Laudator Temporis Acti

Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, "Brief Mention," American Journal of Philology 37.2 (1916) 367-382 (at 367-368):

Fifty years ago one of my pupils found fault with my instruction because I did not pay enough attention to the Greek particles. Whether the reproach was deserved or not, I cannot tell at this distance of time, but the particles certainly form an extremely important chapter in the study of Greek. The literature is now appallingly massive, now hopelessly scattered. What one finds in the school grammars is utterly inadequate. Translations carry no conviction. In other spheres great reputations for scholarship have been gained by translations of imaginary differences, but a King of Greek Scholarship, if such a being were conceivable, would lose his rights where there is nothing into which to translate; for English is asyndetic as Greek is syndetic. In four consecutive lines of So. Ai. 1226 we find σὲ δή ... σέ τοι ... ἦ που. δή, τοι, που produce each a distinct effect. But can you bring that out in English without cumbrous circumlocution? Your German cannot live without 'schon'. Translate 'schon' into English and it becomes an ear-mark of the unassimilated Teuton. δέ is a good example.

For generations δέ has been translated with distressing uniformity by 'but'; and the head-master of Grayfriars school apostrophizes Pendennis thus:

'Miserable trifler! A boy who construes δέ and instead of δέ but at sixteen years of age is guilty not merely of folly and ignorance and dulness inconceivable but of crime, deadly crime, of filial ingratitude which I tremble to contemplate'.

If the Doctor had been spared to read Sir John Sandys' translation of Pindar in which the 'but' translation is dodged at every turn, one 'trembles to contemplate' the consequences. Now it is 'while', now it is 'and', now it is frankly left to the uncovenanted mercies of the sentence. Scientific etymology has nothing to do with it. Translation is an art and not a science. δέ = δή, the equation given in the last Brief Mention, is repudiated by high authority. 'But' makes no picture, unless one drags in the other adversative 'butt' with two t's. δέ is in like case, and my advocacy of the μήν-δή theory (A.J.P. XXXVII 240) was intended chiefly as an argument against those who consider the explanation too metaphysical. The Greek language, as far back as we know it, is capable of subtilties that can be revealed only by painstaking analysis. The naïveté of Homer is almost as much a myth as the naïveté of Herodotos. What are we to do with γε? We are told to render γε simply by stress, but emphasis is the refuge of poverty, and in my teaching I have always declared that 'emphasis' is no explanation, even if I have resorted to it myself. γε = Lat. 'quidem', but 'quidem' is three times as long and 'at least' is not only three times as long but more than three times as heavy. γε is a gasp. All we can do is to write long excursuses on δέ γε as Neil has done in his much lauded edition of the Knights and to find comfort in the fact that γε is a constituent element of γάρ and that we must not consider γάρ too strictly illative. As for ἄρα, science tells us that it is short for ἀραρότως. The full translation would be 'accordingly', but what after it is reduced to the canina littera ρ? There is an ἄρα of accord, there is an ἄρα of discord, the familiar ἄρα of surprise. 'Therefore' becomes 'after all'. The second ἄρα differs from the first only in the putting out of the tongue, such as we expect from the Greek εἰρωνεία. The German 'so' has been called a compendium of the German language, just as the difference between the German and the English 'also' reflects, if it does not sum up, the differences of the two nationalities. I have never found an explanation for the curious phenomenon that while 'sooth' is said to be the equivalent of the Greek ὄντως, 'forsooth' should be invariably ironical and 'in sooth' should be invariably serious, although it is often accompanied by 'sober' in order perhaps to guard against the contagion of its mocking companion.

At least now, instead of the appallingly massive, hopelessly scattered literature, we have J.D. Denniston, Greek Particles, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), who says on p. 162 (δέ, I. Connective, A. Continuative):

δέ is the normal equivalent of 'and' at the beginning of a sentence.

Here is a more extended excerpt from William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis, chapter 2 (quoted by Gildersleeve):

It was at the close of the forenoon school, and Pen had been unnoticed all the previous part of the morning till now, when the Doctor put him on to construe in a Greek play. He did not know a word of it, though little Timmins, his form-fellow, was prompting him with all his might. Pen had made a sad blunder or two when the awful Chief broke out upon him.

'Pendennis, sir,' he said, 'your idleness is incorrigible and your stupidity beyond example. You are a disgrace to your school, and to your family, and I have no doubt will prove so in after-life to your country. If that vice, sir, which is described to us as the root of all evil, be really what moralists have represented (and I have no doubt of the correctness of their opinion), for what a prodigious quantity of future crime and wickedness are you, unhappy boy, laying the seed! Miserable trifler! A boy who construes δέ and instead of δέ but, at sixteen years of age is guilty not merely of folly, and ignorance, and dulness inconceivable, but of crime, of deadly crime, of filial ingratitude, which I tremble to contemplate. A boy, sir, who does not learn his Greek play cheats the parent who spends money for his education. A boy who cheats his parent is not very far from robbing or forging upon his neighbour. A man who forges on his neighbour pays the penalty of his crime at the gallows. And it is not such a one that I pity (for he will be deservedly cut off), but his maddened and heart-broken parents, who are driven to a premature grave by his crimes, or, if they live, drag on a wretched and dishonoured old age. Go on, sir, and I warn you that the very next mistake that you make shall subject you to the punishment of the rod. Who's that laughing? What ill-conditioned boy is there that dares to laugh?' shouted the Doctor.