Learning Greek - Lesson 3
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LESSON 3
HADES - From Homer's Odyssey
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Learning Greek - Lesson 3
The Underworld
O
DYSSEY is about the return of Odysseus to his
Οἶκος
.
Οἶκος
(=home)
means
mainly one's family and kinship. The crucial point, where Odyssey meets with
Iliad, is the 11th rhapsody, the so-called
νέκυια
(=sacrifice to the dead)
.
[
√
NEK
= death, produced a series of words related with death, like
νέκυς
(=
νεκρός
=dead man, corpse),
νεκὰς
(a pile of corpses) or
νέκταρ
(=divine drink, a
drink that overcomes death: -
ταρ
means "destroy, overcome"). ]
Anxious about his returning home, Odysseus visits the land of the dead to
consult the prophet Teiresias. The primary characteristic of that land is what
Homer calls
νὺξ
(night)
ὀλοὴ
(destructive)
. What exactly does this night and
darkness destroy?
I
N HOMER there is life after death. He calls the life of the dead, among other
epithets,
δῆµος
(community, populace)
and
πόλις
(city)
.
Ἀΐδης
(=
Πλούτων
) is
the God of the underworld, brother of Zeus (sometimes he is called by Homer
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Learning Greek - Lesson 3
even
Ζεὺς καταχθόνιος
= Zeus of the underworld). Ἀΐδης means the one that
has not
εἶδος
(=form and visible presence). Πλούτων is related with the word
Πλοῦτος (=richness, abundance). What kind of richness exists in the formless,
invisible, δῆµος of the underworld?
When Odysseus arrived in that land, he made a blood-offering to the dead, a
sacrifice called in Greek
νέκυια
(remember what we said above for the root
√
NEK
).
Sensing the blood (
αἷµα
) of the sheep the souls of the dead approached, "young
bachelors, old men worn out with toil, maids who had been crossed in love, and brave
men who had been killed in battle, with their armour still smirched with blood".
The souls would become able to talk with Odysseus, only if they drank from the
blood. However, to ensure that he wouldn't miss the prophet Teiresias,
Odysseus did not let any of them drink before he conversed with him.
There came also the soul of Odysseus' mother, sitting by the blood without
saying a word and without recognising (
ἀναγινώσκειν
) her son. Teiresias told
Odysseus that "Any one of the dead that you let taste of the blood will talk with you
verily, but if you do not let them have any blood they will go away again". Odysseus let
her mother drink blood and talked to her. After their talk he wanted to embrace
her,
"Thrice I sprang towards her and tried to clasp her in my arms, but each time she flitted
from my embrace as a semblance (
εἴκελον
) of a shadow or even of a dream, and being
touched to the quick I said to her, 'Mother, why do you not stay still when I would
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Learning Greek - Lesson 3
embrace you? If we could throw our
arms around one another we might
find sad comfort in the sharing of our
sorrows even in the house of Hades;
does Persephone want to lay a still
further load of grief upon me by
mocking me with a specter (
εἴδωλον
)
only?'
"'My son,' she answered, 'most ill-
fated of all mankind, it is not
Persephone that is beguiling you, but
this is the law (
δίκη
) for all the
mortals (
βροτῶν
), when they die.
The sinews no longer hold the flesh
(
σάρκας
) and bones (
ὀστέα
)
together; these perish in the fierceness
of consuming fire as soon as life (
θυµὸς
) has left the body, and the soul (
ψυχὴ
) flits
away as though it were a dream (
ὄνειρος
). Now, however, go back to the light of day as
soon as you can, and note all these things that you may tell them to your wife hereafter.'"
Odysseus saw Sisyphus
"at his endless task raising his prodigious stone with both his hands. With hands and feet
he tried to roll it up to the top of the hill, but always, just before he could roll it over on to
the other side, its weight would be too much for him, and the pitiless stone would come
thundering down again on to the plain. Then he would begin trying to push it up hill
again, and the sweat ran off him and the steam rose after him".
He saw many heroes, until
"so many thousands of dead came round me and uttered such appalling cries, that I was
panic stricken…".
Among the dead there was also Achilles. He was with Patroclus and Antilochus
and also with Ajax - the most brave man after Achilles. Achilles wondered why
Odysseus descended to the underworld, a place where,
νεκροὶ ἀφραδέες ναίουσι, βροτῶν εἴδωλα καµόντων
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Learning Greek - Lesson 3
(which means)
νεκροὶ
(dead)
ἀφραδέες
(unconscious)
ναίουσι
(dwell)
,
εἴδωλα
(specters)
βροτῶν
(of mortals)
καµόντων
(who died)
Odysseus explains why he came and tries to comfort Achilles:
"As for you, Achilles, no one was ever yet so fortunate as you have been, nor ever will be,
for you were adored like a God by all us Argives as long as you were alive, and now that
you are here you are a great prince among the dead. Do not, therefore, take it so much to
heart even if you are dead".
To which the great and glorious, the most adored in all Greece, answered:
"Say not a word in death's favour; I would rather be a paid servant in a poor man's
house and be above ground (
ἐπάρουρος
) than king of kings among the demolished
(
καταφθιµένοισιν
) dead (
νεκύεσσι
)".
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Learning Greek - Lesson 3
A destructive darkness (
νὺξ ὀλοή
)
N
OW THAT we've seen some evidence of the life in the underworld, let's get
back to our question: what is the meaning of
νὺξ
(night)
ὀλοὴ
(destructive),
what exactly does death's darkness destroy?
Not all visual perception is lost: Sisyphus can see at least a stone that he raises,
Achilles can see and be with his friends, etc. Smell and taste also work, since
souls can sense and drink blood. Touch too, since the stone had to be touched by
Sisyphus. Homer's dead seem to have some kind of a body, although a body
without flesh and bones. Their life in that kind of a body is connected with the
world of daylight with blood (
αἷµα
) - not any, but sacrificial blood, blood
dedicated to the dead ones in the name of God. The dead can sense the sacrificial
blood and when they drink of it they can also understand the form, appearance
and identity (
εἶδος
) of a living man, they can also talk with him, they keep or
acquire all their mental and bodily abilities, except for one - they can not touch or
be touched and they can not change their life.
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Learning Greek - Lesson 3
Achilles repeats the death-sense three times in a six-word sentence: the subjects
of Hades are dead (
νεκροί
), even before that, they were mortals (
βροτῶν
), who
finally died (
καµόντων
). The two of the rest three words mean some defect:
unconscious (
ἀφραδέες
) semblances (
εἴδωλα
) of the real people. Only one word
fits to life, the word ναίουσι, "they dwell".
A soul enters the underworld in the semblance of her body, a semblance of the
body's condition at the moment of death (old men worn out with toil, men with their
armour still smirched with blood, etc.), a semblance so perfect, that Odysseus did
not believe he couldn't embrace it (Thrice I sprang towards her and tried to clasp her
in my arms).
Drinking blood means that for a while their body approaches reality, so that they
can recognize a living person, they can recognise real life. The blood of the
sacrifice, to them is light. Achilles is with the soul of his beloved Patroclus, but he
can not be satisfied, since even his friend's soul is confined in and defined by
darkness.
I found great help to understand the meaning of this, when I remembered a
by Takis Papatsonis (20th century). Here is the relevant excerpt:
"… like the eternal night of the wicked death, -
fruitless, / without any thing to be feared or expected,
without beginning, / without end, unconscious, like the
bare (
ψιλὴ
) concept (
ἔννοια
) / of death, without
trophies of colors, without even the splendor / of a future
Judgment (
Κρίσεως
) with trumpets."
Thinks of this, and remember what Achilles said about
the dead, that they are unconscious seblances, think of
what Teiresias said to Odysseus, that if they drink
blood dead souls will speak the truth, think of Sisyphus
and how devoted he was to the vanity of his raising a stone, think of how each
dead soul is eternally marked by the last moments of her life above the ground,
see how after they drink blood they become aware of their doom, they worry
about their relatives, they fear their underground abode…
Homer's Hades is like hell, but not exactly as we know it after Christ, since
Homeric Hades is the certain destiny of all mankind without exception.
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Learning Greek - Lesson 3
What's the use of inflection?
Y
OU MIGHT have heard that Greek is "a highly inflected language", and you've
seen already some occasions of inflection - in verb endings indicating the person
(λέλυκ
α
, λέλυκ
ας
, etc), pronouns (µ
ου
, µ
οι
, µ
ε
, etc), articles (τ
οῦ
, τ
όν
, etc), etc.
What's the use of inflection?
We saw that in a verb inflection is meant to keep a person united with a person's
action. That doesn't mean that Greeks decided to do it so - it just happened! They
said
ἀπωλόµεθα
(just a single word to express that
we
suffer
ed
great casualties),
because, as their language was being brought forth, it reflected their seeing a
person only after its proper action and united with that action. Since action made a
being essential, they couldn't see anything before it was involved in some action.
They couldn't give birth to a language in which, instead of
ἀπωλόµεθα,
they
would have to say "We were wiped out", placing, thus, the person first, isolated,
divided from the action and from the time in which the action happened. Even
rocks, soulless beings, in English "
They
exist", in Greek ὑφίστα
νται
, because
rocks' activity is to participate in being, it is this participation that makes them
what they are and they can not be seen before it has been realised how they are.
The ancient way of writing was perfectly fit to the inflectional and unifying
character of the language. Greek was written with all the words united and all
letters in capital forms, like:
THISISHOWANCIENTGREEKSWROTE
Greek was written in this way also in
small letters with accents started to replace it - a change that some did not accept,
and continued to write as before in capital and united letters, until the Fall of
Suppose that you add to the sentence above a second one and then another one,
all united, until you have a complete page. Would you still be able to read it
easily? Only after Alexander's exodus, when a lot of non Greeks wanted to know
Greek and found it difficult, words were separated, small versions of the letters
were formed, accents were placed above vowels…
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Learning Greek - Lesson 3
Greek language sees and loves closeness, oneness, intimacy, involvement. If we
find it now difficult, when words are separate, let us just imagine how it would
be for us to read and write like this:
Thus, a verb unites time, action and person in a single word, flexible enough to
reflect all tenses, moods and persons. But why are names also inflected?
Let's see a sentence; it is from Homer's Odyssey, 11th rhapsody, v. 438-9.
Odysseus speaks with the soul of King Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek
expedition against Troy, and remarks how disasters always came because of
some woman:
Ἑλέν
ης
µὲν ἀπωλό
µεθα
εἵνεκα πολλ
οί
͵
σ
οὶ
δὲ Κλυταιµνήστρ
η
δόλ
ον
ἤρτυ
ε
τηλόθ΄ ἐό
ντι
.
The translation is:
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Learning Greek - Lesson 3
"For Helen's (
Ἑλένης
) sake (
εἵνεκα
) many of us (
πολλοί
) were wiped out
(
ἀπωλόµεθα
),
and (
δὲ
) against you (
σοὶ
) Klytaimnestra (
Κλυταιµνήστρη
- She
is
Agamemnon's wife
) was concocting (
ἤρτυε
) fraud (
δόλον
), while you were
(
ἐόντι
) far away (
τηλόθι
-
namely, in Troy
).
* Read the text, learn the meaning of the words inside parentheses. Learn it now because we
need to concentrate on the original text itself.
Ἑλέν
ης
µὲν ἀπωλό
µεθ'
εἵνεκα πολλ
οί
͵
σ
οὶ
δὲ Κλυταιµνήστρ
η
δόλ
ον
ἤρτυ
ε
τηλόθ΄ ἐό
ντι
.
In this sentence we have:
* Two words in nominative case (
πολλοί, Κλυταιµνήστρη
), a genitive case
(
Ἑλένης
), an accusative case (
δόλον
) and two words in dative case (
σοί, ἐόντι
) -
all in singular number, except of
πολλοί
. There is also a vocative case (which our
text lacks and which is not, properly speaking, a case). We will talk in more
details about all of this later, but we must know now what's the use of any case -
what is a case.
A case in Greek is called
πτῶσις
(fall). A fall to where and whence? It is not a
fall to the ground (or, maybe, from the ground to some kind of abyss!). If we like
pictures, we can imagine this kind of fall, not as falling down, but as inclining, as
leaning towards whatever comes near and attracts. This is why we talk about
declensions of some parts of speech. Πτῶσις is what happens to Alcaeus when he
meets with Sappho in the painting that follows:
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Learning Greek - Lesson 3
A πτῶσις requires something Standing, something Upright. This upright
position is what (some ancient philologues established and) we today incorrectly
continue to call nominative case.
First of all, we must think of the nominative
not as a case, but as the lack of a case.
English
In Greek is :
Helen was concocting a fraud
nominative
->
Ἑλένη
δόλον ἤρτυε.
I touch Helen
genitive
->
Ἅπτοµαι
Ἑλένη
ς
.
I see Helen
accusative
->
Ὁρῶ
Ἑλένη
ν
.
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Learning Greek - Lesson 3
I follow Helen
dative
->
Ἕποµαι
Ἑλέν
ῃ
(
Ἑλένη
ι
).
Helen, come with us!
vocative
->
Ἑλένη
, µεθ' ἡµῶν ἐλθέ!
Watching the right column, the column with the Greek phrases, we see that the
name of Helen is changed in genitive, accusative and dative, but not in
nominative or vocative. Other names, however, change in vocative too, like, e.g.
Σωκράτης
, who becomes in vocative
Σώκρατες
.
Helen's name does not change in the nominative, because inhere she is the
subject - she is not followed or seen or touched: she does something by herself,
she concocts. When Helen becomes the 'object' of an action, her name
changes. She is influenced by that action, she responds, and her reaction is
pictured in the change of her name, which is the grammatical case, the
'departure' from the nominative.
What does Helen do in English?
She is always standing - whether I touch her, or see her, or follow her, she is always
the same. In English, just like in my activity I am always outside and before an
impersonal action (I solved just like You solved - the verb, the action, is
unchanged by the difference of the persons), in a similar way I remain
unchanged when I am the object of someone else's action: whether they see me or
follow me or touch me, it is always just me...
This is, then, what inflection does in Greek, it incorporates into language
the
responses of a being to some action or condition.
Inflection is one more way of picturing real life. Helen in English is only a step
away before she is finally substituted with a number.
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Learning Greek - Lesson 3
Ἑλένης µὲν ἀπωλόµεθ' εἵνεκα πολλοί
͵ Homer writes.
In this sentence
Ἑλένη
is not just the most beautiful woman in Greece - she is the
cause of the war and of our loss. She is placed first, in the start of the sentence, as
the cause of so many disasters and so great an admiration, but she is not placed
in nominative, because she is involved in our actions: we made her our object and
cause. Although she had the power to satisfy our will, it is still our will that made
her our purpose, and it is our will that is ultimately responsible for our loss.
Therefore, we are in the nominative and she leans, she inclines in the genitive.
Aristotle writes that
(unlike a sentence, which is composed by and composes
various concepts - e.g. man learns)
"expressions which are in no way composite
signify the essence (
οὐσία
), quantity (
ποσόν
), quality (
ποιόν
), relation (
πρός τι
),
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Learning Greek - Lesson 3
place (
πού
), time (
ποτέ
), position (
κεῖσθαι
), state (
ἔχειν
), action (
ποιεῖν
), or
affection/passion (
πάσχειν
)" (cf. Caterogies 1b25-27).
In English we say, e.g. "I'm going to school". The expression "to school" signifies a
place (
πού
=somewhere) to which I'm going, and it is formed by a preposition
(to) and the name of the place (school).
Such expressions, prepositional expressions, are used very often in a sentence in
order to define quantity (
ποσόν
), quality (
ποιόν
), relation (
πρός τι
), place (
πού
),
etc.
A preposition (
πρόθεσις
) is a word that is pro-posed (
προ-τίθεται
), posed before
some other word, in order to invest this word with the ability to express some of
the categories of speech in a sentence.
The word
εἵνεκα
is a preposition (
πρόθεσις
).
In Greek it is usual for a πρόθεσις, and especially for εἵνεκα to be placed after
and not before the name, like in the phrase
Ἑλένης εἵνεκα
, instead of the normal
εἵνεκα Ἑλένης
(
Notice in English both arrangements: "For the sake of Helen", and "for
Helen's sake").
This happens, because in a particular sentence a name may be
more important than even the clarification that a preposition serves.
In the ordering "
εἵνεκα Ἑλένης
" most important is that Helen was a cause for
something. In the order "
Ἑλένης εἵνεκα
", Helen's person itself is more important
than her being a cause of whatever - or, even better - the fact that she is so
important explains why she was a cause for what happened.
As a word,
εἵνεκα
by itself means "Only one thing matters, that…".
Εἵνεκα
comes
from
ἓν
(=one) and a verb that means "I want". When I say εἵνεκα, before I go on
and reveal "because of what", "for whose sake", I already have said, that what will
follow is the only one that matters - but since it is so important, it can't actually
follow, and it is placed first!
Kroisus addresses Solon (cf. Herodotus 1.30) aknowledging the fact that Solon
traveled many lands
θεωρίης εἵνεκεν
(for theory's sake - θεωρίη=wisdom).
Θεωρίη
is the only thing Solon wanted, so that it is placed before and not after
the preposition
εἵνεκεν
. It is very usual for
εἵνεκεν
to follow instead of
preceding. However,
the word that belongs to
εἵνεκεν
is always in genitive case.
(Both Ἑλένη
ς
and θεωρίη
ς
are in genitive case).
Εἵνεκεν indicates the cause or the purpose. Helen was the purpose of many
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Learning Greek - Lesson 3
people (πολλοί). To be a purpose or a cause means to be of some worth.
Ἑλένη
,
when she is recognised to be the purpose and loss of so many people, acquires
one more letter, she becomes
Ἑλένη
ς
.
Ἑλένη
is a human being, a woman and Menelaus' wife, but she became also the
woman all Greeks wanted, so that they perished for
Ἑλένη
ς
sake.
Usually names indicating worth or possession are placed in genitive case.
English has adopted some of this, like when we say Helen
's
, adding the s. It is an
external addition, it is not incorporated in Helen's name, it does not belong to an
inflection, but it is better than nothing!
"Mr. Dick fulfils my aunt's predictions".
Reading this sentence in English you know that
aunt's
can not be the subject of
the verb - it is not aunt's, it is Mr. Dick who fulfils.
In Greek too, when you see a noun in a case other than the nominative you know
that this noun is not the subject of a verb.
Not everything is inflected. The leaning (inflected) parts of speech are the
article (
ἄρθρον
), the noun (
οὐσιαστικόν
), the adjective (
ἐπίθετον
), the
pronoun (
ἀντωνυµία
), the verb (
ῥῆµα
) and the participle (
µετοχή
).
Uninflected parts are the adverb (
ἐπίρρηµα
), the preposition (
πρόθεσις
), the
conjunction (
σύνδεσµος
) and the interjection (
ἐπιφώνηµα
).
Εἵνεκα
, a preposition, is not inflected. However you may find it also as
εἵνεκεν
,
ἕνεκα
or
ἕνεκεν
, according to various Greek dialects. These are not cases and
they all have the same meaning and function.
Prepositions are necessary, but they signify a certain defect of a language. E.g. in
the phrase "For Helen's sake we vanished", the time at which we vanished when
we saw simultaneously Helen's face and our loss, it has become a line: the cause
is not inside the time of the action, as it would be, let's say, in something like
forhelenwevanished. However, in Ancient Greek, the very way of writting all
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Learning Greek - Lesson 3
words united, ultimately incorporated everything in everything. But a certain
distinction is necessary, even if I unite all letters.
A language needs defectiveness to some degree, otherwise we would create a
new word each time we opened our mouth. We need a mechanical language to
some degree, where "with" will always be one and the same, although it is not
the same in reality, although it is different to talk with your torturer and with
your mother. Aristotle's categories are not something like moulds where our
minds pour reality in order to comprehend it.
Cf.
Homer
:
Orphica
:
Everything was generated by Love
Ovid:
Origen:
Glorifying the greatness of His deity
Gregory of Nyssa:
Everything shares in the Beautiful
Boethius:
mourning moved the depths of hell
Erigena:
By His seeing and running all things are made
Symeon the
Becoming invisible and suddenly appearing
Entirely within, entirely without
Nicholas Cabasilas:
Hoelderlin:
The God is near, and hard to grasp
Schiller:
We recognise in them the divine origin of man
(margin:
Keats, To Homer)
Emerson:
Through a foundational poetic and noetic experience of Being
The length, breadth and sweep of heavens are mine!
Papatsonis:
The main purpose of these lessons perhaps has been accomplished - to trace a way
of learning Greek by stimulating thinking and by understanding how deeply
language incorporates reality, at the same time depicting a past and preparing a
future reality. You can use the texts and your grammar and syntax books to
explore further this way. This is a course you must finish! Thanks for being here!
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Learning Greek - Lesson 3
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http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/lessons/lesson3.asp (17 of 17) [3/11/2007 2:32:37 PM]
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