Ships gone, Mindaros dead, men starving; don't know what to do.The translation is more laconic than the original, which has definite articles (the ships, the men) and non-truncated verbs.
ἔρρει τὰ κᾶλα. Μίνδαρος ἀπεσσύα. πεινῶντι τὤνδρες. ἀπορίομες τί χρὴ δρᾶν.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Saturday, November 16, 2019
A Laconic Message
Xenophon, Hellenica 1.1.24 (dispatch sent by Hippocrates to the Spartans, intercepted by the Athenians; tr. John Marincola):