersonesus, iii B.C.), cf.LXX 2 Ma.15.27, D.S.1.25.

3. the first coming of Christ, 2 Ep.Ti.1.10; the second, 1 Ep.Ti.6.14,al.

4. of the accession of Caligula, Inscr.Cos391.

In their notes, Paton and Hicks wrote, 'The same idea is more fully, and more fulsomely, expressed in two inscriptions, Dittenberger, Sylloge (2nd ed.), No. 279 (Cyzicus), and Papers of the American Institute, i. p. 133 (Assos)'.

Wednesday 29 June 2016

Hesychius, Cypriot, and Lesbian?

According to LSJ s.v. ἀπο-λούω, Hesychius glossed ἀπολουσέμεναι· κολ[λ]οβώσειν (Cypr.). That would involve a (1) Lesbian infinitive in -(ε)μεναι for (2) a thematic verb (3) in Cypriot. Therein are three surprises (see Buck, Greek Dialects, sections 154.2 and 155.2-3). Cf. the glossing of athematic σπελλάμεναι by Hesychius as στειλάμεναι. 

[The latter is otherwise only in the grammatical tradition, as in Herodian:
παρ’ Αἰολεῦσι δὲ τῶν ἀμεταβόλων γίνεται, ἀγείρω ἀγέρρω, ἐγείνατο ἐγέννατο, στειλάμεναι στελλάμεναι, εἷμα ἕμμα καὶ τοῦ σ τοσοῦτον τοσσοῦτον.]

The entry in Hesychius simply reads (as per TLG): (6466) ἀπολουσέμεν· κολοβώσειν Φ 455 v. l. Il.21.455 reads, στεῦτο δ’ ὅ γ’ ἀμφοτέρων ἀπολεψέμεν οὔατα χαλκῷ, preceded by a diple. There may well be less sense in 'to wash off ears with a sword' than in ἀπολεψέμεν 'to lop off...' or to 'peel off...'. There is no -αι after -μεν and no reference to Cypriots.

That said, Schmidt ed.min. tells me that the codex has -μεναι· κολλοβῶσιν. His entry ends '(Κύπριοι)'.

Here, though, is an example of a -σεμεν infinitive as a future, not as a sigmatic aorist (thematic aorists are different again in this regard).

Tuesday 28 June 2016

Indo-European warriors in the Hindu Kush

'It is commonly admitted that the parent language possessed an adjectival suffix *-es- which served to create compound adjectives from neuter s-stem nouns. The type is usually illustrated by pointing to equations like δυσμενής = Skt. (not RV) durmanas-, Gatha-Av. dužmanah-, Late Av. dušmanah 'having an evil mind' from which a nom. sg. *dus-menēs is reconstructable.'

T. Meissner. S-stem nouns and adjectives in Greek and Proto-Indo-European: a diachronic study in word formation. (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2006): 161.

An Internet forum featured a discussion of the origins, spread, and modern use of this word in Hindi, Urdu, and beyond, especially on as spoken by a correspondent's grand-mother (!). More at Wiktionary, s.v.

The adjective is familiar from Greek poetry, but also appears in non-literary inscriptions (late 6th c. BC Arcadian; mid 5th c. Cretan  (a) (b)).

In this video, the eponymous faction of the Hezb-e-Islami is seen with its leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar somewhere in Pakistan or Afghanistan, at some time probably in the 1980s.

Listen to the word they sing over and over.

There's more from or about Hekmatyar elsewhere on Youtube.

The adjective δυσμενής appears in some Argive inscriptions (Colvin 2007, no. 38 = Buck, no. 85 = Schwyzer, no. 83a) and, according to Colvin (2007: 142), is 'found also in Crete, Gortyn Law Code'.




Colvin's reference must be VI 46 (near the end of that column: see above), where Schwyzer, DGE 179 has αἰ κ ἐδδυσμενίανς πε|ρα[θε͂ι κ]ἐˉκς ἀλλοπολίας (cf. SEG XXIII 567): 'if one is sold into hostile hands,... (Buck 1955: 327).

This section is damaged, particularly at this point in this line, as the close-up below shows:

Line 46 is the middle of the three lines in the close-up.

More recent editions have (ll. 46-50): vac. αἰ κ’ ἐδδυσ̣[άμενον] πέ|ραν[νδε] ἐκς ἀλλοπολίας ὐπ’ ἀν|άνκας ἐκόμενος κελομένοˉ τι|ς λύσεται, ἐπὶ το͂ι ἀλλυσαμέν|οˉι ἔˉμεˉν πρίν κ’ ἀποδο͂ι τὸ ἐπιβά|λλον.
'If someone liberates another on account of an obligation towards him from some city because he was found out of the boarder ...' (the translation from a locally-obtained guidebook). Better, Willetts (1967: 44): 'If anyone, bound by necessity (ὑπ ἀνάγκης ἐχόμενος), should get a man gone away to a strange place set free from a foreign city at his own request,...'.

We should not conclude too much about the attestation and distribution of a compound adjective from a gap on the stone (and on its casts).

LSJ and the dialects: 'poetic'...

"In general LSJ has hitherto been somewhat loath to draw attention to varieties of register (a notable exception of their willingness to indicate that a word is 'poetic': not always with a justification or propery consideration of dialect variation 67)."

67 "... Some, but by no means all, of the questionable entries in LSJ can be attributed to 'Athenocentrism'; the majority, however, reflect indolence and ignorance , and a failure to perceive that dialect words are not themselves poetic."

D. Bain, Praefanda: the lexicography of ancient Greek aischrologia (ed. by Amy Coker). Eikasmos XXV (2014): 391-416, at 409.

Monday 27 June 2016

An Attic Paper-boy? Probably, 'one who brings joy'.

The inscription known as IG1281 (= IG I² 1051) reads ΧΑΡΤΟ and no more. Since it is from Attica and dated to c. 450 BCE, the <Ο> could represent or <ου> or <ω>. If this is a noun, the first and the last can be ruled out on morphological grounds (I presume that the iota of the dative singular would have been written at this time).


Kurtz-Boardman, p. 123, fig. 22a
LGPN takes this as the genitive χάρτου of a name Χάρτης, as in the Index to IG (cf., perh., papyrus(-roll) χάρτης m., Latin charta f.) and, as of today, knows only this instance. An alternative is suggested: Χάρτος (as in the Index to IG Supp. and IG I²); cf. χαρτός.

There are several names in χαρ- [χαίρω]. 


See Bechtel, pp. 469-470. See also Bechtel, pp. 468-469, for names related to χαρμή.

Friday 24 June 2016

Arcadian round-up

To begin with... 
μίνονσαι = μένουσαι (Buck, no. 22 = Schwyzer 657):
(1) *ntya- > nsya (Buck, sect. 77.3), (2) -ns- preserved, and (3)-ιν- < -εν-.

Monday 20 June 2016

Notes on Ionic verse inscriptions

BMI 952 (= Schwyzer 430, IG IX,1 649, and CEG I 391: LSAG) features:
(1) a masc. a-stem, without final sigma, of a unique personal name: Ἐξοίδα (IG l.c. has Εὐσ-); (2) the genitive singular Διϝὸς; and, (3) the spelling of the dual ϙόˉροιν.

The Poinikastas description amuses me: 'Bronze disk dedicated to the Kioskouroi by Exoides, probably from Kephallenia'.

Triphiodorus

The Loeb blurb comments, "and Tryphiodorus (papyri reveal the correct spelling to be “Triphiodorus”) deals with The Taking of Troy in 691 lines, beginning with the Wooden Horse and ending with the sacrifice of Polyxena.".

These papyri cannot be the one from Oxyrhynchus, P.Oxy. XLI 2946. The evidence of the documentary papyri can be assembled through Trismegistos People.

If the first member is τριφι-ο-, the Graeco-Egyptian deity Triphis is involved in a name with a geographically restricted distribution.

Lexical studies (Italian).

M.L. West wrote in Gnomon 42.7 (1970), 657-661 at 661, of Livrea's edition of Colluthus: 'I hope that Livrea will persevere with his edition of Triphiodorus ; that he will give it a more comprehensive introduction, a less constipated apparatus, and a better-balanced commentary; and that he will stop spelling the poet's name with a y.'.

LGPN knows no bearers of this name at this date of either spelling.

'Get your s-stem personal names right, boy!'

Phrynichus wrote:

(127q) Ἡρακλέα, Περικλέα, Θεμιστοκλέα ἐπεκτείνων *τὴν τελευταίαν συλλαβὴν (*τὴν
ἐσχάτην) λέγε, ἀλλὰ μὴ Ἡρακλῆν, Περικλῆν, Θεμιστοκλῆν.

See also Buck, sect. 108.1 (and a) and 108.2. In relation to the second of those issues, note that Plato has Σωκράτη as the accusative, but Xenophon has Σωκράτην.

Thursday 9 June 2016

Why we should be grateful for Hesychius...

In addition to ἐλύμνιαι, Hesychius contains the following gloss:
λυκίσκος· μὴ ἔχουσα ἀξονίσκον τροχιλία, τρῆμα δὲ μόνον h ἢ ἄνοδος δώματος (LSJ δόματος) gn.

(Sketch to follow)

The noun in question occurs only in one manuscript of Mark the Deacon's Life of Porphyrius 98 (so Jerusalem Ms. H: others οἰκίσκος and D.A. Russell's extract, no. 100, in An Anthology of Greek Prose, pp. 279-281):

Κατελθοῦσα δὲ διά τινος λυκίσκου εἰς τὸν αὐτῆς οἶκον, ἤγαγεν τὸν ψίαθον καὶ τύλην ἀχύρων· καθαπλώσασα τὸν ψίαθον ὑπέβαλεν τὴν τύλην, καὶ προσπεσοῦσα τοῖς ποσὶ
τοῦ μακαρίου, παρεκάλει αὐτὸν γεύσασθαι τῶν μετρίων αὐτῆς βρωμάτων καὶ μὴ ἀναξιοπαθῆσαι ἐπὶ τῇ πτωχείᾳ αὐτῆς· ἦν γὰρ καὶ πρὸς ἑσπέραν.

More compounds and dialectal comparanda

ὑ-φορβός (Hom.), συ- (Od.) and thematised συ-ο- (prose); Εὔ-φορβος in Il.16.808, 850, 17.59, and 81.

ξεν- and -απάτης E.Tr.866, fr.667 but -απάτᾱς Pi.O.10.34.
ξειν- and -απάτᾱς Ibyc., but -απάτης E.Med.1392 (-ου).

ξενο-δᾰίκτᾱς Pi.Parth.Fr.13.30, but ξεινο-δαΐκτᾱς Ε.Hrcl.391.

Contrast -ᾱγόρᾱς (e.g. Cypriot Ἑλλ-, Ἐσθλ-, and Ἐσλ-) and -ά̄γορος (on a late archaic Cypriot gem Ἐσλᾱγόρο ἐμι). For the pair, see Masson-Heubeck, Kadmos 1 (1962): 151-152. In all, A.A. Thompson, 'Personal names from Ancient Cyprus with the element Ἑλλ(ο-)', Studies in Greek Linguistics 8. Thessalonica, 1987: 123-131.

Contrast Βου-κεφάλας [κεφαλή] and *-κέφαλος, seen in Latin (Gaius Plinius Secundus, Naturalis Historia 4.18.8); cf. -a and -an in 6.77.8 and 8.154.2) and, perh., in the gen.sg. Βουκεφάλου (contrast Βουκεφάλᾱ, and, perhaps, Βουκεφαλᾶ): Arethas, the Alexander Romance: Recensio γ (lib. 3) 33R line 106, Recensio Byzantina poetica (cod. Marcianus 408) 891, 3616, 6108), and headings in Recensio E (cod. Eton College 163) 18 and Recensio φ 21; (cf. 'Macedonian' κεβλή).

Wednesday 8 June 2016

'Our fathers' in Alcaeus

The gen.pl. πατέρων 6.7, 339, 371, 394 and nom.sg. (2x) and gen.sg.in 130.20.
339 ὠς λόγος ἐκ πατέρων ὄρωρε is of particular interest (cf. 42.1-4: ὠς λόγος κάκων ἀ[ | Περράμωι καὶ παῖσ[ι | ἐκ σέθεν πίκρον, π[ |Ἴλιον ἴραν.

Alcaeus, the unjustly neglected Lesbian

The Lobel-Page edition of Alcaeus consists of 4,888 words, while that of Sappho consists of 3,459 words (these figures are from the TLG). That's the fact, give or take; the interpretation is less straightforward,* if any can or, indeed, should be made. It depends both on chance survival of what happened to be in circulation in small set of locations and on deliberate, but selective, preservation.

So, more of Alcaeus has come down to us from Antiquity, whether on papyrus or as extracts and fragments, even of only a single word, that suited the needs of grammarians and literary critics.

Yet, editions of the two 'Great Lesbians' usually put Sappho before her (allegedly older) contemporary and add 'et SAPPHUS vel ALCAEI FRAGMENTA' 'et SAPPHO et ALCAEUS'. There is, as far as I know, no translation of Alcaeus alone, while there are several of Sappho alone.

* What, for example, counts as a word? A fully preserved lexical item, for sure, but what about partially preserved words that can be reasonably supplemented and what about a single letter or letter trace as the sole residue of a word?

Both are mentioned by Herodotus (Alcaeus, briefly, at 5.95.1-2 and Sappho, and her family, at greater length).

Tuesday 7 June 2016

Hyphenation in LSJ

John Chadwick wrote in the 'Case for Replacing LSJ' (BICS 11 (1994): 2):
"One of the worst features of the 9th edition was certainly not the decision of the editors at all, but of the publisher. Every user must curse many times a day the idea of saving a little space by grouping words in long paragraphs. It would matter less that each lemma does not appear at the same point in the column, if at least it were given in full in bold type. Alas, the lemma is often reduced to three letters, two or even one letter, which not even bold type can render easily visible to the searching eye. In a lecture given in Oxford in 1948 R. W. Chapman, the Secretary to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, under whom the project was launched, had the effrontery to claim credit for this astonishing lack of perceptivity. But this passage of his lecture was wisely omitted from the published text. What other damage he may have inflicted, I do not know."

This Chapman can also be found in the app.crit. to the OCT of Plato's Laws...


The run of words ὑπάλ-ειμμα, -ει-πτος, -ειπτρον, -ειπτρίς, -είφω, -ειψις (p. 1851) frames the problem neatly. Such hyphenation follows the formation of the words (ὑπ-, ἀλειπ-) nor their syllabification (ὑ-πα-λειμ-μα, etc.).

Such printing also obscures the accentuation in the ὑπάλ-, when followed by -ειπτρίς and -είφω, gives inexplicable, unnecessary, and impossible doubling of the accent on a single word (no enclitics are involved).

If that is possible, why should ὑπαλγέω, ὑπαλεαίνω, and ὑπαλεύομαι (all hyphenless) not be grouped under ὑπαλ- also, except on the criterion of a shared root and thus meaning? Cf. the ὑο- words which share a root, but have a range of meanings depending on the second element. Better still would be to divide at ὑπ-αλγέω, -αλεαίνω, -αλειμμα, etc.

The syllabification is a puzzling facet, since no less/other than H. Stuart Jones wrote 'Appendix V: Division of Greek Words', p. 75 in Horace Hart (M.A. Printer to the University of Oxford), Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, 19th edn. (5th for publication): London and Oxford, 1905.

Based on papyri of Bacchylides, Thucydides, and Hypereides, he gives three exceptions to the rule that a syllable ends in a vowel:
(1) the consonant is doubled: Συρακούσ-σας, πολ-λῷ,  'and so' Βάκ-χος, Σαπ-φώ, Ἀτ-θίς;
(2) the first consonant is a liquid or nasal (or, according to some, a <σ>): ἄμ-φακες, ἐγ-χέσπαλον, τέρ-πον, πάν-τες, ἄλ-σος; ἄν-θρωπος, ἐρ-χθέντος, ἀν-δρῶν; but βά-κτρον, κάτο-πτρον, ἐχ-θρός; θέλ-κτρον, Λαμ-πτραί.
(3) Compounds. 'For modern printing the preference must be to divide the compounds παρ-όντος, ἐφ-ῃρημένος, but ἀπέ-βη may stand as well as ἀπ-έβη.'

A different issue surfaces in αἰνό-δακρυς, , = foreg., IG12(7).115 (Amorgos) [2nd/1st c. BCE]. Note the absence of an indication of inflection (-υος cf. πολύ-δακρυς) and a date for the inscription. The foreg(oing) is αἰνο-γόνος child of praise, which is a very different meaning. Was there ever an entry for *αἰνο-δάκρυος with which 'foreg.' would have been appropriate? Cf., e.g., πολυ-δάκρυος, but note that there '= sq.' directs the reader to πολύ-δακρυς for the meaning.


Friday 3 June 2016

Named and anonymous horses

In addition to the legend(s) of Bucephalus, a form of the Alexander Romance also names another of Alexander's horses: Πετάσιος (recensio γ, Ι.19 (line 31). LGPN knows of no human bearers of that name.

Herodotus tell us that the name of Darius' horse was given on a monument, but only the name of his groom, Obares, is reported to us.

Thursday 2 June 2016

(-)θηκ- and fēc-


There are places in which τίθημι (better ἔ-θηκ-α) has the sense of its Latin cognate faciō (better fēcῑ). As LSJ s.v. B puts it 'put in a certain state or condition, much the same as ποιεῖν, ποιεῖσθαι, and so often to be rendered by our make:'.

Or, as Geoff Horrocks put it in his discussion of ἤθηκη in SEG XLVI 1313, the verb can mean 'make someone happy', but it cannot mean 'make a crown out of a lump of gold' (as facio can). The latter, as he notes, seems to be required in that inscription.

The point is underlined by a 'quotation' from Isaiah 5:20 in Mark the Deacon's Life of Porphyrius, 90:
Οὐαὶ τοῖς ποιοῦσι τὸ γλυκὺ πικρὸν καὶ τὸ πικρὸν γλυκύ,
τοῖς τιθεῖσι τὸ σκότος φῶς καὶ τὸ φῶς σκότος.

Ralhfs' edn. has the nominative masculine plural participle τίθεντες in both places and after οὐαί has οἱ λέγοντες τὸ πονηρὸν καλὸν καὶ τὸ καλὸν πονηρόν, κτλ.

Derivation in the wild, or 'because that's the name of the place!'

Sometimes, authors explain after whom or what a place or people was named and thus illustrate derivation to form an adjective, with various suffixes, from an noun. More examples to follow... ?

Herodotus, I 7.3
Οἱ δὲ πρότερον Ἄγρωνος βασιλεύσαντες ταύτης τῆς χώρης ἦσαν ἀπόγονοι Λυδοῦ τοῦ Ἄτυος, ἀπ’ ὅτεο ὁ δῆμος Λύδιος ἐκλήθη ὁ πᾶς οὗτος, πρότερον Μηίων καλεόμενος.
 
Mark the Deacon, Life of Porphyrius, 64:
Ἦσαν δὲ ἐν τῇ πόλει ναοὶ εἰδώλων δημόσιοι ὀκτώ, τοῦ τε Ἡλίου καὶ τῆς Ἀφροδίτης καὶ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος καὶ τῆς Κόρης καὶ τῆς Ἑκάτης καὶ τὸ λεγόμενον Ἡρωεῖον καὶ τῆς Τύχης τῆς πόλεως, ὃ ἐκάλουν Τυχαῖον, καὶ τὸ Μαρνεῖον, ὃ ἔλεγον εἶναι τοῦ Κρηταγενοῦς Διός, ὃ ἐνόμιζον εἶναι ἐνδοξότερον πάντων τῶν ἱερῶν τῶν ἁπανταχοῦ.

ibid., 91:
Ὁ δὲ μακάριος ἐποίησεν πάντας ἀναθεματίσαι τὸν Μάνην τὸν ἀρχηγὸν τῆς αὐτῶν αἱρέσεως, ἐξ οὗ καὶ Μανιχαῖοι ἐκλήθησαν, καὶ κατηχήσας αὐτοὺς δεόντως ἐπὶ πλείστας ἡμέρας προσήγαγεν τῇ ἁγίᾳ καθολικῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ.

ibid., 92:
Μετὰ δὲ πενταετῆ χρόνον ἐτελειώθη τὸ ἔργον τῆς ἁγίας ἐκκλησίας τῆς μεγάλης, ἐκλήθη δὲ Εὐδοξιανὴ ἐκ τοῦ ὀνόματος τῆς θεοφιλεστάτης Εὐδοξίας τῆς βασιλίδος.

Wednesday 1 June 2016

L. Palmer on the impact of Linear B and the need for further research therein

"Its [that is, The Greek Language's] completion was put off for over twenty years by the decipherment of the Linear B script, which gave us direct knowledge of Greek some five centuries earlier than Homer. Michael Ventris's brilliant discovery provided for two decades the material for a new and highly productive academic industry. Now that there are signs that the seam has been worked out and that, in default of new and rich finds, Linear B studies have virtually reached the end of the road, the time is ripe to incorporate the results into a general work on the Greek language [that is, the 1980 volume of that title]."
The Greek Language. Faber and Faber. London and Boston, 1980: Preface, xi

Discuss.

Tuesday 31 May 2016

'That's all, folks!'

One lecturer used to end each instalment of his lectures on Modern Greek with a simple ἀυτά!

There follow some comparanda with a different pronoun-adjective:
P.Oxy. I 119. 14-15 (2nd-3rd century CE):
ἂμ μὴ πέμψῃς οὐ μὴ φά|γω, οὐ μὴ πείνω· ταῦτα.
'If you do not send it, I won't eat, I won't drink! So there!

GVI 1959: (Rome: late 2nd-mid 3rd century CE
οὐκ ἤμην, γενόμην·| ἤμην, οὐκ εἰμί· τοσαῦτα·
'I was not; I was born; I was. I am not. That's yet lot!' (Or, 'That's all, folks!').

Mark the Deacon, Life of Porphyrius, 84 (at the end of the account of the construction of a church on the site of a recently destroyed temple):
καὶ ταῦτα μὲν περὶ τούτων.
'That's enough about that.'.
          

Monday 23 May 2016

What's in a name

Ἐτεο-κλῆς or -κλέης, the name of the 'defender' of Thebes against the 'Theban (or Argive) Seven', is found:

(a) in Mycenean as e-te-wo-ke-re-we-i-jo as a patronymic adjective 'of Ἐτεϝοκλέϝης' (PY An 657 and Aq 64); cf. the phrase in the genitive at Iliad 4.386: βίης Ἐρεοκληείη.

(b) in Sanskrit as satyá-śravas ('adj. nom. m. 'of true fame,' becomes the name of a man...'; see A.A. MacDonell, A Sanskrit Grammar for Students, p. 176, sect. 189b).

Cf. -ανδρος, -ά̄νωρ.

See also M.L. West, 'The Rise of Greek Epic', JHS 108 (1988): 153, for other fame names throughout the IE daughter languages.

See also Pthu-śravas RV I 116.21, jiśvan- (?), jāśva RV I 116.16 (p. 183 and 185 of Ο' Flaherty's translation, but R̥jāśravas in its Index, p. 338).

Friday 20 May 2016

Locative Roma-i

The form was restored on a sword, excavated in 2003, discussed by PhDiva and Gary Devore, but is explicit on the Cista Ficoroni (text at Clauss-Slaby).

Herodotus and Muhammad Ali Jinnah on the ingredients of (an) ethnic identity

Herodotus, famously, says (that the Athenians said...):

Πολλά τε γὰρ καὶ μεγάλα ἐστὶ τὰ διακωλύοντα ταῦτα μὴ ποιέειν μηδ’ ἢν ἐθέλωμεν· πρῶτα μὲν καὶ μέγιστα τῶν θεῶν τὰ ἀγάλματα καὶ τὰ οἰκήματα ἐμπεπρησμένα τε
καὶ συγκεχωσμένα, τοῖσι ἡμέας ἀναγκαίως ἔχει τιμωρέειν ἐς τὰ μέγιστα μᾶλλον ἤ περ ὁμολογέειν τῷ ταῦτα ἐργασαμένῳ· αὖτις δὲ τὸ Ἑλληνικόν, ἐὸν ὅμαιμόν τε καὶ ὁμόγλωσσον, καὶ θεῶν ἱδρύματά τε κοινὰ καὶ θυσίαι ἤθεά τε ὁμότροπα, τῶν προδότας γενέσθαι Ἀθηναίους οὐκ ἂν εὖ ἔχοι.
8.144.2

Muhammad Ali Jinnah's reply (17 September 1944) to Gandhi’s contention (15 September 1944); “I find no parallel in history for a body of converts and their descendants claiming to be a nation apart from the parent stock":

"We maintain and hold that Muslims and Hindus are two major nations by any definition or test of a nation. We are a nation of a hundred million people, and, what is more, we are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of value and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and traditions, aptitudes and ambitions – in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all canons of international law we are a nation."

Architecture gets another mention in this speech of December 1946.

Monday 16 May 2016

Some more compounds

From LSJ s.v.v.:

ἀνδρό-παις, αιδος, , man-boy, i. e. boy with a man's mind, of Parthenopaeus, A. Th.533; of Troilus, S.Fr.619, cf. Ar.Fr.53D.

ἀνδρό-πορνος, , cinaedus, Theopomp.Hist.17. - 'male prostitute' or 'man-whore' ?

ἀ-τυχής, but later μεσ(σ)ό-τυχος.

Possessive compounds: λεοντο-κέφαλος and -πρόσωπος. These are not nouns that refer to trophies or parts of rugs.
 
χρῡσο-σανδᾰλαιμοποτιχθονία, , goddess of the lower world wearing golden sandals and drinking blood, epith. of Hecate, Tab. Defix. in Rh.Mus.55.250 (-ατμο- lapis) = Audollent, 242.

ὠκῠ-πέδῑλος, ον, with swift sandals, swift-footed, Nonn.D.8.220.
ὠκύ-ᾰλος Il.15.705,
ὠκυ-πόδης Anth.5.222, ὠκύ-πος Anth.9.525.25 -πους Il.2.383

ὠκῠ-πέτης Il.8.42 advbl.
 
 

Wednesday 11 May 2016

patrii sermonis egestas

So Lucretius 1.832 and 3.260. Horace, Ars Poetica, also addressed this point and others of lexical interest (ll. 47-72).

dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum
reddiderit iunctura novum. si forte necesse est          
indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum et
fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis,          
continget dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter,           
et nova fictaque nuper habebunt verba fidem, si
Graeco fonte cadent parce detorta. quid autem
Caecilio Plautoque dabit Romanus ademptum
Vergilio Varioque? ego cur, adquirere pauca
si possum, invideor, cum lingua Catonis et Enni
sermonem patrium ditaverit et nova rerum
nomina protulerit? licuit semperque licebit    
signatum praesente nota producere nomen.    
ut silvae foliis pronos mutantur in annos,
prima cadunt: ita verborum vetus interit aetas,
et iuvenum ritu florent modo nata vigentque.
debemur morti nos nostraque: sive receptus
terra Neptunus classes Aquilonibus arcet,
regis opus, sterilisve diu palus aptaque remis             
vicinas urbes alit et grave sentit aratrum,       
seu cursum mutavit iniquum frugibus amnis   
doctus iter melius: mortalia facta peribunt,    
nedum sermonum stet honos et gratia vivax.   
multa renascentur quae iam cecidere cadentque          
quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus,      
quem penes arbitrium est et ius et norma loquendi.

Words and meanings come and go. Cf. too 'The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written in another language. Ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again.' -- Tom Stoppard, Arcadia.

'The best words in the best order', as my English teacher used to quote.

Other notes from the AP shall follow. For now, there is the plural of the personal name Piso (ll. 6 and 235, in reference to the father and his sons) and of the toponym Anticyra (ll. 299-301): nanciscetur enim pretium nomenque poetae, | si tribus Anticyris caput insanabile numquam | tonsori Licino commiserit (Loeb: 'for surely one will win the esteem and name of poet if he never entrusts to the barber Licinus a head that three Anticyras cannot cure'). Cf. Persius 4.16.