CONTENTS A. Main points of structure. B. Minor points of idiom: NOTES ON STRUCTURE AND IDIOM. THE points illustrated in these Lectures may be broadly divided into two classes, which it will be better to treat separately: A. Main points of structure, which turn chiefly on the vividness, simplicity, and plain directness of the Greek (particularly in narrative style, though the same principles prevail widely in all Greek prose), compared with the various artificiality of the English idiom; B. Minor points of idiom, comprising such differences as will emerge when any two languages are compared, especially when the comparison is between an ancient and a modern language; and also various detailed usages, which make a great deal of difference to the idiomatic taste of the Greek rendering, but which it is difficult to refer to any larger principles. A. Main Points of Structure. § 1. The first and most fundamental point is the tendency in English to the abstract where in Greek the clause (in a variety of ways, see my Greek Prose Composition, §§ 106, 113) is more concrete. i. 2. published the occasion διήγγειλε διὰ τί οὐκ ἐπίθετο of his disobedience i. 5. civil war was approach ing έστασίαζον, or ἐς πόλεμον ὅσον οὔπω κατέστησαν A iii. 2. delay might cause loss ἢν μέλλωσι, φοβερὸν εἶναι μὴ, of the prize etc. iii. 4. with destruction await- μέλλοντα ἀπολέσθαι ing iv. 3. violence would be an χαλεπῶς ἂν φέρειν εἰ βιάσαιντο § 2. Further examples, where the personalising tendency of Greek is shown. i. 3. both stories are pro- εἰκὸς ἀληθῆ λέγειν ἀμφοτέρους bably true ii. 2. his moderation was ἐπιεικὴς ᾤετο φανεῖσθαι . . . displayed . . . iv. 3. the time for open war was not yet v. 5. the provisions were no longer binding vii. 1. the effect of all this providence was not such as was to be expected ix. 7. it must end in submission to a harder yoke οὔπω ἕτοιμοι ὄντες ἐς φανερὸν πόλεμον καταστῆναι ὥστε μηκέτι ὑπόσπονδοι εἶναι οὐ κατ ̓ ἐλπίδα ἀπέβη, καίπερ εὐλαβουμένοις υποχειρίους γενομένους δεινότερα πείσεσθαι |