Burnouf in his excellent French Grammar of the Greek tongue, at p. 268, has this very appropriate observation: "En Français même, nous voyons le verbe réfléchi employé dans le sens passif : 'Les histoires ne se liront plus,' BOSSUET," that is, will not be read. (b) While the middle verbs, of now and ríoŋut, for instance, are requisite to indicate the taking or considering of any object in such or such a light, &c.; some other verbs, such as ayw, λaußávo, in the active form so called, are found with a similar acceptation. Iph. Αul. 607. Ορνιθα μὲν τόδ' αἴσιον ποιούμεθα, κ. τ. λ. Phœn. 872. Οἰωνὸν ἐθέμην καλλίνικα σὰ στέφη. I consider as a good augury the victorious garland you wear. Thucyd. Β. § 42. τὴν τῶν ἐναντίων τιμωρίαν ποθεινοτέραν αὐτῶν λαβόντες. -Having regarded the humbling of their adversaries as a far more desirable object, &c. (c) It is a distinction well deserving of remark, that while several verbs in w are used of matter and actions connected with it, those in opat have the province of mind and its concerns instead. Thus II. A. 607, 8. But Thucyd. B. § 42, 4. So too, II. A. 433. δῶμα "Ήφαιστος ποίησεν. ἀναβολὴν τοῦ δεινοῦ ἐποιήσατο. he thought of delaying or eluding the danger. ἱστία μὲν στείλαντο, θέσαν δ ̓ ἐν νηί μελαίνη. Prom. V. 247. θνητοὺς δ ̓ ἐν οἴκτῳ προθέμενος. (d) 1. The tenses (apparently, originis vi, whatever that be) most decidedly passive in use, are the two Aorists and two Futures passive so called. 2. While the first Future middle frequently occurs (it is well known) with a passive use, the first Aorist middle on the other hand hardly ever seems to lose its proper acceptation. Thus λέξει, thou shalt be reckoned; but never ἠρξάμην, I was ruled, nor ἐγράψατο, it was written. 3. The idea of a preterite middle with a reflexive signification is now rejected (Glasgow Greek Grammar, p. 65); and the separate form, when it does exist, is more aptly designated second preterite or falso-medium. When the tense of any verb is wanted to express that notion, the preterperfect passive is adopted, de personá; while its common use prevails more, de re. (e) Verbs in the passive voice, when indicating the affections of mind or the facts of motion, are frequently so used without any reference to external cause or agent whatsoever; that is, are not meant to signify any thing about action or the modus operandi, but the effect or state only, as it regards the subject of the verb. In other words, then, the passive form on occasions like these is employed, when the middle voice might naturally else be expected. Such, at any rate, is the best account we can give of this matter in particular. But, upon the whole, may we not generally remark, that the ways in which things take place, and the relations to one another in which they require to be spoken of, seem to defy definition or number; while the voices of the verb (essential as that is to discourse) even in Greek amount to three at the most? No wonder it should happen, that words, only in a loose manner, often very rudely, hint, that some connexion exists betwixt certain ideas, without any pretence to mark the precise mode of it. The occasion is individual: the forms of language are universal. And yet to the context with its circumstances rightly apprehended and to the vis-directrix of common sense, the rest of the operation may very safely be left. CANONES DAWESIANI XI. I. "Voculam av cum verbo Tepioïde conjungi vetat Græcorum Scriptorum consuetudo." [Miscell. Crit. p. ii. Ed. B. p. ii.] The particle av, giving the idea of a contingent or conditional event, goes with the past tenses only of the indicative mood; out of which number Tepioïde is excluded, as being strictly what Clarke calls the present perfect tense. [Vid. ad Iliad. A. v. 37.] 1. ἔτυπτον ἄν—I should be striking. (Sometimes translate, I should strike.) 2. ¿TεTúpn äv—I should have done striking. 3. ἔτυψα }ăv—I should have stricken. ἔτυπον The same, mutatis mutandis, for the past tenses of Ovnoкw. II. "Vocula oo et similes, comite av, non nisi cum altera forma Op construuntur." [M. C. p. 79. Ed. B. p. 82.] The passage itself from which this remark arises, may easily be found in the Anabasis of Xenophon. Lib. I. 5, 9.) Δήλος ἦν ὁ Κύρος σπεύδων πᾶσαν τὴν ὁδὸν — νομίζων, ὅσῳ μὲν ἂν θάττον ἔλθοι, τοσούτῳ ἀπαρασκευαστοτέρῳ βασιλεῖ μαχεῖσθαι, κ. τ. λ. By transposing ἄν, and by altering the future μαχεῖσθαι, which does not keep that particle's company, into μάχεσθαι, Dawes (with the approbation of Porson) has corrected the passage thus: νομίζων ἄν, ὅσῳ μὲν θᾶττον ἔλθοι, τ. α. β. μάχεσθαι —K. T. λ. 1. The position of ἄν, as above, with verbs of thinking, followed by an infinitive mood to which it refers, is very common in Attic Greek; and Dawes abundantly shows it from Xenophon. 2. Οσῳ and similar words are much used with ἂν and the subjunctive mood, it is true; but, according to circumstances which will explain themselves, they are used with the optative, and with the indicative also sometimes. a. Whatever part you shall have acted towards your parents, your children also will act towards you; and with good reason. Οἷός περ ἂν περὶ τοὺς γονεῖς γένῃ, τοιοῦτοι καὶ οἱ σαυτοῦ παῖδες περὶ σὲ γενήσονται· εἰκότως. B. Act such a part towards your parents, as you could wish your own children to act towards yourself. Τοιοῦτος γίγνου περὶ τοὺς γονεῖς, οἵους ἂν εὔξαιο περὶ σεαυτὸν γίγνεσθαι τοὺς σαυτοῦ παῖδας. y. There is not a man living whom he would have less thought of attacking than him. Οὐκ ἔστιν, ἐφ ̓ ὅντινα ἂν ἧττον, ἢ ἐπὶ τοῦτον, ἦλθεν. Of the two passages which shall be given from Demosthenes, the first shows a syntax very common and legitimate in Attic prose; while the second exhibits two instances, the one correct, the other suspicious, at least to my apprehension of it. Καὶ γὰρ οὗτος ἅπασι τούτοις, οἷς ἂν τις μέγαν αὐτὸν ἡγήσαιτο, — ἔτ ̓ ἐπισφαλεστέραν αὐτὴν [τὴν Μακεδονικὴν δύναμιν] κατεσκεύακεν ἑαυτῷ. Olynthiac. A. § 5. In the same section, The subjects of Philip, says the orator, λυποῦνται καὶ συνεχῶς ταλαιπωροῦσιν, οὔτ ̓ ἐπὶ τοῖς ἔργοις, οὔτ ̓ ἐπὶ τοῖς αὐτῶν ἰδίοις ἐώμενοι διατρίβειν, οὔθ ̓ ὅσ ̓ ἂν πορίσωσιν, οὕτως ὅπως ἂν δύνωνται, ταῦτ ̓ ἔχοντες διαθέσθαι, κεκλεισμένων τῶν ἐμπορίων τῶν ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ διὰ τὸν πόλεμον. Translate thus: Nor able to dispose of such articles as they MAY produce, in the way they MIGHT otherwise have it in their power to do, on account of the war, &c. &c. And, perhaps, to preserve the Atticism, read — ὅπως ἂν δύναιντο. 3. It is well known, that the following construction, suppresso av, is favoured by the tragic writers. [R. P. ad Orest. ν. 141.] Ὅπου δ' Απόλλων σκαιὸς ᾖ, τίνες σοφοί; Electr. Eurip. v. 972. But this suppression of av with the optative also deserves remark. Οὐκ ἔστιν, ὅτῳ μείζονα μοῖραν Νείμαιμ', ἢ σοί. Prom. Vinct. vv. 299, 300. The following passages demand a separate consideration : Εν σοὶ γάρ ἐσμεν· ἄνδρα δ ̓ ὠφελεῖν, ἀφ ̓ ὧν Ed. R. vv. 314, 5. And this, ̓Αλλ' εἰ βούλει, ἔφη, ὦ πάππε, ἡδέως με θηρᾷν, ἄφες πάντας τοὺς κατ ̓ ἐμὲ διώκειν καὶ διαγωνίζεσθαι, ὅπως ἕκαστος τὰ κράτιστα δύναιτο. Cyropedia. III. “Præstandum in me recipio Sermonis Attici rationem postulare vel ποῖ τις φύγῃ, vel ποῖ τις ἂν φύγοι. Verbum utique optativum cum ποῖ, πόθεν, που, πῶς, vel qualibet alia interrogandi particula conjunctum alteram itidem av comitem exigit; subjunctivum vero respuit." [M. C. 207. Ed. B. 207.] The meaning of Dawes will be best understood, perhaps, if we take three ways of expressing nearly the same ideas by three different moods of the verb. a. тоi τρéfoμai; whither shall I betake myself? В. поi τρáпwμai; whither must I betake myself? Y. TOT TIs av ToάTOTо; whither should one betake himself? [M. C. 75. 341. Ed. B. 78, 333.] Under the class (3) may be placed, 'Eya di Tí П010; Plut. But what must I do? 'Eyù σIT Tyde y'; Ran. ubi de Euripide Æschylus, Ὡς ὀξύθυμος! φέρε, τί σοὶ ΔΩ καταφαγεῖν; Dawes' account justly exhibits the first and second verbs thus used, not as of the present indicative serving instead of the future: "sed formæ subjunctivæ, quæ temporis futuri vi quodammodo non raro gaudet, vel potius significatu proprio ad iva, sive xon iva, subauditum refertur '." vetat. IV. Καὶ μὴν ὁπότε τι σκευάριον τοῦ δεσπότου Ὑφείλου, ἐγώ σε λανθάνειν ἐποίουν ἀεί. Plut. 1139. "Poëseos Atticæ ratio istiusmodi hiatum, qualis in altero versu conspicitur, in versibus iambicis et trochaicis omnimodo Deinde ipsam orationem ὁπότε ὑφείλου-[When you actually had stolen some one specific thing]—¿πolovv áεì solœcam esse assevero; sermonis autem indolem postulare óróτɛ úpéλolo. Itaque utraque re conspirante, rescribo 'YEAOI', ¿y." [M. C. 216. Ed. B. 215, 216.] Fielding and Young thus translate the passage fairly enough : Why, when you used to filch any vessel from your master, I always assisted you in concealing it [the theft]. 1 EMENDATUM. 1836. In Porson's Medea, 1275=1242 of Elmsley, the following passage stands thus punctuated : παρέλθω δόμους ; ἀρῆξαι φόνον which may with our idiom be thus translated, "Shall I not enter the house?" &c. Elmsley having, in his edition of the Heraclidæ, at v. 559, maintained that Tapéλow dóμovç was rightly read so, without interrogation, and with the meaning, "Let me enter," &c., afterwards, when editing the Medea, u. s. in a note very satisfactory on the whole of the subject, shows that the interrogative mark is rightly added, as it was first done by Musgrave. |