21st Century Classical Greek -- negated conditional

And the reverse of last week.

[4] φαίνεται γὰρ ναυσί τε πλείσταις αὐτὸς ἀφικόμενος καὶ Ἀρκάσι προσπαρασχών, ὡς Ὅμηρος τοῦτο δεδήλωκεν, εἴ τῳ ἱκανὸς τεκμηριῶσαι. καὶ ἐν τοῦ σκήπτρου ἅμα τῇ παραδόσει εἴρηκεν αὐτὸν “πολλῇσι νήσοισι καὶ Ἄργεϊ παντὶ ἀνάσσειν:” (Hom. Il. 2.108) οὐκ ἂν οὖν νήσων ἔξω τῶν περιοικίδων (αὗται δὲ οὐκ ἂν πολλαὶ εἶεν) ἠπειρώτης ὢν ἐκράτει, εἰ μή τι καὶ ναυτικὸν εἶχεν. εἰκάζειν δὲ χρὴ καὶ ταύτῃ τῇ στρατείᾳ οἷα ἦν τὰ πρὸ αὐτῆς.

In the rest of subsection 4, it looks as if we have two apodoses because an shows up twice.

Actually the first one is ouk an plus what Thucydides is denying: that outside of neighboring islands, Agamemnon did not rule any islands. There’s more to it than that but first I have another an to address.

Which is inside the parentheses with a progressive epistemic. First, remember we are talking about a past situation. We need to call the verb progressive aspect, a situation, to avoid the cognitive dissonance of calling the verb present tense.

Second, we need to call it an epistemic, not an optative, because Thucydides is not signing up to any certainty that there were a lot of islands. Which kind of island? Neighboring islands. Agamemnon was king of Crete, but the Kyklades, for example, are some 60 air miles from Crete. Odysseos’ Ithaka is even farther away and on the opposite side of the Peloponnese.

And now the rest of the idea about the neighboring islands. The actual thought is this:

οὐκ ἂν οὖν νήσων ἔξω τῶν περιοικίδων ἠπειρώτης ὢν ἐκράτει… εἰ μή τι καὶ ναυτικὸν εἶχεν,

it’s not, then, the being islands outside those neighboring the mainland which he ruled, If [Agamemnon] had possessed not some ships,

So where does this conditional fall in Goodwin’s categories? See page 296, section 1387, Roman numeral II. Homer states that Agamemnon did have ships, at least at the time of the Trojan War, so this is a protasis contrary to fact. As a known thing, it is indicative modality, as well as being completely definite and certain.

Notice how clumsily it reads in English, when you put the negations with the words they refer to.

The protasis has “not” next to “some ships”, not “have”. And it is mi, the partitive, which goes perfectly with “some”. It’s not negating the condition.

On the other hand, the apodosis is negated with ouk, the categorical, and it does refer to the conditional particle, not to the islands.

If you “translate while running”, trying to produce somethng comfortable in English,

a)         you’re going to put the negations in the wrong places and end up, as Jowett did, with “Grenglish”.

b)         You’re probably also going to reverse the protasis and apodosis from where Thucydides has them, because in English we always think of “if…then”.

c)         And you’re probably also going to bury the fact that this is an ei…an conditional as Jowett did.

So slow down, pay attention to the word sequence, and don’t call something a negated condition unless the negative particle actually refers to the conditional particle instead of to the subject of the protasis or apodosis.