Laudator Temporis Acti

G.P. Shipp, Studies in the Language of Homer, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1972), pp. 11-12 (click to enlarge):

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

Reinhold Merkelbach and Josef Stauber, edd., Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten, Bd. 3: Der „Ferne Osten“ und das Landesinnere bis zum Tauros (München: K.G. Säur, 2001), p. 285, number 16/32/07 (epitaph of Montanus), lines 9-10 (my translation):

If anyone brings deceitful hands against this carving,
he will die without children, without a tomb, without relatives.

εἴ τις τῆσδε γλυφῆς δολίας χ[ε]ῖρας προσενένκ[η]ι,
ἄτεκνος ἄτυμβος ἀνανχίστευτος ὀλ[ε]ῖται.

Note the three asyndetic privative adjectives at the beginning of line 10.

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

I noticed some examples of asyndetic privative adjectives in D.R. Jordan, "Defixiones from a Well near the Southwest Corner of the Athenian Agora," Hesperia 54.3 (1985) 205-255. A good example, a series of three adjectives with minimal and almost certain restoration, appears on p. 216, in a curse directed against a wrestler named Eutychian, which contains the wish that he be speechless, mindless, harmless (ἄλαλο[ς, ἄ]νους ἀκέραιος, line 16, i.e., ἄλαλος, ἄνους, ἀκέραιος).

This is curse Tablet ID 2 in the Thesaurus Defixionum database.

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

Diogenes of Sinope, fragment 4 (from Diogenes Laertius 6.38 etc.; tr. M.J. Cropp):

He (i.e. Diogenes) used to say that all the tragic curses had fallen upon him; he was, at any rate,

Cityless, homeless, bereft of fatherland,
a beggar, a vagrant, getting a living day by day.

εἰώθει δὲ λέγειν ⟨πάσας⟩ τὰς τραγικὰς ἀρὰς αὐτῷ συνηντηκέναι· εἶναι γοῦν

ἄπολις, ἄοικος, πατρίδος ἐστερημένος,
πτωχός, πλανήτης, βίον ἔχων ἐφήμερον.

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

Calvert Watkins (1933-2013), How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 113:

The figure of anaphora, repetition of a sound, word, or phrase at the beginning of successive verses or other units is very common in Vedic. RV 8.70.11 combines a phonetic anaphora in a(nya-) 'other-' and a(va) 'off with a semantic one in a- 'un-', and concludes with the repetition of the same word at the end of pādas c and d, a sort of 'cataphora' known as punaḥpadam (chap. 4 n.8), which runs through 6 verses of the hymn. The strophe is bṛhatī, 8/8/12/8 syllables:

anyávratam ámānuṣam
áyajvānam ádevayum
áva sváḥ sákhā dudhuvīta párvataḥ
sughnā́ya dásyum párvataḥ

Him who follows another commandment, the non-man,
non-worshipping godless one,
may his (your?) friend the mountain shake down,
the mountain the barbarian, the easier to slay.

For the anaphora of privative compounds of similar semantics compare Il. 9.63-4:

ἀφρήτωρ ἀθέμιστος ἀνέστιός ἐστιν ἐκεῖνος
ὃς πολέμου ἔραται ἐπιδημίου ὀκρυόεντος.

Clanless, lawless, hearthless is he
that lusts for chilling war among his own people.

This figure can be securely posited for the poetic grammar of the protolanguage.

I don't have access to J.N. Adams, Asyndeton and its Interpretation in Latin Literature: History, Patterns, Textual Criticism (Cambridge University Press, 2021), but I extracted the following images from a digital copy on Google Books (pp. 99-102 in the hard copy book, I think):

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

Aeschylus, Eumenides 785 = 815 (tr. Richmond Lattimore):

...cancer, the leafless, the barren...

...λειχὴν ἄφυλλος ἄτεκνος...

Alan H. Sommerstein ad loc.:


English lichen is derived from Greek λειχήν (via Latin lichen).

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

Polybius 1.67.11 (tr. W.R. Paton, rev. F.W. Walbank):

The consequence was that everything was in a state of uncertainty, mistrust and confusion.

ἐξ ὧν ἦν ἀσαφείας, ἀπιστίας, ἀμιξίας ἅπαντα πλήρη.

Id. 15.24.2:

The Thasians told Metrodorus, Philip's general, that they would surrender the city if he would let them remain without a garrison, exempt from tribute, with no soldiers quartered on them and governed by their own laws.

Θάσιοι εἶπον πρὸς Μητρόδωρον τὸν Φιλίππου στρατηγὸν παραδοῦναι τὴν πόλιν εἰ διατηρήσοι αὐτοὺς ἀφρουρήτους, ἀφορολογήτους, ἀνεπισταθμεύτους, νόμοις χρῆσθαι τοῖς ἰδίοις.

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

D.R. Jordan, "Defixiones from a Well Near the Southwest Corner of the Athenian Agora," Hesperia 54.3 (July-September, 1985) 205-255 (at p. 216, lines 15-16):

                                                                    Ἔστω κωφός,]
ἄλαλο[ς, ἄ]νους, ἀκέραιος, µήτε παλαίω[ν µηδενί.]

[....]

                                                                  Let him be deaf,
dumb, mindless, harmless, and not fighting against anyone.

At the end of line 15, I wonder if ἀνήκοος could be supplied instead of κωφός. Also, translating speechless instead of dumb would emphasize the privative nature of ἄλαλος.

---

Oops, now I see that κωφός appears in similar phrases on other curse tablets from the same collection, so I withdraw my suggestion about ἀνήκοος.

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

There is a pair of asyndetic privative adjectives in the Sibylline Oracles 4.120: ἄφαντος ἄπυστος, i.e., unseen unheard. See Johannes Geffcken, ed., Die Oracula Sibyllina (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1902), p. 97.

Jonathan Bate, How the Classics Made Shakespeare (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), pp. 84-85:

Erasmus called him "the Christian Virgil" not only because both the ancient poet and his modern imitator came from Mantuan, but also because the explicitly Christian content of his eclogues avoided some of the problems that occurred when pagan texts were prescribed to schoolboys.

Read Mantua for Mantuan.

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives, typographical and other errors

There is a pair of asyndetic privative adjectives (ἀκίνητοι ἄδρομοι) in R.S.O. Tomlin, "'Remain like Stones, Unmoving, Un-running': Another Greek Spell against Competitors in a Foot-Race," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 160 (2007) 161-166 (lines 27-31 of the tablet, on p. 163, with Tomlin's translation on p. 164):

                                                                                δῆϲον α[ὐτῶν]
τοὺϲ πόδοϲ, τὰ νεῦρα, τὰ ϲκέλη, τὸν θυμό[ν], τὴν ἀρε[τήν],
τὰ τριακόϲια πεντήκοντα πέ<ν>τε μέλη τῶν ϲωμάτων [αὐ-]
τῶν καὶ τῶν ψυχῶν, ἕνα μὴ δύνοντε προβένιν ἐν τῷ
ϲταδίῳ, ἂλλὰ μένωϲιν ὡϲ λίθοι ἀκίνητοι ἄδρομοι.

                                        Bind their
feet, sinews, legs, spirit, excellence,
the three hundred and fifty-five limbs of their bodies
and souls, that they be not able to proceed in the
stadium, but remain like stones, unmoving, un-running.

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

Corpus Hermeticum 2.12, tr. Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation with Notes and Introduction (1992; rpt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 11:

"What is the incorporeal, then?"

"Mind as a whole wholly enclosing itself, free of all body, unerring, unaffected, untouched, at rest in itself, capable of containing all things and preserving all that exists, and its rays (as it were) are the good, the truth, the archetype of spirit, the archetype of soul."

I don't have access to Corpus Hermeticum, Tome I: Poimandrès - Traités II-XII. Texte établi par A.D. Nock, traduit par A.-J. Festugière (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1946), but here is the Greek as preserved by Stobaeus 1.18.3, in Ioannis Stobaei Anthologii Libri Duo Priores, ed. Curt Wachsmuth (Berlin: Weidmann, 1884), p. 159:


Note the series of asyndetic, privative adjectives ἀπλανής. ἀπαθής, ἀναφής.

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

There is a series of asyndetic privative adjectives in Plutarch, On Brotherly Love 13 = Moralia 485 A:

ἄχαριν ἀνελεύθερον ἄτιμον ἄπορον ἀσθενῆ.

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

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

There is a pair of asyndetic, privative adjectives (ἄϕθαϱτος, ἀποίητος) in Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 6.5.39 = Ernst von Dobschütz, Das Kerygma Petri kritisch untersucht (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1893), pp. 18-19 (fragment 2a):

ὅτι δὲ οὐ κατ' ἐπίγνωσιν ἴσασι τὸν θεόν, ἀλλὰ κατὰ περίφρασιν Ἑλλήνων οἱ δοκιμώτατοι, Πέτρος ἐν τῷ Κηρύγματι λέγει· "Γινώσκετε οὖν ὅτι εἷς θεός ἐστιν, ὃς ἀρχὴν πάντων ἐποίησεν, καὶ τέλους ἐξουσίαν ἔχων" καί "ὁ ἀόρατος, ὃς τὰ πάντα ὁρᾷ, ἀχώρητος, ὃς τὰ πάντα χωρεῖ, ἀνεπιδεής, οὗ τὰ πάντα ἐπιδέεται καὶ δι' ὅν ἐστιν, ἀκατάληπτος, ἀέναος, ἄφθαρτος, ἀποίητος, ὃς τὰ πάντα ἐποίησεν λόγῳ δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ [τῆς γνωστικῆς γραφῆς] τουτέστι τοῦ υἱοῦ."

Translation in Wilhelm Schneemelcher, ed., New Testament Apocrypha, Vol. II: Writings Relating to the Apostles; Apocalypses and Related Subjects. English translation edited by R. McL. Wilson (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), p. 38 (notes omitted):

And that the most notable of the Greeks know (about) God not by positive knowledge, but (only) by roundabout expression, Peter says in the 'Preaching':

Recognize now that there is one God who created the beginning of all things and who has the power to set an end;

and

the Invisible who sees all things; the Incomprehensible who comprehends all things; the One who needs nothing, of whom all things stand in need and for whose sake they are; the Inconceivable, the Everlasting, the Imperishable, the Uncreated, who has made all things by the word of his power [from the gnostic writing], that is his Son.

The English definite articles ("the Imperishable, the Uncreated") somewhat obscure the asyndeton. More literally, "Imperishable, Uncreated". At first glance the passage contains what looks like a series of four asyndetic privative adjectives (ἀκατάληπτος, ἀέναος, ἄφθαρτος, ἀποίητος), but ἀέναος isn't privative — it's from ἀεί + νάω, i.e., ever-flowing.

Related post: Via Negativa.

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

There is a pair of asyndetic privative adjectives in the Greek Anthology, at 1.94.2:

ἐς δόμον ἀχράντοιο ἀμωμήτοιο γυναικὸς

W.R. Paton's translation, by the addition of a conjunction, obscures the asyndeton:

to the house of the immaculate and blameless woman

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

Cleanthes, in Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ed. Hans von Arnim, Vol. I: Zeno et Zenonis Discipuli (1905; rpt. Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner, 1964), pp. 126-127, fragment 557 (my translation, with underlined words to be discussed below):

The good — you ask me what kind of thing it is? Then listen:
orderly, just, holy, pious,
ruling over itself, useful, beautiful, binding,
rigorous, plain, always expedient,
without fear, without sorrow, profitable, free from pain,        5
beneficial, pleasant, unfailing, dear,
honored, charitable, agreeable,
of good reputation, not vain, careful, mild, zealous,
persevering, blameless, always enduring.

τἀγαθὸν ἐρωτᾷς μ᾿ οἷόν ἐστ'; ἄκουε δή·
τεταγμένον, δίκαιον, ὅσιον, εὐσεβές,
κρατοῦν ἑαυτοῦ, χρήσιμον, καλόν, δέον,
αὐστηρόν, αὐθέκαστον, ἀεὶ συμφέρον,
ἄφοβον, ἄλυπον, λυσιτελές, ἀνώδυνον,        5
ὠφέλιμον, εὐάρεστον, ἀσφαλές, φίλον,
ἔντιμον, <εὐχάριστον>, ὁμολογούμενον,
εὐκλεές, ἄτυφον, ἐπιμελές, πρᾶον, σφοδρόν,
χρονιζόμενον, ἄμεμπτον, ἀεὶ διαμένον.

7 suppl. von Arnim

Note the pair of asyndetic, privative adjectives (ἄφοβον, ἄλυπον) at the beginning of line 5. The underlined words also appear in Diogenes Laertius 7.98-99 (on Zeno; tr. R.D. Hicks):

All good (they say) is expedient, binding, profitable, useful, serviceable, beautiful, beneficial, desirable, and just or right. It is expedient, because it brings about things of such a kind that by their occurrence we are benefited. It is binding, because it causes unity where unity is needed; profitable, because it defrays what is expended on it, so that the return yields a balance of benefit on the transaction. It is useful, because it secures the use of benefit; it is serviceable, because the utility it affords is worthy of all praise. It is beautiful, because the good is proportionate to the use made of it; beneficial, because by its inherent nature it benefits; choiceworthy, because it is such that to choose it is reasonable. It is also just or right, inasmuch as it is in harmony with law and tends to draw men together.

πᾶν δ᾿ ἀγαθὸν συμφέρον εἶναι καὶ δέον καὶ λυσιτελὲς καὶ χρήσιμον καὶ εὔχρηστον καὶ καλὸν καὶ ὠφέλιμον καὶ αἱρετὸν καὶ δίκαιον. συμφέρον μὲν ὅτι φέρει τοιαῦτα ὧν συμβαινόντων ὠφελούμεθα· δέον δ᾿ ὅτι συνέχει ἐν οἷς χρή· λυσιτελὲς δ᾿ ὅτι λύει τὰ τελούμενα εἰς αὐτό, ὥστε τὴν ἀντικατάλλαξιν τὴν ἐκ τῆς πραγματείας ὑπεραίρειν τῇ ὠφελείᾳ· χρήσιμον δ᾿ ὅτι χρείαν ὠφελείας παρέχεται· εὔχρηστον δ᾿ ὅτι τὴν χρείαν ἐπαινετὴν ἀπεργάζεται· καλὸν δ᾿ ὅτι συμμέτρως ἔχει πρὸς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ χρείαν· ὠφέλιμον δ᾿ ὅτι τοιοῦτόν ἐστιν ὥστε ὠφελεῖν· αἱρετὸν δ᾿ ὅτι τοιοῦτόν ἐστιν ὥστε εὐλόγως αὐτὸ αἱρεῖσθαι· δίκαιον δ᾿ ὅτι νόμῳ ἐστὶ σύμφωνον καὶ κοινωνίας ποιητικόν.

On Cleanthes' list see A.C. Pearson, ed., The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes (London: C.J. Clay and Sons, 1891), pp. 299-301, and Édouard des Places, "Épithètes et attributs de la Sagesse (Sg 7,22-23 et SVF I 557 Arnim)," Biblica 57.3 (1976) 414-419, both of whom cite Diogenes Laertius. On virtue and vice lists (Tugendkataloge, Lasterkataloge) generally see David E. Aune, "Catalogues of vices and virtues," The Westminster Dictionary of New Testament and Early Christian Literature and Rhetoric (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), pp. 89-91. A good modern example of a virtue list is the Boy Scout Law.

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

[Phalaris,] Letters 67.2 (my translation):

The people, as a whole, are undisciplined, senseless, unmanageable, very ready to be turned in any direction whatsoever, faithless, fickle, passionate, treacherous, mistaken, a mere useless noise, and easily swayed toward praise and toward anger.

δῆμος ἄπας ἄτακτος, ἄνους, ἄπρακτος, ἑτοιμότατος ἐφ' ὅ τι ἂν τύχῃ μεταχθῆναι, ἄπιστος, ἀβέβαιος, ὀξύς, προδοτιχός, ἐψευσμένος, φωνὴ μόνον ἀνωφελής, καὶ πρὸς ἔπαινον καὶ πρός ὀργὴν εὐχερής.

Note the two series of asyndetic privative adjectives: ἄτακτος, ἄνους, ἄπρακτος and ἄπιστος, ἀβέβαιος.

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

Aeschylus, Suppliant Women 149-153 (tr. Alan H. Sommerstein):

Let her, the Untamed One,
become the rescuer of us the untamed ones,
so that the offspring of a most august mother
may escape the beds of men—ah, ah!—
unwedded and unsubdued.

ἀδμῆτος ἀδμήτα
ῥύσιος γενέσθω·        150
σπέρμα σεμνᾶς μέγα ματρὸς εὐνὰς
ἀνδρῶν, ἒ ἔ,
ἄγαμον ἀδάματον ἐκφυγεῖν.

Note the pair of asyndetic, privative adjectives ἄγαμον ἀδάματον (unwedded, unsubdued) in line 153. The asyndeton is obscured by Sommerstein's addition of the conjunction "and."

Demosthenes, 3rd Philippic 40 = Orations 8.40 (tr. J.H. Vince):

But all our resources are rendered useless, powerless, worthless by these traffickers.

ἀλλὰ ταῦτ᾿ ἄχρηστα, ἄπρακτα, ἀνόνητα ὑπὸ τῶν πωλούντων γίγνεται.

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

Georgi Mihailov, ed., Inscriptiones Graecae in Bulgaria Repertae, Vol. I: Inscriptiones Orae Ponti Euxini, 2nd ed. (Sofia: Academia Litterarum Bulgarica, 1970), number 220 (an epitaph from Varna; non vidi), 3rd line below the relief:

ὀκτωκαιδεκέτης θαλάμων ἀμύητος, ἄτεκνος

I.e.

eighteen years old, uninitiated in the bedroom, childless.

ἀμύητος, ἄτεκνος is an example of a series of privative adjectives in asyndeton. For ἀμύητος with genitive plural θαλάμων (essentially = unmarried) cf. ἀμύητον Ἀφροδίτης in Aristaenetus, Erotic Letters 1.14 (tr. Peter Bing and Regina Höschele; emphasis added):

Or do you actually know that without cash absolutely nothing at all can persuade a hetaira, yet still you think you can easily fool me as though I were a child inexperienced in erotic things and totally uninitiated in the mysteries of Aphrodite, an easier prey than a tender lamb in its sleep for a wolf?

ἢ ταῦτα μὲν ἴστε που πάντως ὡς ἀνάργυρον οὐδὲν ταῖς ἑταίραις ἐστὶ πιθανόν, ᾠήθητε δέ με ῥᾳδίως ἐξαπατᾶν ὡς ἐρωτικῶν ἀγύμναστον παῖδα καὶ παντελῶς ἀμύητον Ἀφροδίτης, καὶ προχειρότερον ἑλεῖν ἢ λύκος λιπαρὰν ἄρνα καθεύδουσαν;

Here is a photograph of the grave relief, from Ernst Kalinka, Antike Denkmäler in Bulgarien (Vienna: Alfred Hölder, 1906), p. 264:

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

Aeschylus, Persians 840-842 (ghost of Darius speaking; tr. Christopher Collard):

But I wish you elders well, despite the disaster:
give your spirits pleasure day by day,
since wealth is no use to the dead.

ὑμεῖς δέ, πρέσβεις, χαίρετ᾽, ἐν κακοῖς ὅμως
ψυχῇ διδόντες ἡδονὴν καθ᾽ ἡμέραν,
ὡς τοῖς θανοῦσι πλοῦτος οὐδὲν ὠφελεῖ.

David R. Slavitt's rendition bears little resemblance to the Greek:

                                               I leave you only
one word of advice—look to the small pleasures
along the way. Nothing else lasts or matters.
Ambition, power, wealth, and all the rest,
none of us misses down there. But a cold drink
on a hot day? What more can one want?

---

A pair of asyndetic privative adjectives sighted at Aeschylus, Persians 862: ἀπόνους ἀπαθεῖς.

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives