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Learning Greek - Lesson 2

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LESSON 2 - First Part / 

Second Part

 

ACHILLES' GRIEF - From Homer's Iliad

 

 

 

History and poetry

 

W

E OWE to Aristotle a crucial distinction between history and poetry, 

according to which, the former narrates what happened, while the latter 

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Learning Greek - Lesson 2

discerns what might (always) happen (cf. Aristotle, Poetic art 1451a ff). 

However, poetry is not a philosophy of history. Poetry just sings a complete 

Act, letting us feel in the poet's choice of that certain act and, in all the events 

which belong essentially and necessarily to that Act, the meaning of history. 

Poetry as such demands instant understanding, understanding as feeling and 

action.

The written history of Hellenism began with such a choice made by Homer. 

 

 

 

 

Homer's interest

 

H

OMER confined his Iliad to the last (tenth) year of the Trojan war and he saw 

in Achilles' wrath (

µῆνις Ἀχιλλῆος

) the main subject of his poem. In the very 

first verse of Iliad we see, that the poet is not interested in the cause and history 

of the war as such and in itself. He is interested primarily in two things, the life 

of men and the divine will. Singing about Achilles' wrath, Homer would give to 

the next generations the related events as an object of admiration, to help them 

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Learning Greek - Lesson 2

live a life devoted equally to man and God. What is the meaning of this 

devotion?

 

The protagonist of all being

 

L

OSS of Helen was the cause of war. Loss of Briseis made Achilles withdraw 

from the war. Loss of Patroclus was the cause of Achilles' grief and then of his 

entering again the war. Homer's main theme is the person (

πρόσωπον

, face

). The 

protagonist of all being is a person's thirst for a person. By recognising in a 

personal relationship the reason of their life, people share the divine life, which 

is a personal life too, with Gods relating personally to each other and to each 

man. 

 

Ἀλεξάνδρου

 πρόσωπον

 

(Alexander's 

person

)

 

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Learning Greek - Lesson 2

T

RADITION wants Homer to be blind. This is not very likely to be true, and yet 

it is characteristic. We said that in Homer the protagonist is the person, but, 

more specifically, or more foundationally, it is the loss of a person. Helen, 

Patroclus, Briseis, Penelope - they are all missing persons, persons to be found 

or persons lost forever. We can not offer now a full account of the concept of 

πρόσωπον 

in Homer, but the passage that follows, from Iliad's 18th rhapsody, 

will help us see some significant aspects.

 

 

The primary thirst of the soul

 

I

N THE 11th rhapsody (verse 608), Achilles calls Patroclus "divine gift to the 

thirst of my soul" (

κεχαρισµένε τῷ ἐµῷ θυµῷ

). A gift (=

χάρις, χάρισµα

) given 

(=

κεχαρισµένος

) by God, since Patroclus is 

δῖος

 (=god-like and belonging to God). 

Θυµὸς 

is the spring of the appetitive, irrational, powers of the soul. 

Θυµὸς

 can 

not be satisfied by a purpose, since a purpose requires intervention of reason. 

This is why 

θυµὸς 

can be satisfied only by the gift of a purpose, which transforms 

θυµὸς

 to 

βούλησις

 (will). The point is, that whoever gives such a gift does it on 

purpose, which means that a gift is purposeful as a gift, that for the primary 

thirst (

θυµὸς

) of the soul (

ψυχὴ

) to be satisfied, a soul must receive her purpose as 

a gift from some other person.

Therefore, primarily, for the one that grants the purpose to the thirst of a soul, 

this purpose is generated not as an idea, but as actual will to make someone 

content and complete. To Achilles Patroclus is God's gift and embrace, an 

embrace that directs Achilles' primary thirst precisely into God, where a soul 

can be satisfied.

 

Patroclus himself as a human person is transformed by this relationship. As son 

of Menoetius, Patroclus is just 

ἄλκιµος

 (=brave and powerful - see verse 605). He 

is recognised as 

δῖος 

(=divine,

 

θεῖος

) only by him, to whom Patroclus is given as 

a divine gift.

[

Note the word dios (

δῖος

). We translate it as godly and divine, since 

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Learning Greek - Lesson 2

literally it means "he who belongs to and resembles Dias (

Δίας

) or Zeus 

(

Ζεῦς

)", the father of Gods and supreme God. Note also that 

Ζεῦς

 means 

"living and giving life" - compare his name with Zen (

Zῆν

)=living, Zoe 

(

Zωή

)=life, etc.

]

Patroclus was addressed by Achilles as God's gift, precisely at the moment 

when Patroclus appeared 

ἶσος Ἄρῃ

, equal to 

Ἄρης

 (the God of War, adopted by 

the Romans by the name of "Mars"). As God's gift Patroclus is the fulfillment of 

God's will. To Achilles war had a face - the face of Patroclus, the face of God. 

How can we understand this?

 

Read carefully

 

Now, please note something, think of what we realised reading carefully 

in its context just a single verse:

 

δῖε Μενοιτιάδη τῷ ἐµῷ κεχαρισµένε θυµῷ

Son of Menoetius, divine gift to the thirst of my soul

 

Whatever history of the Greek literature I might open to read the story of 

Achilles, I won't understand even half of what the text itself can give me, 

if I read it carefully. Otherwise, I will probably translate, like Butler, 

"Noble son of Menoetius, man after my own heart", where Patroclus has 

become something like an aristocratic flirt of Achilles', in any case 

indifferent to me, indifferent to my life and to all history. Maybe this 

indifference, due to the superficial reading of the texts, to the superficial 

treatment of our own lives, is the cause of decline of the fascination of the 

classical works. ]

 

*

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Learning Greek - Lesson 2

 

Patroclus is the rest and tranquility of Achilles' soul, but he is also a difficult 

demand. We shall now see how this demand is fulfilled. 

 

[ We are going to read the text like this:

 

First, you will just see the original Greek side by side with an English translation. 

* Read first the translation without caring for the prototype. Then read the 

Greek text trying carefully to identify words you already know from the 

previous

 textbook. 

These words were writen there in capitals, but now you will see them in small letters. Don't let this 

confuse you. If you've studied the alphabet well enough, you should  be able to identify more than 15 

words.

* Read the text aloud to gain some familiarity with the sounding of Greek 

words, even if you don't understand them.

* Copy the Greek text in a piece of paper.

Second, we will read the Greek original together, to understand the words and some 

of the grammar and syntax ]

 

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Just before Patroclus died

 

A

CHILLES is still angry with Agamemnon and stays out of the war, but he has 

let Patroclus wear his own armour to lead Myrmidons into the war, having 

advised him to avoid Hector.

The Greeks are almost defeated when Patroclus enters the battle. He fights like 

a God, reversing finally the course of the events, but he makes the "mistake" to 

go after Hector. Hector kills him and removes from the corpse Achilles' armour. 

Trojans and Greeks fight for the naked body. 

Messenger Antilochus reaches Achilles to announce that Patroclus is dead:

 

The text

Achilles' Grief  - from Homer's  Iliad,

 Rhapsody 18 (Σ), verses 18-38

 

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English  (S. Butler's translation)

Greek original

 

"Alas," he cried, "son of noble Peleus, I 

bring you bad tidings, would indeed that 

they were untrue. Patroclus has fallen, 

and a fight is raging about his naked 

body- for Hector holds his armour." 

 

A dark cloud of grief fell upon Achilles as 

he listened. He filled both hands with 

dust from off the ground, and poured it 

over his head, disfiguring his comely face, 

and letting the refuse settle over his shirt 

so fair and new.

 

Ὤ µοι Πηλέος υἱὲ δαΐφρονος ἦ µάλα 

λυγρῆς πεύσεαι ἀγγελίης͵ ἣ µὴ 

ὤφελλε γενέσθαι. Kεῖται Πάτροκλος͵ 

νέκυος δὲ δὴ ἀµφιµάχονται γυµνοῦ· 

ἀτὰρ τά γε τεύχε΄ ἔχει κορυθαίολος 

Ἕκτωρ. 

 

Ὣς φάτο͵ τὸν δ΄ ἄχεος νεφέλη 

ἐκάλυψε µέλαινα·  ἀµφοτέρῃσι δὲ 

χερσὶν ἑλὼν κόνιν αἰθαλόεσσαν 

χεύατο κὰκ κεφαλῆς͵ χαρίεν δ΄ 

ᾔσχυνε πρόσωπον· νεκταρέῳ δὲ 

χιτῶνι µέλαιν΄ ἀµφίζανε τέφρη.

 

* * *

 

Accents & Breathing marks

 

Y

OU SEE in the text, above the small letters or at the left side of capital letters 

some signs. These signs are placed on vowels and they are accents (

τόνοι

) and 

breathing marks (

πνεύµατα

):

 

 

Acute (

ὀξεία

)

Grave (

βαρεία

)

Circumflex 

(

περισπωµένη

)

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Accents

(

τόνοι

):

 

Rough (

δασεία

)

Smooth (

ψιλή

)

 

Breathing 

marks

(

πνεύµατα

):

᾿

 

 

Breathing marks and accents can have the following combinations: 

῎  ῍  ῏    ῞  ῝  ῟

* You can't have an accent combined with another accent, or a breathing mark 

combined with another breathing mark: You can only combine an accent with 

a breathing mark.

* Accents acute and grave are written at the right of a breathing mark, while 

circumflex is written at the top of a breathing mark.

 

Accent circumflex is the result of the union of the accent acute with the accent 

grave. 

E.g. in χώρὸς

  

+

 

unite and form  

  : χ

ρος. 

[χῶρος means space and place

in the sense of a ground, where beings are called to pro-ceed (

προ-

χωρεῖν

) in order to be hosted and united].

 

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Some (easy) rules you should remember:

 

α) You should take care to pronounce a word where an accent is, regardless of 

the breathing mark.  E.g. 

ἀτὰρ

 is pronounced ata/r  :  you stress 

άρ,

 the ultima, final, syllable, and not 

ἀτ

 despite of the breathing mark.

β) In any case a smooth breathing mark is not pronounced - just like in 

ἀτὰρ

 above.

γ) A rough breathing mark sounds like the English h (as in 

h

ypothesis). Words 

starting with ypsilon (ὕψιλον) always bear a rough breathing mark

Recall 

English words borrowed from Greek that start with h- (e.g. hybrid, hydraulic, hypothesis, etc. This h 

before the y is precisely the Greek rough breathing mark, while y is precisely the Greek ypsilon - In 

French y is called y graecum, in German is called ypsilon, just like in Greek). * Note the word 

υἱός

 

(son) which has always the breathing mark on the  

ι

 and not on the 

υ

.

 

δ) In modern Greek none of the breathing marks is pronounced. 

I don't care if you ignore them both in pronunciation, but you should learn to write 

and discern them, because they are useful or sometimes necessary in determining the 

meaning of words. The same is true with circumflex and the accents. A circumflex 

denotes a long sound. Don't bother to find out exactly how longer 

 should be 

pronounced compared with 

ό

Pronounce it as longer as it sounds good to your ears! But 

you should write and recognise the accents.

E.g. see how meaning changes according to the accentuation of just a single letter

 = "the" (feminine article, singular, first person)

 = "or" or "than"

 = "indeed", "as" ..., 

etc!

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Of course, there is also the context, but you won't be able always to rely on the 

context in order to understand the meaning of a word.

 * Read a short (one page) pdf document on how to place accents, by 

Peurifoy

.

 

* * *

 

The Greek sentence

 

B

ACK to our text, let's concentrate on a sentence first. Here is a complete and 

foundational sentence, just a verb and its subject-noun:

 

Kεῖται  Πάτροκλος

 

Κεῖται 

means the condition of lying, it is the verb (ῥῆµα) of the sentence. 

Πάτροκλος

 is the name of a person, it is a noun (noun comes from the Latin 

nomen, akin to the Greek 

ὄνοµα

).

A noun in Greek, as part of a sentence, is called by the epithet 

οὐσιαστικόν

 

(substantive, or, better, essential). Nouns are the essential parts of speech. 

Plato noted that we can not have 

complete speech without both a noun 

and a verb (cf. Plato, Sophist 262c) 

because a name becomes essential only 

if a verb describes it. 

Ἄνθρωπος

 (man, 

human being) is just a noun, that 

becomes essential in a sentence - e.g. in the 

sentence 

ἄνθρωπος µανθάνει

 (a man 

learns [=all men learn=man is a learning 

being]), where the verb "I 

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learn" (

µανθάνω

) regards the

 οὐσίαν 

ὄντος 

(the essence of a being), in this 

case the essence of man). 

Therefore, we can't know what a being 

is, before we have a verb, before we 

have a being's proper act. This way 

language itself indicates that an act (πρᾶξις or ἐνέργεια) is the foundation of 

the essence of a being. 

[To work like this, is an ambition of language, an ambition, however, that can 

not be fulfilled - as Plato himself demonstrated in 

Cratylus

, where he criticised 

knowledge attained through etymology and in any way based exclusively on 

language.]

 

[ Note in this context God's reply to Moses: " 

Ἐγὼ εἰµὶ ὁ ὤν

 

" (I am the one who is). 

Εἰµί

 (I am), the verb upon which the fundamental terms of metaphysics are based (to 

be=

εἶναι

being=

ὄν

, essence=

οὐσία

) normally is followed by an identifier: what are you? 

I am a man, etc. By repeating the verb to be, saying that "He is He who is", God reveals 

himself as transcendental, pure and genuine being - reveals that His essence is inaccesible 

to our knowledge and that, properly speaking, only His existence is indeed real, and 

not that of the creatures. If only God is the one who is, then all creatures are not  ].

 

Οὐσία

, in 

Plato's Sophist

, refers to the proper action (

πρᾶξις

) or to the proper 

idleness (

ἀπραξία

) of a being. In any case, the primary and crucial function/

ambition of a verb is to reveal something about the essence of a being, about the 

οὐσίαν ὄντος,

 by determining proper states of activity of that being. This way a 

name becomes the subject (

ὑποκείµενον

) of a verb and a sentence is formed. 

E.g. in 

Heraclitus

' sentence "harmony invisible [is] superior to the visible" (

ἁρµονίη 

ἀφανὴς φανερῆς κρείττων

) the invisible harmony will remain only that: invisible

until it becomes a term of comparison with the visible harmony. To our consciousness 

the invisible harmony exists, becomes essential (

οὐσιώδης, οὐσιαστικὴ

) only as the 

subject of the confirmation: κρείττων ἐστί (=it is superior). I can not "see" the invisible 

harmony, unless I see its superiority and only into this superiority - awareness of the 

invisible harmony always presupposes in the same time awareness of an inferior 

harmony.

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Order of importance - Omission (implication) of the subject or the verb

 

The smaller, foundational, sentence consists of a verb and its subject. If one of these 

terms is missing, then it is implied, e.g. in the sentence of Heraclitus the verb [is=

ἐστί

is implied. 

It is very common in Greek for the verb "is" to be implied.

 This is a way of language to 

concentrate upon the essential, to bring forward the subject/noun and the particularity 

of the action. Besides Heraclitus' sentence, note e.g. the sentence "

µεθ' ἡµῶν ὁ 

Θεός

" (="with us God"). We know that God always is. The point is that now God is with 

us, so that the verb ("is") disappears, to let the important appear more clearly. Note 

again. In English normally we would say "God is with us". Greek places first the "with 

us" and then "God" omitting entirely the "is". You can think of it as an 

order of 

importance

, where syntax follows the importance of meaning, moving the most 

significant to the start of the sentence

Note something analogous: "

τὴν τῆς πόλεως ἐπιµέλειαν

" Plato writes, placing, as is 

usual in Greek, the object of an action, before the action itself. This phrase in English 

would be "the watching over of the city", in Greek usually is "the of the city watching 

over". Think of it also as a reflection in language of the opposite of what medieval 

Latin thinkers (interpreting Aristotle) called principium individuationis, the principle of 

individuation, where a general sense - in our case, the sense of "watching over 

whatever", becomes specific by the addition "watching over this". In Greek, the word 

that specifies the action tends to be placed first - and thus we have: "the of the city 

watching over", 

ἡ τῆς πόλεως ἐπιµέλεια

. This way the order of importance becomes 

also an order of accuracy, which places first the individual and specific out of which and 

only, we can have a sense of the general and unspecified. 

Sometimes the subject or the verb is mentioned in a previous sentence and is not 

repeated and can be inferred from the context, e.g. in this lesson's text, in the sentence 

"[they]

 fight about his naked body

", the verb "fight about" (

''ἀµφιµάχονται

") refers to 

the Trojan and Greek armies.

 

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Α Sentence in Greek is called 

πρότασις

. The word πρότασις is formed by the 

preposition 

πρὸ 

(pre, for, ahead, before, in front) and the noun 

τάσις 

(tensity). 

A sentence, a 

πρότασις

, is a tensity that emerges in communication and leads ahead - 

not just a statement, but the disclosure of something probable, which is placed 

in front of those who listen, calling them to estimate it carefully and bear the 

consequences of this estimation. Therefore, the more primary and important a 

πρότασις

 is, the more it becomes - is meant to become - a principle, a law, an 

ἀρχή

 (=beginning, principle, ground, foundation, law, rule).

 

How does the πρότασις 

Κεῖται Πάτροκλος 

 

conform to what we said above, about the meaning of the very word 

πρότασις?  - Isn't Patroclus' death just a fact? 

 

P

ATROCLUS may be dead without any doubt at all. Both armies may fight 

around his naked corpse. Anyone may see him lying in the dust of the 

battlefield - and yet 

κεῖται Πάτροκλος

 

is not just a fact. Inside language, 

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inside speech, the way Achilles listens to itit is a πρότασις. That means: the one 

who listens to this πρότασις must decide himself what is exactly the fact that this 

πρότασις describes, and what this decided fact is expecting from him. 

A

 πρότασις

 transforms meaning into a call to action. By describing the 

οὐσίαν 

ὄντος

, a 

πρότασις

 calls for the 

πρᾶξις

 of the listener. Antilochus, then, does not 

just record into Achilles' memory a completed fact. Antilochus' πρό-τασις 

"

κεῖται Πάτροκλος

means: "Realise now yourself what this lying is expecting 

from your life. You have now to perform your 

πρᾶξις

 and your 

οὐσία 

according

 

to Patroclus' lying".  To this Homeric πρότασις of Patroclus' lying is essentially 

based what Plato was going to call 

µελέτη θανάτου

 

(study of death), the core 

of all real and genuine philosophy.

 

*

The verb

  

κεῖµαι

 

Κεῖµαι

 

is the first person, singular, present perfect form of a verb belonging to an 

unknown present. This "combination" of simple present and present perfect adds to 

the meaning the nuance of a continuously achieved finitude - an action always the 

same and yet always new.

Κεῖ

τ

αι

 

is the third person = he, Patroclus, lies. 

If you place both forms side by side you can recognise a stem and an ending: 

κεῖ-µ-αι

κεῖ-τ-αι

. What can these tell you about a verb?

The root (not always equal with the stem) of a Verb can help you identify a verb's 

origin and its connections with other words belonging to the same root. The root can be 

a gate to the primary meaning of a verb

(We shall see this later using κεῖµαι. For the moment remember that the 

stem is the beginning of the word, before the addition of suffixes. 

Sometimes root and stem are equal. Other times a root produces several 

stems, so that it is possible for a root to have only the first letter identical 

with the first letter of a word's stem.)

The ending of a verb reveals the person (first, second or third), number (singular, dual 

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or plural), voice (active, middle or passive), mode (indicative, subjunctive, etc).

 

The type of 

κεῖµαι

 forms the first person's ending in -

µ-αι

, and the third person's 

ending in -

τ-αι

. Notice 

µ

 and 

τ

. The former belongs to the first person, the latter to the 

third person. Now, if you see in a text some other verb e.g. 

λύοµαι

, even if you don't 

know what it means, you can recognise the root (λυ) and you can infer by the ending, 

that it is a middle voice verb, first person.

 

 

 

Κεῖµαι

 is based, as we saw, on root √

ΚΕΙ

. This root also produced words like 

κείω 

(I want to sleep),

 

κοίτη 

(sleeping bed, the bed of a river), 

κοιτίς

 

(box, 

basket), 

κοιµάω

 

(I help someone go to sleep), 

κοιµῶµαι

 

(I'm sleeping, I'm 

inactive), 

κώµη 

(village), 

ὠκεανός 

(ocean), 

κειµήλιον 

(heirloom), 

κείµενον 

(a stored thing, an available thing, a defined thing, a valid rule, a text)

 

If Homer wanted to say "Patroclus is dead" or "has fallen", he could have done 

so, he had the words! But he said 

κεῖται

, which means "he was standing, he was 

fighting, he was hit, he died, he fell and now 

κεῖται

".

 

Voices of the verb

 

There is a rough classification of the verbs in three categories: activemiddle and 

passive. These are called voices or moods and express the direction of the action. 

Verbs like λύ

ω

 (solve) or ἀκού

ω

 (hear), belong to the active voice: the subject is 

related with an object other than itself (I hear a noise, I solve a problem). Verbs 

like λούο

µαι

 (I bath) belong to the middle voice: the subject does something to 

himself or for himself whether by himself or by means of someone else, like 

γυµνάζο

µαι

 (I'm being trained by a coach). When the subject is just the 

recipient of someone else's action, the verb is called passive, e.g. the problem 

was solved (ἐλύ

θη

) by him. Passive voice has proper, passive, forms only in the 

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Learning Greek - Lesson 2

future and aorist tenses, otherwise middle and passive forms are the same.

Note, that a verb may have middle voice endings with only an active meaning (like 

ἕπο

µαι

=follow). These are called deponents - and they may confuse you in the 

beginning, since there is nothing like this in English. 

You can think of it 

(although it doesn't actually happens all the time) as an attempt of language to 

invest some words with the special ability to unite an active sense with a 

passive one, like when I (decide to) follow someone (active sense) being at the 

same time attracted by him (passive sense). 

Maybe an example would make it clear. When Heraclitus writes "it needs (

χρὴ

) 

follow (

ἕπεσθαι

the common

 

(

τῷ ξυνῷ

)" he doesn't use the (active) verb 

ἀκολουθεῖν 

(=to follow), but the middle synonym 

ἕπεσθαι

, giving thus to his 

sentence the nuance of 

surrendering oneself to the common

. To translate this in 

English, maybe we could say "it needs be conformed to the common", but this is 

excessively passive - not to mention that following the Common goes beyond 

any forms whatever. You can somehow explain Heraclitus' sentence if you 

know Greek, but you can not translate it adequately.

If a verb has both active and middle 

forms, and a middle form expresses an 

active action, this action usually has a 

subjective/personal importance, like in 

τιµωρ

 and τιµωρ

οῦµαι

, both of which 

mean "I avenge", but in the second case, 

in the middle form, the verb means that I 

avenge my honor, that there is a personal 

case I'm involved in and defend.

 

Kεῖµαι

 is a middle voice verb. Of course, 

there is the meaning of death is, death 

holds Patroclus on the ground, but there is 

also the meaning that Patroclus' body by 

means of its death is being transformed 

into a message and a place. This can be 

understood only by him, to whom the 

message is addressed and the place 

opened.

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Learning Greek - Lesson 2

In the dust of the battlefield, naked 

between the two armies, it is not just 

Patroclus lying: it is the dead body 

(

νέκυς

) of the gift of God, it is the dead 

body of God's and Achilles'glory - which 

to Achilles means: you can not be 

ἴσος 

Ἄρῃ

 any more, you are not divine any 

more. Your place and bed, your home 

and essence, is where 

κεῖται 

Πάτροκλος

Just as Patroclus is not just dead, Achilles has not just to die. He has to get up, 

fight, fall - and then lie, where

 Πάτροκλος

 

κεῖται

.

 

 

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Learning Greek - Lesson 2

   

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