Eur. Hippolytos 48 ff.

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Paul Derouda
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Eur. Hippolytos 48 ff.

Post by Paul Derouda »

(Aphrodite speaking:)
ἡ δ᾽ εὐκλεὴς μὲν ἀλλ᾽ ὅμως ἀπόλλυται
Φαίδρα: τὸ γὰρ τῆσδ᾽ οὐ προτιμήσω κακὸν
τὸ μὴ οὐ παρασχεῖν τοὺς ἐμοὺς ἐχθροὺς ἐμοὶ
δίκην τοσαύτην ὥστ᾽ ἐμοὶ καλῶς ἔχειν.

I don't understand the construction with the two τό's. Is τὸ μὴ οὐ παρασχεῖν τοὺς ἐμοὺς ἐχθροὺς ἐμοὶ δίκην τοσαύτην ὥστ᾽ ἐμοὶ καλῶς ἔχειν a modifier of τὸ τῆσδε κακὸν? If Aphrodite doesn't have her revenge, that's not exactly Phaedra's misfortune (κακὸν).

Thanks for any help!

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jeidsath
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Re: Eur. Hippolytos 48 ff.

Post by jeidsath »

I would have expected the genitive, ie. that Aphrodite

οὐ προτιμήσει τὸ τῆς Φαίδρας κακὸν τοῦ μὴ παρασχεῖν...

However, I don't really understand the παρασχεῖν clause.

τὸ μὴ οὐ παρασχεῖν τοὺς ἐμοὺς ἐχθροὺς ἐμοὶ
δίκην τοσαύτην ὥστ᾽ ἐμοὶ καλῶς ἔχειν

"the not having given over of my enemies to me for so much justice as will make me happy"? Why the οὐ? Does δίκην τοσαύτην expect a verb or is it a second accusative object of παρασχεῖν?
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Eur. Hippolytos 48 ff.

Post by Hylander »

I'm not sure I fully understand exactly how this fits together, either; however:

1. One of the meanings for προτιμαω given in LSJ is "take heed of".

2. One of the ways verbs of "preventing" can be complemented is τὸ μὴ + infinitive; negative is τὸ μὴ οὐ. So I think there's an implicit idea of preventing a negative, i.e., that her enemies won't give her enough vengeance, which functions here almost like a positive purpose clause, equivalent to οπως οι εμοι εχθροι παρασχωσι εμοι δικην τοσαυτην ωστε ... . Note that τοὺς ἐμοὺς ἐχθροὺς is the subject of παρασχεῖν.

"I won't take heed of her evil (i.e., the evil that will befall her), [to prevent] my enemies from not providing me enough vengeance to make me happy", i.e., "I won't take heed of the evil that will befall her, so that my enemies won't fail to provide me enough vengeance to make me happy".

She's not a nice goddess.

Addendum: Smyth sec. 2745: "Any infinitive that would take μή, takes μὴ οὐ (with a negative force), if dependent on a negatived verb. Here οὐ is the sympathetic negative and is untranslatable."

2749: "Instead of μὴ οὐ we find also μή, τὸ μή, τοῦ μή, τὸ μὴ οὐ (but not τοῦ μὴ οὐ)."

Barrett explains the articular infinitive as "final-consecutive", i.e., purpose/result. So the meaning seems clear. It's an example of syntax pushed to the limit, characteristic of tragedy.
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Re: Eur. Hippolytos 48 ff.

Post by mwh »

Don't know if this helps at all: http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-foru ... 40#p177840

"She's not a nice goddess." She's no different from any other god or goddess (e.g. Athena in Ajax). Offend one and you get zapped.

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Re: Eur. Hippolytos 48 ff.

Post by Hylander »

But Phaedra hasn't offended Aphrodite and she still gets zapped. She's just collateral damage.
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Re: Eur. Hippolytos 48 ff.

Post by mwh »

Quite so. That's precisely what I said in the post I linked to.

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Re: Eur. Hippolytos 48 ff.

Post by Paul Derouda »

Thanks, I think I got it now.

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Re: Eur. Hippolytos 48 ff.

Post by Hylander »

mwh: Is my sense generally correct that the adverbial accusative articular infinitive construction here goes beyond what would normally be found in Attic prose, i.e., is this a poetic extension of normal prose usage?
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Re: Eur. Hippolytos 48 ff.

Post by jeidsath »

Given that προτιμήσω is at heart a verb of preference, sometimes taking an accusative, sometimes an infinitive, and sometimes both, would this be acceptable Greek? Meaning: 'not valuing Phaedra's misfortune above her own vengeance'.

ἡ δ᾽ εὐκλεὴς μὲν ἀλλ᾽ ὅμως ἀπόλλυται
Φαίδρα: τὸ γὰρ τῆσδ᾽ οὐ προτιμήσω κακὸν
μὴ οὐ παρασχεῖν τοὺς ἐμοὺς ἐχθροὺς ἐμοὶ
δίκην τοσαύτην ὥστ᾽ ἐμοὶ καλῶς ἔχειν.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Eur. Hippolytos 48 ff.

Post by mwh »

mwh: Is my sense generally correct that the adverbial accusative articular infinitive construction here goes beyond what would normally be found in Attic prose, i.e., is this a poetic extension of normal prose usage?
Yes I’d say so. I’m not sure it’s essentially different from what you might find in Attic prose, but I doubt you’d find anything comparable outside of Euripides or Sophocles. The relationship between the negatived verbs (προτιμησω and παρασχειν) is loose and elliptical, and το is the minimal means of connecting them. Barrett calls the inf. “final-consecutive” (I’d say more consecutive than final), which is not an exclusively poetic use of an appended infinitive, but without the το it just wouldn’t make sense.
Syntactically speaking the το phrase is an adverbial acc. modifying προτιμησω—more strictly an internal acc.; we could think of it as a so-called acc. of respect. “I’ll not privilege/prioritize the harm to Phaedra (i.e. her entailed death) as to my enemies’ not giving me adequate satisfaction,” effectively “in such a way that my enemies not give …” or “with the result that my enemies not give …”. Prose would use ὥστε rather than the less explicit το, or put the whole thing more straightforwardly.

Or that’s my sense of it.

— Looking back at your earlier post I see your "I won't take heed of the evil that will befall her, so that my enemies won't fail to provide me enough vengeance to make me happy.” That may come to much the same end result, but I think it’s false to the grammar. Your comma unduly detaches the articular infinitive, leading you to import an extra negative there. It’s not “won’t fail to provide” but “fail to provide”—μή negativing παρασχειν, the ου pleonastic under the influence of the negatived main verb (Smyth’s “sympathetic negative”). Remove the ου’s and we’d have “I’ll privilege Phaedra so that Hipp fails to provide enough justice to satisfy me.” All that is what she won't do. The initial ου (continued by the subsequent one) extends over the whole sentence.
Or have I only muddled things more?

Joel, Your earlier του μη παρασχειν would make a kind of sense (and one manuscript has του) but is more prosaic. Your ἤ would not be good Greek.

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Re: Eur. Hippolytos 48 ff.

Post by Hylander »

Yes, I see your point.

I think του would be wrong here, wouldn't it, because μη ου wouldn't be motivated by the negative ου τιμησω. The subordinate articular infinitive has to be adverbial. Of course, that could be fixed by deleting ου: τοῦ μὴ παρασχεῖν, but the answer to that is that the more difficult reading is better because it's less likely that the easy reading would be corrupted into a possible but more difficult reading. Utrum in alterum and its corollary difficilior lectio potior.
Bill Walderman

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