5 1] w » Ee ¢ Librarp of Benjamin Ine Wheeler GIFT OF bE, ZL Jil pn asl IL —— ey Ha > > ’ 2D ) yey) E nD 2 IFc Ey ¥iH 3% 2 rn 5 yo > 3) 2h >: 352 335250000) o PP 2%) >} 2) > 3 BI. I DY 5 9 ASE LS yn) 335 Yn > > : 3h a) >> 205500 >, > 3:3:3 RIE) >) > 2D > J ) ar! [Lom the Cambridge Philological Transactions] rel 3 De t HE oe S RNeeee & ch tose HELOLOGICAL TRANSACTIONS. Tren aa O GRAMMATICAL ANNOTATIONS UPON THE OEDIPUS REX. Bur for the appearance of Mr Whitelaw’s most instructive series of comments upon what is perhaps the hardest play of Sophocles, the following notes would probably have never been committed to paper. In fact they are nearly confined to passages of the play as to whose interpretation I have found myself already in substantial agreement with Mr Whitelaw— an agreement which I value very highly—and where I feel the settlement of the question at issue may be advanced by an independent treatment. I am not less pleased to share Mr Whitelaw’s appreciation of the book which he has taken as the basis of his annotations, and to add the homage of a former pupil to what he truly calls Professor Jebb’s “magni- ficent edition.” The questions which first claim our attention are questions of grammar. As such the mind must approach them with a specially resolute and fortified tone. For nowhere is error so insidious or so manifold. At every turn the grammarian is lured by some shape or other from the path before him. He is continually being tempted to draw more ample induc- tions than his facts will warrant and to dispose of awkward exceptions by conjectural force or metaphysical circumvention. His views revert far too frequently to the circumstances under which they were formed; and he perhaps never wholly emanci- pates himself from the home tyranny of custom and tradi- tion. The Greek Imperative. Oed. R. 543 0ic@ os moingov; Mr Whitelaw says, ‘It is to be hoped that Prof. Jebb has disposed finally of the explanation of this idiom which makes 7olnaov the principal verb’ This is a hope which I most heartily share. But without going into the archaeology of the controversy, some facts at once occur which are enough to make one despair. THE GREEK IMPERATIVE. 5I In the first edition of his grammar published in 1835 R. Kiihner correctly explained the imperative in such cases as an instance of “the common Greek passage from indirect narration to direct ”—(a better way of putting it would have been ‘the retention of the direct form in the indirect narration’); and this explanation (in the translation of Kiihner by Jelf) has been before the English-reading public for many years. But, in spite of this, the ‘Do—do you know what?’ hypothesis appears in works as recent as the Moods and Tenses and the School Grammar (1881) of so distinguished a grammarian as Prof. Goodwin, and even in the new edition of Hadley by Prof Allen (1884), to say nothing of school- books or grammars published abroad’. Even Kiihner in his later years seems to have become frightened at the sub- ordinate imperative, as he goes so far as to allow that the _ speaker ‘intends to say olc@ 6 xpn oe Spav; or oid Spaces ;’—a weak and unnecessary admission. The old fallacy, cloked conveniently as an “idiom ”, still lives on, as though the abrupt imperative olc@ © Spacov; ‘Do you know what you have got to do?’ could be got out of the timid and uncertain mixture ‘Do—do you know what?’, as though there were any authority for such Greek as ola 0; or the like, or as though there were precedent for a transposition which takes the words from a place where they have some meaning, to a place where they are absolutely devoid of any. So strange and pertinacious an error must have had an origin; and it has had a very natural and pardonable one. In no respect perhaps do the modern languages differ more from the Greek than in the use of the imperative; and the difficulty which this causes has been increased, at any rate in English, by the conventional translations of the forms. We decline éNGé go (thou). éNbérw let him go. éNbete go (ye). éENbovrav let them go. 1 Mr F. E. Thompson’s Attic Syntax, however, is a notable example to the contrary. 4—2 411266 52 CAMBRIDGE PHILOLOGICAL TRANSACTIONS. None of the English forms are capable of subordination; the 2nd and 4th least of all, as the proper subject of the command (he or they) is in the objective case. But in a language like Greek, with a syntax so much more flexible than our own, it was just as easy to make this expression of a command subordinate in structure as to make it inter- rogative in form. We cannot say ‘Do you know in what— help ?” nor ‘Let this be possible?’ but the Greeks can say, “0ia@ b pot cvumpaov; and ‘TovTo é€éocTw;’ as we shall see below. : For the sake of completeness I will give all the usages of the Greek imperative, noting each case where the conventional translation fails and illustrating them by examples taken in the main from Kiihner’s dusfiihrliche Grammatik (1870), 11. § 397. In (1) ordinary independent commands the English use corresponds to the Greek; and the customary English trans- lations ‘Go’, ‘Let him go’ are adequate. (2) These will also generally do where the imperative is used for a concession or supposition. Soph. Ant. 1168 mXovTer Te yap kat oikov, el Bove, péya kai &f Tipavvov oyiu éxwr: éav& ami TovTwy 70 yalpew, TAN éyd kamvod ckids ovk av mpiaiunr, Plat. Symp. 201 C oltws éxétw ws av Aéyes ‘let it be as you propose’, though it may sometimes be better translated ‘suppose that’, Xen. Hier. 8. 3 mpocetmdTw Twa dulikds o Te dpywv kai 0 dieTys. (8) After a relative pronoun, that is in sentences not strictly dependent, we can still translate by the English imperative : Soph. 0. C. 473 kpatipes...dv kpat’ épevrov, ‘whose tops cover’, Kl. 1309 wijtnp & év oikois Hv av un) Selans ‘whom fear not’, provided that the relative is not the subject of the sentence. Directly it is, the translation breaks down: Herod. 1. 89 kdatigor Tdv Sopupopwy émi macnor Thor mUANoL GuAdKovs of AeyorTwy @s K.T.\. can only be rendered by sacrificing either the relative or the conventional equivalent, perhaps as ‘and let them say’, but better ‘who are to say’, ‘who must say’. (4) After émel, e.g. Soph. El. 351 émel 6i8aov n pal é€ éuod, Ar. Vesp. 73, the difficulty is generally avoided by translating the conjunction THE "GREEK IMPERATIVE. 53 ‘for’. Similarly (5) with os, although the 3rd person may conveniently be rendered differently; Dem. 20, 14 ovée yap el wavv ypnotos éod és éuod iy évexa éoTo kT. ‘as he may be so far as I am concerned’. (6) So with dare, translated ‘so’; Plato Crit. 45 B €rotuos 8¢ val KéBns...doTe...unTe... amokauns ceavrov cwoar unTe...0vayepés gov yevéo bo. (7) The 3rd person of the concessive imperative may be used in a question, like the 1st person of the deliberative subjunc- tive to which it is closely allied. I know of no example out- side Plato. Laws, 935 D 7) dtaraBwpev diya 7é maillew kal ur, kal wailovte pév éEéa Tw Twi mepl Tov Néyew yehoiov dvev Oupod cvvreTayuéve 8¢ kal pera Quuod, kabdmep elmoper, pi) éféoTw pmdevl; TobTo wév olv ovdauds avaberéov, & & éféotw kal pi, Toto vopobernowueda. id. p. 801 D T( ody; 0 moA\dkis €pwTd, kelaBw viopos Nuiv; 800 B kelobw; so 820 E. 822 ¢ radra nuiv ote cuvykeiocbw; Rep. 561, 562 7/ ovr; Terayfw july kara dnuokpariav 6 TolodTos avip Ws dnpoxpariros ops dv mposayopevéuevos; Pol. 295, 296 16 d¢ vopoleriicavte pr) é€éoTw 0) apd TabTa Erepa mpocTda- oew; Theaet. 170 D bray ov xplvas Tv mapa cavre mpos we amopalvy wep Twos Sofav, gol pév 8) TodTo arnbis oTw Kata Tov éxelvov Noyov, uly 8¢ 81) Tols AANOLS 0UK Ea TL KpiTals vevéabau, 7) ael oe kplvoper andy Sofalew ; Here ow; ‘Is this to be true for you?’ is parallel with ov €s7i yevéobas, not with xpivouer which is possibly corrupt for «plvewper. We now come to the imperative in subordinated construc- tion. First (8) the ordinary imperative can be subordinated both in the 2nd and 3rd persons without change of form. This much-canvassed construction appears to occur only after oloba followed by a question. It thus presents a certain analogy to (7) and its subordination (10). «kelofOw; ‘Must it be laid down? épwtd el kelobw; ‘I ask whether it is to be laid down’ were both possible to the Greek. But avumpagor; ‘Is it my command that you help me? would have been absurd. No question can arise as to the command being given; it can only arise as regards the knowledge which the person addressed should have of the command. - Thus in Eur. Heracl. 451 aX’ ole § pov avumpafor; ‘Do you know 54 CAMBRIDGE PHILOLOGICAL TRANSACTIONS. the thing that you must help me in?” With a negative and the subj., Soph. 0. C. 75 ola, & Ev, &s viv pn oparis; either ‘Do you know how you are to avoid error now?’ or ‘that you must not err now’? The third person is rarer than the second : and Prof. Jebb in his note gives only two examples of it; Eur. I. T' 1203 olo0a viv & pot yevéobw; and Ar. Ach. 1064 o0lc® ws moelrw; (moweire which is conjectured is questionable Greek). The rarity of this usage is not due however to its greater boldness, which is only apparent as we have seen above, but simply to the fact that orders in the 3rd person are much less common than those in the 2nd. It may be noted firstly, as characteristic of the usage, that the relative is definite (6s) not indefinite (éo7is), as a particular thing is commanded. Menander, Mein. 4, 297, oid’ & T¢ moincov, is apparently an exception. Secondly that, just as 1s occasionally the case in principal sentences, the future replaces the imper. in one or two passages. Eur. Oycl. 131 0lac@ olv 0 Spaceis; is a certain instance, and Eur. Med. 600 0lcd’ ds perev€er; is probably another. Kiihner is therefore wrong in suggesting that the imper. is put for the future. Thirdly, as Grimm has pointed out in an excellent paper in Kuhn's Zeutschrift (vol. I. 1852 pp. 144 ff), there are analo- gous usages in Old and Middle High German. Grimm quotes from the old language, Ottfried 1v. 19. 49 sis bimuni- got thaz thu unsih nu gidua wis and two other passages, and quite a number from Middle High German, e.g. Rol. 14. 22 ich sage dir, herre, wie du tuo, Dietr. 2945 ich wil dir sagen waz du tuo, Herfort 84. 35 weis tu, son, waz du tuo =olc6’ 6 dpacov, Gudr. 149. 2 ich rate dir waz du tuo. Grimm points out that whereas in Greek the prevailing idiom is ‘Do you know what you are to do? in M. H. G., it is ‘I will tell you what you are to do’. There are (9) some other subordinations with the 3rd person also falling under the head of indirect discourse. Thus we have it after deifac: Thue. 4. 92 fin. (ypn) Npas Setfar OTL Gv pev édlevtar mpos ToUs un apvvouévovs émibvres kTacOwaav ols 8¢ yevvalov Tv avTey del é\ev- Ocpodv payn dvavrayoviaTol am avtéy ovk amiaact. Cp. Laws 935 & in the passage already quoted ¢ & éféoTw ral wy) CONTRASTS OF pn AND ov. 55 vopolernodueda. ~Lastly (10) the imperative in questions of (6) may be put obliquely: Laws 800 E 10 8¢ TocoiTov Nas avTovs émavepwTd TAN TOV ékpayelwv Tals wdals el mp@TOV €v ToD juiv apéorov kelo Ow. Before dismissing this subject, I must (11) call attention to an extraordinary construction where the 1st person plural of the hortative conjunctive is found after ef u7 ‘unless’ and, where like the 2nd and 3rd of the imperative, it must be translated ‘we are to’. Plato Cratyl. 425 D ov yap éxouev TouTov BéNTiov els 6 Ti émavevéykwuev wept anbelas TOV TPOTWY ovoudTwy, €L m1 dpa 81, domep oi Tpaywdo- moto émedav TL amopdow éml Tas pnyavas katadelyovot Oeovs aipovtes, kal nNuels oUTws elToVTES ATANNAY® [LEV OTL x.T.\. ‘unless we are to get rid of the subject by saying that etc” By the side of a construction like this, oic@ 6 dpdcov; seems hardly remarkable. Contrasts of un and ov. 397. o undév eldws Oidimovs. It is hard to decide here between Prof. Jebb and Mr Whitelaw. Mr Whitelaw’s ex- planation of the undev as generic ‘I the know-nothing Oedipus’ (6a7is unbév 716m), accords well with the character of Greek and in particular of Sophoclean expression; and his remarks about the concessive intention of such an expression and its equiva- lence to the Latin subjunctive “qui nihil scirem, malum tamen compressi” are excellent. That Greek could go further in this direction is evidenced by Xen. Mem. 4. 8. 5 ody pds 67 of "Afnvaior SukacTal woNhovs unév ddikodvras amékrewav; where we can hardly account for undév adicodvras except as a substitute for moA\ovs dv under ddikolvrwr. But Professor Jebb’s interpretation, as I understand it (for at first sight, he seems, as Mr Whitelaw says, to take the wy as ‘hypothetical’), satisfies the internal requirements of the passage better. Oedipus does not call himself ovéév eles an ‘absolutely ignorant’ stranger but 6 wundév eldws, i.c. one who might be considered to know nothing; from whom you could expect nothing but ignorance. There can be no ‘hypothesis’ here as 56 CAMBRIDGE PHILOLOGICAL TRANSACTIONS. there is no condition. Professor Jebb’s expansion of this passage 6 éywv olTws domep el undév 5;8n by the side of his comparison of Aj. 1231 6 undév with Ant. 1325 Tov ovk dvra praXov 7) undéva, certainly points to an explanation such as the foregoing. The passage of the Ajax 87° 0v8év @v ToD undév dvré- ats Umep stands in curious contrast to another in Euripides, Fr. 536 Tovs &dvras ed Spav' katbavev &¢ wis dvip yi kal aka’ To undév els ov 8év pémer, where the negatives seem to have interchanged roles. For in the first passage it is the dead lion Ajax who is ovdév, and the living dog, Teucer, who 1s pmdev, while in the second passage the human being is un0év while he lives and ovdév when he is dead. It is true that when we examine the two examples more closely, we find that there is no necessary inconsistency between them. Agamemnon tells Teucer he is absolutely worthless; he is more respectful to Ajax who was good in his day, but now can be left out of the account. In the second passage, man whose value alive was so small that it might be neglected is now utterly destroyed and annihilated. He was a mere cypher at best, he is absolutely zero now. In Electra 1165 on the other hand we may find an appro- priateness in the assimilation of the negatives. Electra, apos- trophizing her dead brother, as she thinks, says ¢idrafl, &s Ww ardhecas’ dméhesas SIT, & raclyvnTov Kapa. Tolyap ov Séfar pu’ els TO ov T60e aTéyos, THY unde els TO undév. Life and death, we may perhaps say, are an equal blank to her now; and she equates the nothing that she is now to the nothingness that she will be hereafter. And yet— The grammars cite 7 ov SudAvats, 17 0U TepLTely Lots, 7) ovk amédoats, 1) ovkért émaywyy from Thucyd. 1. 137, 3. 95, 5.85, 5. 50, 7. 34. Thucydides is guiltless of this combina- tion. He wrote Tv...00 Stave, Thy ov mepiTelyiow, and so forth. Madvig (Syntax, Eng. Tr.) quotes ai ovk opfai aroltelar from Plato Pol. 302 B; but Plato has 7@v ovk 6pfdv a. In the nom. on the other hand Aristophanes Eccl. 115 has 7 un ‘umepla. Euripides Ton 594 has ¢ under ov kak 0USévwy kexkMpuévos, can we say with a substantial difference CONTRASTS OF pn AND ov. 57 of meaning? In Eur. Phoen. 598 we have kdta ovv wo\oiow n\es mpos Tov ovdév els paynv; but where do we find a hiatus like that of 6 ovdér or Tod 0vdév, or the 70 ovdér which we might have expected to find? Was the line between un and ov so strictly drawn at any period of Greek that we must seek a dynamical difference in all cases where they are employed ? Prof. Gildersleeve in his interesting paper on the ‘ Encroachments of un upon ov in later Greek’ (American Journal of Philology, 1. p. 45 sqq.) has not excluded the sup- position of an earlier encroachment. At any rate we might expect to find in a dialectician, however ¢opTikds, a careful observance of the discriminations of his time where such would be essential to his argument. Yet Melissus ap. Simpl. Phys. fol. 22a has kat’ d\\ov 6¢ Tpomov ovdev kevedv éaTi ToD €0vTos’ TO ydp Keveov ovOéy éaTw' oUk Ov ov €ln To fe undév, where exactness of reasoning would require and no respect for hiatus forbid the substitution of 76 «’ 0véév for To ve unpdév’. Here, as elsewhere, I fear that grammarians have been led by too pedagogic a desire for uniformity to fix what is fleeting and to interpret what is accidental. Fitly enough for the vast majority of mankind language is an imperfect instrument of thought; and, in considering it, its imperfections must never be left out of sight nor the carelessness of its users. To sum up the general question. The great territories of uz) and ov have been carefully delimi- tated by generations of inquirers—quite as carefully as the case allows. Yet there still remain strips of debatable frontier, and patches of land where interlopers from the one or the other side have taken up their abode. For some of these ‘exceptions’ we can see an internal reason, the meaning to be conveyed is different; in others an external one, the expres- sion itself is more convenient; for others again we can see nothing beyond the exception itself. One remark, in conclusion, on the expression in the Antig. le. Tov ovr Gvta pdAhov 3) undéva. Here ovdéva could not 1 The head of the same school, Parmenides, uses ovk elvat, pi evar and uy éov of his ‘Non-Existent’. 58 CAMBRIDGE PHILOLOGICAL TRANSACTIONS. have been used (nor indeed could undéva if the sentence had been so constructed as to require pq ovra), as it would have meant ‘not anybody’. The use of the oblique cases of undels in the singular and oveis and undeis in the plural for ‘non- entities’ or ‘nobodies’ does not appear to be a legitimate ex- tension of the ordinary use of the words. Itseems rather to be due to an attraction of the neuter by the masculine article. Tov, 7é undév would easily become Tov undéva, To undev(; and this view is favoured by the absence of the 6 undeis which we might have expected. When the phrase became declinable, it could dispense with the article. Hence unééva here = Tov undév. The possible forms then seem to have been: Of undév: Sing. N. 6 undé. A. Tov undéy, Tov undéva [undéval. G. Tod undév, Tod undevds. D. 16 pndév, 76 unde. Plur. oc pndéves, undéves ete. Of 0vdér: Sing. N. A. Tov ovdév. G. D — Plur. ovdéves ete. On av with lstoric tenses of the Indicative. 1. 523. aN fe wév 87) TodTo Tovveldos Tay av op Braclév warkov 3 yvaun ¢pevdv. There is perhaps nothing in grammatical doctrine so firmly held or consistently taught as that the use of dv with a secondary or hustoric tense of the indicative implies that the event in question has not been realized. And yet it is false! Neither by nature nor necessity does the construction con- tain any such implication; and the supposition that it ON &v WITH HISTORIC TENSES. 59 does has confused more passages than the present one. To pass over the frequentative use of av with the imperfect, and less commonly, with the aorist, which is tacitly excepted by the holders of the theory in question, there remain three other uses, in two of which there is no hint of non-fulfilment, while in the third this notion is simply an outgrowth due to usage and environment. How groundless is the assump- tion of a necessary non-fulfilment, is apparent from such an example as the following, which is moreover interesting as showing that, as a vehicle of expression, English is some- times superior to Greek. *Themistocles may have been present at the battle of Marathon. If he were, he must have admired the conduct of Miltiades” where Greek would have e de mapny (more idiomatically the participle), Tay Mitiadov aperyv é0adpalev dv. The construction must be examined a little closer. Without assuming any derivation for dv, it may be granted for the sake of convenience that in the use of the early Greeks it was nearly equivalent to the English ¢ possibly’, ¢ conceiv- ably’, or the like. Thus eimov dv is ‘they possibly’ or ‘conceivably said’. Now when such a qualified assertion is made with respect to the past, the speaker must of course either know or not know whether the event in question has happened. If he does know—a fact which can only be gathered from the context—then, supposing it to have happened, such an expression as ‘they may be supposed to have said’ or ‘they conceivably said’ will suggest a doubt or condition, where the speaker knows there is none, and accordingly will be alien to the forms of ordinary speech. On the other hand, supposing it not to have happened, the combination will be convenient to indicate some event which might conceivably have happened but is known as a matter of fact not to have happened. It is these unfulfilled events with which we are first concerned. Early Greek seems to have halted between two ex- pressions regarding them. Either (a) attracted by their purely imaginary or ideal character, it represented them by the optative, so that they did not differ in form from imaginary 60 CAMBRIDGE PHILOLOGICAL TRANSACTIONS. events referred to the future, or (b) it retained the indicative and left their imaginary character to be gathered from the presence of dv. A well-known instance of (a) is II. 5. 311 kai v kev &v8 dmwolovTo dvaf avdpev’ Ayapéuvev el wy dp’ 0EV vince Aws Ouyatnp 'Adpoditn; and Goodwin quotes others from Homer, Moods and Tenses § 49, 2 N. 1 (a) and (b). When the &v had fixed itself in the popular conscious- ness as a symbol of hypothesis or condition, there was no longer any reason for the use of the optative, and (b), already the prevalent, became the exclusive construction. We next suppose that the speaker does not know if the event bas happened. We then get the following cases. First (A) the use of dv may denote an ‘undetermined’ possi- bility. The fluctuation of usage between the indicative and optative which we have noticed and shall have occasion to notice again, leads us to expect that both could be used. (a) As a matter of fact, it is difficult to find any example of the tndicative with dv expressing a possibility in the past and nothing more’. We ought however to be careful not to make too much of this, as after all it may be only an accident. It is to be observed moreover how easily the context may cause ‘possible’ to pass into ‘very possible’ — the event may well have happened—on the one hand, or into ‘just possible, ‘barely possible’ on the other. (b) The optative (with tdya) is found in Herodotus 1. 70, tin. Herodotus is giving two conflicting accounts of how a certain xpnt7p, intended by the Lacedaemonians to be a present to Croesus, never got beyond Samos; and he, accord- ing to his wont, does not decide between them. But he suggests a possible explanation which might explain the discrepancy, Tdya 8¢ dv kal of amodouevor Néyoiev, amriko- pevor és SardpTny @s arapéfnaar vmo Saulwv, Le. they may have alleged force majeure to conceal their fraud. So 4d. 9. 71 aaa Talta per kal ¢pfove av elmorev ‘they may have said this from envy’. In 4d. 2. 11 fin. we get it of the absence of hindrance, kod ye 8) év T¢ mpoavaiciuovuéve 1 Eur. I. T. 385 ovk €56’ dmws éTekev dv 1 Aws dduap Tocavtyr duabiay seems to be one, though Porson’s conjecture érikrer is often accepted, ON dv WITH HISTORIC TENSES. 61 XPOve TpoTEpoy 7) ut yevéabat ovk av wo Belin komos kal TOMS pélwv ére TovTov Vo TogolTOV Te ToTAMOD Kal olTwS éoyatirod ; ‘why may it not have been filled up? ‘why should it not?’ In 7d. 7. 180 émreita Tov émiBatéwy Tov Ka\- NoTebovTa dyayovTes émi Tv wpdpny Tis vos éodatarv,...... T® 0¢ ocpayiaclévti Toute olvoua nv Aéwv' Tdya & dv Tu kal Tod ovvopaTos émravporro, ‘he may have got something from his name’. A similar instance is 2. 98 fin. (p. 64). Another example is 8. 136 fin. Taya 8’ av kal Ta ypnoTipia TadTd of mpoléyor, perhaps the oracles may have forewarned him to do this’. The difference in the tenses, elmocev corresponding to elmov, mpoléyor to mpovheyov, must be noted (compare Stein on Herod. 1. 70), though it is not easy to render it into English®. We next come to a much-vexed question, (¢) the use of dv in close connexion with a participle. If we examine, without any prepossession, the passages where this occurs, we are certainly led to the conclusion of Mr Whitelaw and other scholars that dv does go with the participle (of course as representing a finite verb). Here is no doubt about the taunt having come (7\f¢). The Chorus is foreed to admit this at once; and the admission is made as prominent as possible by the posi- tion of dv; but they urge that it may have been forced out by anger and the judgment may not have consented. In O. C. 964 Beals yap fv olTw pihov Tay’ dv Ti pnviovo ww els yévos mara, the pleasure of the gods is declared; but their motives are un- known: they may have been incensed with the race from of old. So in Thue. 6. 2. 4 3iéBnoav ws pév Méyetar kal elkos él axedidv Tay’ av 6¢ kal GAM\ws Tos éamhevoavTes®. Another example is Aristoph. Vesp. 281, raya 8’ dv dua Tov x8ilwov 1 The aorist and imperf. are not the only tenses that could be used with - an dv of possibility or contingency. That the pluperfect also was available is seen from Thue. 2. 102. 8 (of Amphiaraus) ¢ & dmopdv, ds Pasi, ubls Katevénoe THY mpdoxwow Tabrny Ti AxeNgov kal é86ker aid ikavy dv kex@obar dlarra 7 odpari, dp olmep krelvas Thy unrépa ovk SNbyov Xpbvov émhavaro, where Shilleto points out, as against Poppo, that the inf. represents ékéxwro dv. It is curious that in his translation he fluctuates between the renderings ‘it would have grown’ and’™ it might have grown.’ # It is not quite correct to say, as Mr Whitelaw does, that the expression is shortened’ unless it is merely meant that the expression is shorter as being participial. Philoct. 572 which he compares is different ; see below, 62 CAMBRIDGE PHILOLOGICAL TRANSACTIONS. avlpwmov bs nuds Siedler éfamatdv kal Méyov &s kal pNabnvaios nv kal Tav Sapw mTpodTos katelmor Sid ToDT odvvnbeis eit’ lows keiTar mupérTov—an instructive passage showing that the dv was still felt in the phrase, and that it was not a mere equivalent of rdya or lows, from which latter with the indicative Aristophanes instinctively separates it. Compare Plato Phaedr. 265 B quoted below. In Plato, Laws 747 B—D 7adra &) mavra (arithmetical studies) édw wév d\Nots vépois Te kal émutndeluaciy dbawpiTal Tis THY avenevleplav kal ¢uhoypnupatiav éx TOV Yuyer TOV pek- AovTwv avTd (kaves Te kal ovnoiuws kTijceclal, kala Ta maldevpara kal mpoonkovTa yévolr dv: el 8¢ wij, Tv kalov- pévmy dv Tis mavovpylav avti codlas dmelpyacduevos Ndbo, kabarmep Alyvrriovs kal Poivikas kal moa érepa dmetpyac- péva ryévy viv oti Set vo THs TAY AN\ev émiTndevudTwv kal kTnpatwv aveevbeplas elite Tis vowolérns dadlos av yevouevos éEelpydcarto Ta TolalTa, €iTe YAN) TUYN TPOC- megoloa elite kal ¢pvais dM) Tis Towabty. Plato suggests that the degraded character of Egyptian and Phoenician civilisation in spite of their superiority in mathematical achievements may be due either to mistaken legislation or to some sudden calamity or to some other natural cause. dv cannot go with éfeipryacaro here, because the result has been produced and the only question is what produced it? On the other hand, it goes well with ¢adlos yevduevos ‘a legis- lator who may have proved worthless’; for there were of course other ways in which he might have made the mistake. Plato Phaedr. 265 B lows pév ainfols Twos édpamriouevor Taxa av kai ANNOTETApPapepo ner ol, KEPATAVTES OV TaAVTA- magw amibavoy Noyov pvbikov Twa Uuvov mpocemaloajey does not differ from the other instances except in the subtle contrast of lows and Tay’ dv (both with the participle), by which Plato manages to discriminate between the probable and the merely possible alternative. For Pl. Phaedr. 256 ¢ see below. The participle in such cases may correspond either to an indicative or optative of the finite verb; and, in all pro- bability, it is this ambiguity or double possibility which has led to its retention in Attic usage. As is well known to students ON dv WITH HISTORIC TENSES. 63 of grammar, language will permit an idiom that may be either A or B, though neither A nor B singly is admissible. In the next class of cases (B) the possibility of the event to which reference is made is no longer quite indefinite or un- determined. It has become, so to speak, attached at one end, and thus the dv of mere undetermined possibility passes into the av of contingency. How easily this can happen may be seen by looking at Herodotus 7. 180 cited above. If the real reason for the immolation of Leon had not already been given, then av...émavpoiro might have expressed: ‘And so he would get something out of his name’. So far from such ex- pressions implying that the event did not happen, they often suggest that it is only the speaker’s ignorance which prevents him from positively asserting that they did. The variations in the same grammatical form between possibility, contingency and all but realized fact may be illus- trated from Xéyouw’ dv, ‘I could say’, ‘I may say’ (possibility, ‘there is nothing to prevent my saying’), Méyow’ dv, ‘I would say’ (contingency, ‘if necessary’ or the like), and even Aéyoru’ av, ‘1 will say’, Aéyors av, ‘you will say’, ‘be good enough to say”. "The verbal phrase with dv will of course assume a different complexion according to what it depends upon. I will endeavour to distinguish these differences as far as is practicable. : (I) av with a past tense of the indicative or with the optative may be closely connected with a past tense of the indicative ; and may indicate a consequence or outcome of the action expressed by the latter’. The presence of dv 1 Nor has the fut. ind. less potentiality. Thus in Pind. N. 9. 43 7d & d\- Aas apépats moa pév év kovlg xépow Ta 6¢ yelTove movTyw Ppdoopat, it means ‘I could tell of his exploits’, which, as a matter of fact, Pindar does not. So épet is ‘some one may say’. The same use is found in Latin. ? Or, as Kiihner puts it, Gr. Gr. § 392, n. 4 “um auszudriicken dass eine Handlung in der Vergangenheit unter gewissen Umstinden und Verhdltnissen geschah.” While acknowledging the value of Kiithner’s contributions to the question, it is necessary at the same time to point out that his exclusive regard of contingent or conditional realisation (as above) to the neglect of free and undetermined possibility has led him into mistakes not only in the explanation of particular examples but in the prominent contrast which he draws between the German idiom ‘konnen’ and the Greek dv, 64 CAMBRIDGE PHILOLOGICAL TRANSACTIONS. here marks the consequence as ideal but not necessarily unfulfilled. The ‘conditioning action’ is sometimes expressed, but often left to the hearer or the reader to supply. The relation between it and the consequence is primarily one of limited possibility, not of strict conditional connexion between events assumed to be unreal. The consequence is sometimes a particular event; but more often it is of a general character. So in éyvws dv, yvoins dv the indefinite 2nd person = Lat. agnosceres, diceres, wero av Tis. Homer and Herodotus have the optative, but the indicative is usual in Attic. (a) Optative. Herod. 1. 2 ‘EANjrov Twas (ov yap éyovat Totvoua arnyicacar) pact (sc. Ilépoal) apmacar Tob Pacinos ty OQvyarépa Evpdmny. elnocav §& av ovror Kpfres, ¢ these would be Cretans’ (a consequence or inference from the facts mentioned). Quite different is the use of elm in 2. 98 fin. already referred to, 5 8¢ érépn moNis doxéer pot TO oUvoua €yew amo Tod Aavaod yauBpod, *Apyav- Spov Tod Phlov, Tod *Axaiot’ €ln 8 dv ral dos Tis Apyav- dpos, ‘but it may have been another Archandros’. 71. 4. 223 &v® ovk av Bpiovra dois *Ayauéuvova, 5. 85 ds of wuév movéovto kata kpatepny voulvny: Tvdelbny & ovk av yvoins motépotat peteln. (b) Indicative. Il. 4. 420 Sewov & &Bpaye xaos él oTilfecaw dvaktos Spvuuévov’ UTE Kev Talao(- ppova wep déos einer’. II. 16. 638 oud av érv ppaduwy ep’ ap Zapmidova lov éyvw, Od. 24. 61 &ba kev odTw’ adaxpvtov of évonoas. So in Attic Dem. 9. 13 olec8 avTov ol émoinoav pv ovdév av kakov wy) mabetv 8 épvhalavt av lows, TovTous é€amatdv aipelobar, Plato, Ap. 18 ¢ év Tavry TH nhkla év 7) av pahoTa émioTevoaTe. In these two last cases the more usual Greek would be éueAdor with the fut. infin. while Latin would use its periphrastic participle in -rus. Phrases like @ero dv Tis (Xen. An. 1. 5. 8), éyvo dav Tis (id. Cyr. 3. 8.70) and the like are not uncommon. Eur. (?) I. A. 1582 is noteworthy as showing how ‘would have’ 1 The aor. ind. in itself does not imply non-fulfilment here any more than the optative in Il. 13. 343 ud\a kev Opacukdpdios ein ds Tote ynbnoeLer {dw mwbvov 0vd didxoiro. It is the context and the context only which gives this colour. ON dv WITH HISTORIC TENSES. 65 passes into ‘must have’; and the very opposite effect to the supposed proper meaning of dv with the aorist is produced. Oadpa & fv alpvns opav: wAyyns kTvTOY yap was Tis Ha OeT’ av caps. (II) In several passages the av phrase is connected with an explicit condition (given by an el clause, by a participle or in some other way). (a) Indicative. Ar. Ranae 1022 rods émrt’ éml @1iBas 6 Oeacapevos was av Tis avnp 1p aan dalos evar, Xen. Hell. 3. 4. 18 émeppcdaln & dv Tis kakeivo i6&v, Cyr. 8. 1. 33 {dvr av avTovs pyro TG Gute els kallos Gv. (b): Optative. Plato, Menex. 240 D év ToUTe (se. 76 ypdvew) dv Tis 1 It may seem strange to some that I have not referred to the views of the accomplished Homeric scholar Mr D. B. Monro. The reason is that I am not sure that I apprehend them nor, so far as I seem to myself to do 80, that I can agree with them. Mr Monro says § 324: “ The secondary tenses...are used with dv or kév to express a supposed .consequence: e.g. Il. 4. 420 (quoted above p. 64) ‘fear would have seized even the stouthearted ’. This way of speaking of a conditional event ordinarily implies that the condition on which it depended was not fulfilled. For if (e.g.) the assertion 7\fev ‘he came’ is true, we can hardly ever have occasion to limit it by saying 7\fev dv, lit. ‘he came in that case’.” (The words of Mr Monro which I have italicized seem to mean the same as mine ‘if the speaker knows that the event has happened ’ although Mr Monro nowhere hints at this distinction.) Hence a past tense with dv or xév naturally came to be used when the event in question had not happened owing to the nen-fulfilment of the condition.’” With this, of course, I have no fault to find. Mr Monro continues, in smaller type: ‘‘ Sometimes, of course, the event is not sufficiently definite to suggest anything as to its happening or not: e.g. in Il. 16. 635 (above p. 64) ‘not even a shrewd man would have known Sarpedon’ there is no implication that some one did know him.” Here too I am not sure of Mr Monro’s meaning. The expression, it is true, is not ‘definite’, but this is simply because the writer does not let it appear whether there were “shrewd men’ there to recognize Sarpedon. Mr Monro’s last sentence, though true, does not help us much. How could anyone suppose that ‘no one would have known him’, which is much more sweeping than ‘ne one did know him’, might imply some one did know him? Mr Monro goes on to say that «the rule does not apply to events that occur repeatedly or on no particular occasion; for there is no contradiction in saying of such an event that it happened when a condition was fulfilled. Hence the use in the iterative sense. This use however can hardly be shown to be Homeric.” The two instances usually quoted Mr Monro regards as doubtful. They are Od. 2. 104 where kai, he thinks, should be read for xév, and Od. 18. 263 of ke Tdxwra Epway wéya veiros, * where the commentators take ékpwav as a ‘ gnomic’ aorist. On this view the use of xér has no parallel in Homer.” In the last passage - J 66 CAMBRIDGE PHILOLOGICAL TRANSACTIONS. vevouevos yvoin olow dpa érvryyavov ovtes Tv dpetyy of Mapa- Owve SeEapevor mv dv BapBapwv Svvapw. Herod. 7. 214 ellen pev ydp av, kal ébv uy Mykieds, Tadmyy Tiv drpamdv "Owns el Tf x@pn TOME SuuAnkes eln’ aAN "Emwantys dp €0TL 0 TEPINYNTAWLEVOS TO 0UPOS KATA THY ATparov, TobTov alTiov ypagw. It is not very easy to settle the exact translation of eidein av. It may = ‘he might know’; for although Herodotus denies the fact of Onetes having been the traitor, he cannot deny the possibility of his knowing of the path. In this case the el sentence introduces a qualification; ‘if, that is to say, he had been much in the country’. Or again it may represent a strict consequence, ‘he would know of it if he had been much in the country’. (€) There yet remain some passages which require special comment. Such is (1) Thucydides 1. 9. 5 otk av odv (sc. "Ayapépvor) Ew Tov meptowkidwv (altar & ovk av moAhal elmoav) nTepd TNs Gv ékpdTeL €6 pI) TL Kal VAUTLKOY €LyEV. This optative is, I believe, generally taken to refer to the point of view of Thucydides or that of his readers: ‘if we were now to investigate, we should find that there are (or were) not many’; the tense being immaterial, as the number of islands had not changed. And this explanation is perfectly tenable. There is however another course open. The principal sentence contains an admission that Agamemnon may have ruled over the neighbouring islands; and the sentence in question may give the consequence of this: ‘Thus his maritime possessions would not be extensive’. (2) A statement about possible actions in the past and their consequences often produces a sort of indirect discourse, which retains the form of direct discourse while it gives the thoughts and anticipations which did occur or might have occurred to the speaker at the time in question. Thus Lysias’ client, Or. 7. 16, in giving the reasons which would have deterred him from committing the sacrilege which something must be wrong and perhaps of 7e is the easiest alteration. Here there seems to be a clear difference between our views, Mr Monro apparently regarding the iterative dv as properly conditional while I take it to have originally denoted a possibility. See below p. 69. For Od. 4. 546, ‘an exceptional use of a different kind’, see p. 68. ON dv WITH HISTORIC TENSES. 67 had been laid to his charge says, w@s & ovk av Jv allw- Tatos AvbpeTwy dravrev el Tos éuavtod Gepamovras umkéT Sovhovs éuehov Efetv aaa Secmotas Tov Noumov [ov TotovTov &pyov cuveldotas; doTe, el kal Ta péyioTa eis due éEnudpravov, ovk av oldov Te fv Slkmy pe wap avTOY NauBdvew ; eb yap av eldeinv 61i ém éxelvois fv Kal €ue Tipwpyoaclar kal avtols unvvoacw éevBépors yevéobac. The passage is not formally oratio obliqua, and that is all. For the plain meaning is ‘I must have argued so and so’. Let us see then what he would say to himself, mds ovk éoopar dO\dTartos...el Tovs éuavrod Oepamovras pnkéte Sovhovs €éfw...GoTe € kal Ta péyioTa...... é€apaptioovtat, ovk olos T é€oopar Sikny map avrev AapfBavew. When these reflections have become a thing of the past, the actions then spoken of as future are transformed into past ones, whether they condition with el or are contingent with dv. The only difficulty is in the last sentence. It is to be observed that this represents a supposition less immediate than the preceding one. ‘I shall not be able to punish them. Forif I were to try, it would be with the full consciousness that I was at their mercy’, ed yap av elbeinv é1u én’ éxelvors éoTar kal éue Tuwpnsachar kT. (8) In Soph. Phil. 305 Tay’ dv Tis dkwv écye’ moOANa yap Tade év T@ pap yévorr av avBpemwv xpove, 1 am not quite clear that the MS. reading odv is wrong. But the av which Mr Whitelaw prefers would agree well with Sophoclean subtleties of language. The possibility of a par- ticular event having occurred once or twice (‘some one may have touched here despite himself’) is contrasted with the indefinite possibilities that may arise in vast periods of time. In the latter case the optative only is allowed. Compare Herodotus 5. 9, which closely resembles the present passage vévouto 8 av wav év TG pakpe ypove. (4) In Soph. Philoct. 572 mwpos molov av T6vd avtos ovdvaaevs émher; we find a brachylogical expression which seems to have no parallel elsewhere. Here, as with the participles discussed above (p. 61), the main verb is cut off from the influence of the dv. It is a fact that Odysseus came 68 CAMBRIDGE PHILOLOGICAL TRANSACTIONS. to fetch some one. The only question is one of his identifica- tion. The speaker does not know who he is and asks from the point of view of the present ¢ Who might this man be whom Odysseus himself had to fetch?’ Mr Whitelaw gives the meaning well by paraphrasing it, motos 63 av ein mpos ov "0. émhet, and illustrates it appropriately from Oed. Col. 64, Plat. Protag. 310 B (above p. 21). We must signalize the absence of a verb for the dv to refer to. pos molov dav Tovd’ ovta would have been much less remarkable. (D) . In the passages hitherto reviewed the aorist with the av of possibility has always referred to the past. There are two instances in which this is apparently not the case. The first passage is Plato Phaedr. p. 256 ¢ éav 8¢ &n Salty popTi- koTépa Te Kai ddhocipo dukoTinw O6¢ yprowvTal, Tay av mov év pébats 7 Tw ANAND duelela TO AKONEOT® AUTO vmolvylo NafBévTe Tas Yruyads ddpolpovs, EvvayayovTe eis TQUTOY, THY U6 TOV TONNGY LaKaploTyy alpéow eINéTNY T€ kal StempaEavro’ kal diampaapéve To Novrov 78 ypwrTaL k.7\. Here dv goes primarily with the participles; but its force seems to be continued over to the finite verbs. Both the former and the latter denote events which happen more than once: and therefore we must translate ‘perhaps they may find the souls unguarded....and choose the course which is glorified by the world’. In this place, perhaps the only instance of ray’ dv with the ‘ gnomic’ aorist (a primary tense and practically equivalent to the present), the form and general meaning of the tense seems to be regarded rather than its particular meaning here. The other place is Od. 4. 546 1) yap uw wiv ye ruxrioear 7 kev "OpéoTns kTeivey Sod 0d uevos, where Mr Monro (I. ¢.) notes Here xév marks the alternative (§ 283 n. 3); ‘either you will find him alive or (in the other case) Orestes has killed him’ (i.e. must have killed him). Thrown inte a conditional form the sentence would be: ¢if you do not find him alive, then Orestes has killed him’, This note of Mr Monro’s, excellent so far as it goes, does not to my mind go far enough. The 7eiver may regard either of two points of time: (1) the moment at which Menelaus is speaking, or (2) the moment of Telemachus’ ON av WITH HISTORIC TENSES. 69 arrival. If (1) then it means: ‘Either you will find him alive; or possibly Orestes has already killed him. In this case the aor. represents a perfect. If (2) (as I prefer to take it) the aor. is equivalent to a future perfect. ‘Either you will find him alive or possibly that Orestes has killed him before your arrival.” This use of the aor. is often overlooked, as in Pind. Nem. 11. 13 ef &é Tis SABov éywv popdd mapapevoeTat a\\ovs & 7 déOhowcww dpioTetwv émédeifev Blav, Ovata pepvdacbo mepioTéNwy puéln, where the statement is general; and the verbs may be translated by the Lat. excellet... ostendertt. A good parallel to the present passage is Il. 4. 160 sqq. (quoted by Kiihner § 386) elmep yap Te kal avtic "ONdpurios ovk éréheaaey, ék Te kal Oyré Teel oUY Te peyale amétioay avy opfow kepariior. The use is without doubt correctly explained by Mr Monro Hom. Gr. § 78: ‘The speaker puts himself at the (future) point of time given by the context, and uses the tense which then becomes appro- priate’ In any case it well illustrates the way in which ‘possibility’ may be developed into ‘dependence on a condition’. (BE) It is not necessary to say much about the fre- quentative use of av with the imperf. or (more rarely) the aor. indicative to express repeated actions in past time. The trans- ition of meaning is easy and obvious. If the possibility of any event’s happening is indefinite, it may have happened an indefinite number of times; and if its occurrence is only limited by the occurrence of another possible event, it may have occurred whenever that event has occurred. Frequency and indefiniteness lie near together in the popular thought. Compare the Herodotean maxim eévoiro 8 av wav év 10 parpd ypove and the Latin line ‘cuiquam potest quod acci- dere id cuiuis potest’. The converse change of idea is seen in roars and the Latin saepe, for perhaps. 70 CAMBRIDGE PHILOLOGICAL TRANSACTIONS. The Aorist Participle in Oed. R. 227. kel pév pofeitar TovmikAny vmeEeldy avtos kal avtod’ meloeTar yap dANo pev agTepyés ovdev is 8 dmewow afBhaBns el & av Tis dA\Nov oibev éE aNArs xbovos TOV QUTOYELPa M1) TLOTAT®. It may seem audacious to add another to the interpreta- tions of this notorious passage which are enumerated in the appendix to Professor Jebb’s edition. What I propose how- ever is not a new theory but only a new combination. Scholars are well acquainted with the Greek idiom which throws the main force and substance of a sentence into the participle, while it leaves the main verb to discharge a subordinate and often a purely syntactical function. In particular it has been well illustrated by Shilleto in Thue. 1. 20. 3. Here the gist of the first el sentence, whatever reading and whatever inter- pretation we adopt, is ‘If he is concealing his own guilt’. This is the case even if we put the stop at ¢poSBeirar. For Oedipus only cares for the man’s fears as far as they are evidence of a guilty conscience. So far therefore as the present line is concerned I agree with Prof. Kennedy's note on the passage where he translates ‘if he has in fear secretly suppressed the accusation’ and also gives, as Greek paraphrases, vmefehwv €yer (or vmefeile) ¢6Bw. The use of the aorist participle seems certainly pecu- liar as the time of Ymefeddr must be subsequent to that of ¢ofBeirar. The truth is that there is no necessary connexion of time between the main verb and the participle. The sense 1s: ‘If he is afraid and has made away with the charge’ (a momentary action). There is a somewhat similar use in Pind. N. 1. 61, 62 6 8¢ oi ¢ppale, kai marti oTpatd mwolas OpLANTEL TUYALS, 0000US ev €v Xépaw KTav®v, daoous Oe morte OGhpas aldpodikas where kTavév is more specific than ophjoee as in the present passage vmefelev is than ¢ofBeitac. The use of the aorist participle is partly illustrated by the THE AORIST PARTICIPLE IN OED. R. 227. 71 examples of “aor. part. with single action identical in time with that of the principal verb”; see Mr Whitelaw’s note above p. 13. Mr Whitelaw takes tovmikAnu’ vmeferov with avros kal avTod (onumawére or the like): ‘removing the charge (that now hangs over the city) let him denounce himself’. Iam afraid I cannot follow him in the first part of his interpretation which, though perfectly possible from the ambiguity of the words ‘making away with the charge’, is not so simple in sense or convenient in rhythm as the one that I prefer: but I quite coincide in his view that avros kal’ avo? 1s part of the apodosis. There is this great objection to taking it with the protasis that Oedipus is issuing a pro- clamation and therefore cannot leave the orders he gives to be understood from the (general) sense of the context, but must state them precisely : ‘The man ts to inform against himself if he is guilty just as he is to inform against others if he knows of their guilt” I think that directness of speech, correspond- ence of structure and concinnity of rhythm all join in requiring that we should translate: ‘And if he is afraid and has made away with the charge against him (i.e. has tried to bury it out of sight), let him (inform) against himself. For he shall not suffer anything unbearable but be allowed to quit the land unharmed. J. P. POSTGATE - UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY Return to desk from which borrowed. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. | eee MAR 16 1948 | LD 21-100m-9,’47 (A5702s16)476 BERKELEY LIBRARIES C0528137b1