Laudator Temporis Acti

Homer, Iliad 7.96-100 (Menelaus reproaches his fellow Greeks because no one has volunteered to accept the Trojan Hector's challenge to single combat; tr. A.T. Murray, rev. William F. Wyatt):

Ah me, you braggarts, you women of Achaea, men no more!
Surely will this be an outrage dread and dire,
if no man of the Danaans now goes to meet Hector.
But may you one and all turn to earth and water,
you who sit there each man with no heart in him, utterly inglorious.

ὤ μοι ἀπειλητῆρες Ἀχαιΐδες οὐκέτ᾽ Ἀχαιοί·
ἦ μὲν δὴ λώβη τάδε γ᾽ ἔσσεται αἰνόθεν αἰνῶς
εἰ μή τις Δαναῶν νῦν Ἕκτορος ἀντίος εἶσιν.
ἀλλ᾽ ὑμεῖς μὲν πάντες ὕδωρ καὶ γαῖα γένοισθε
ἥμενοι αὖθι ἕκαστοι ἀκήριοι ἀκλεὲς αὔτως.

Leaf and Bayfield on line 100:

ἀκήριοι ἀκλεὲς αὔτως: 'spiritless, in utter shame.' ἀκλεές is the neut. of ἀκλεής used adverbially. Some editors write ἀκλέες, i.e. ἀκλεέες, nom. pl.

G.S. Kirk ad loc.:

ἀκλεὲς is neuter acc. used adverbially; nom. plur. ἀκλέες, so accented, had some support (cf. Eustathius 669.1) but is probably an incorrect form (Chantraine, GH 1, 74). αὔτως intensifies: 'in an utterly inglorious way'.

If nominative plural ἀκλέες were read, then ἀκήριοι ἀκλέες (without heart, without fame) would be an example of a pair of asyndetic privative adjectives, in the same category as

• Iliad 9.63: Clanless, lawless, hearthless (ἀφρήτωρ ἀθέμιστος ἀνέστιός)
• Iliad 13.37: Not to be broken, not to be loosened (ἀρρήκτους ἀλύτους)
• Iliad 22.386: Unmourned, unburied (ἄκλαυτος ἄθαπτος)
• Odyssey 1.242: Unseen, unknown (ἄιστος ἄπυστος)
• Odyssey 4.788: Fasting, not tasting food or drink (ἄσιτος ἄπαστος ἐδητύος ἠδὲ ποτῆτος)
• Odyssey 11.72: Unmourned, unburied (ἄκλαυτος ἄθαπτος)

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives