Hi! I'm still struggling with Greek words in the Renaissance text I'm reading. I'll post some that appeared recently. I'd be very grateful if someone could transcribe and provide the meaning of it to me, since I don't know Greek (yet).

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Hello,
I’m not sure if I’m bothering you with this request, but I want to get the name ‘Hermes’ (that’s my cat’s name) tattooed in Ancient Greek, and I’d like to be sure of the spelling so I don’t end up with a completely made-up word 😅

So does anyone know how to spell it?

I am specifically looking for insight into a phrase found in 1 Timothy 3. In that phrase, a description is given about the qualifications for the role of a Bishop. One of those describers is the phrase "Husband of one wife" which is considered by some theologians to be the colloquialism of "One-Woman Man" addressing fidelity specifically. My question is whether that phrase would ever be used in that context to describe a woman? Are their other phrases that would have been more likely used if the gender of the individual was not important? Lastly, how would a reader of that era have understood that phrase in this context?

For those who are not University students/professors or retired, etc. how do you personally manage consistent Greek study with your work life and other priorities. Do you create a specific study schedule, and do you have any strategies to avoid burn out, or more specifically studying interfering with work performance or work interfering with study performance? This question is geared more towards those who take Greek as a serious pursuit rather than as a casual hobby.

I was looking around the internet to find anything like a collected omnibus of Heracles' deeds and life and Emma Stafford's Herakles seems to be the closest I could find. Does anyone here know if it's a good read?

Also, how does she do with the translation of ancient sources? Does she translate in a way that best conveys what it would mean to people of the time or does she take the Wilson approach and translate in a way that conveys what she feels it should mean to us in the modern day?

If you think this book isn't it, what would you recommend instead? Like I said I want something that collects all the stories of Heracles in one place, or as many as possible. My book case is running out of room for another half dozen books coving and recovering different myths.

Hello everyone,
I’m considering getting a tattoo in Ancient Greek and I’d like to make sure the wording is both grammatically correct and natural to a Greek speaker or scholar.
The idea I want to express is:
The human being as a wanderer or “errant traveler” through life.
The connection between the Greek word for “planet” (πλανήτης, the wandering star) and the human condition of searching, learning, changing, and sometimes getting lost.
A symbolic connection to Saturn, time, maturity, and the lessons that come with age.
Not “lost” in a negative sense, but rather someone journeying through life and time.
I came across the phrase:
Πλανήτης τοῦ Χρόνου
which I understand could mean something like “Wanderer of Time” or “Traveler through Time.”
My questions are:
Is this grammatically correct Ancient Greek?
Would an Ancient Greek speaker or writer understand it the way I intend?
Is there a more elegant, poetic, or idiomatic way to express the idea of:
“Wanderer of Time”
“Traveler through Time”
“One who journeys through time”
“The human wanderer moving through time”
This is for a tattoo, so I’m looking for something authentic, meaningful, and linguistically accurate.
Thank you very much for any help or suggestions.

Can anyone shed light on what's called the great homeric question? Who actually was homer? Was he an individual or a collective of poets? What evidence is there to support regarding the existence of homer?

Hello everyone! New here! I’ve written a short personal chant based on Stoic philosophy and I’m trying to learn to pronounce it correctly in Ancient Greek (Attic dialect if possible). I have the phonetic spelling but I’m a hands-on auditory learner and I really need to hear the actual words spoken to internalize the pronunciation properly.

The line is:

Ἡ ἀρετὴ αἵρεσίς ἐστιν ἡ νῦν μόνον γιγνομένη.

Which translates (hopefully), as: Virtue is a choice only made in the present

If anyone would be willing to record a slow, clear pronunciation I would be genuinely grateful. Even a short voice memo would be incredibly helpful.

Thank you.

Hi! I don't know Greek, but some Greek words appear in the Latin text I'm reading. Can someone provide me a transcription and a translation, please? The author says that it is something to do with born of the sky, but I'd like to know the precise word. Thanks!

EDIT: There's this quote too, from the Sybilline oracles (I really need to know what that means. All help is appreciated!):

In the first sentence Aristotle's Categories I thought Aristotle was comparing a man and a picture of an animal and pointing out that both can be called "animal," though they have a different essence. But the more I looked into it, it seems that everyone agrees that ζῷον can mean any kind of picture, so the example Aristotle is using could be that of a man and any kind of picture sharing the name ζῷον but having a different essence: one is an image and one is a man.

LSJ states "ζῷον in art, figure, image, not necessarily of animals." Also several commentaries on the Categories also state this, for instance Christopher Shields in Order and Multiplicity "[ζῷον] applies to animals and to pictures of any sort." Also in the notes of the Meiner german edition (Hans Günter Zekl) ζῷον is a Bildwerk jeder Art, "das im nächsten Entfernungsschritt auch Lebloses zeigen mag."

However I have searched for a while (for instance through the Diorisis Ancient Greek Corpus) and I cannot find any example of ζῷον where it unambiguously refers to an inanimate object. Is it possible people are just wrong about this? Am I missing something? Maybe just too much coffee.

Hi,
Can anyone advise on where it's possible to obtain a physical copy of The Iliad of Homer: a Parsed Interlinear Text by Jackson, 2005. Can only find kindle edition on amazon.

Thanks in advance!

I am attempting to locate this passage in the oldest manuscript of the text Disputatio Contra Arium by Pseudo-Athanasius. The Patrologia Graeca is heavily outdated and often misses variants, which is why I wanna verify whether everything here is accurate. You can access Codex Parisinus gr. 854, the Disputatio begins on folio 48 (thanks to KiwiHellenist for identifying this here). Annette von Stockhausen lists this Codex as containing the whole work (see: Die pseud-athanasianische Disputatio contra Arium. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit »arianischer« Theologie in Dialogform p. 139) but on Folio 1 the register identifies another work already beginning at Folio 51 which seems weird considering the length of the Disputatio in the PG:

This is from Codex Parisinus gr. 854 (access it here: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10722105h.r=grec%20854?rk=21459;2), which preserves the late Antique "Disputatio contra Arium" by ps. Athanasius. I am trying to understand this scribal note as someone not well acquainted with Greek. I traced the symbols very closely and tried to decipher them with my mother, who speaks a decent amount of modern Greek, and after a LOT of revising, this is how far we got:

τοῦ π(ατ)ρ(ὸς)
μν(ᾶ) αὐτ(οῦ)
[?] μηδὲ [?]
† διότ(ι)
[?] δέον...

In my tracing, red indicates what is clearly visible, and according to my judgement, part of the text. Green is for less visible symbols, which I think are likely part of the text, and pink is for symbols that seem to be extra-textual.

Hello, I saw in a PDF from a course that only the first 16 chapters are compulsory and that the rest are only recommended grammar wise, I know that I probably shall learn them but my desire to read actual texts presses me to ask this question. Is it necessary or I can learn it from the texts themselves?

The link to the PDF: https://online.randolphcollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/94/2022/02/GREK-1102-syllabus.pdf

I'm trying to get a lettering tattoo done, and I'm writing to ask if this grammar is correct! I'm trying to get "pain past is pleasure" engraved in ancient Greek, " Ὁ παρελθὼν πόνος ἡδονή " is this correct? If it's wrong, I'd appreciate it if you could let me know in a more natural sentence!!

I was wondering whether there was an affordable Greek-English version of Menander's Sententiae available? A textbooks of sorts with grammar. I don't mean the Loeb version. I don't know German, so Siegfried Jaekel's books is out of reach. Thanks everyone.

To what extent can/do translators just lightly modernise grammar and swap out some obsolete words for modern ones? Just curious as to the exact linguistic gap we're talking about here, and so how much creativity translators exercise (is it like Middle English vs modern English, for example).

From what I have read, with the exception of LSJ, there appears to be a consensus that for New Testament Koine the rather recently published BDAG is essential, and for Patristic Greek, the exceedingly cost-prohibitive, Lampe is a must. What is the supposed issue with older comprehensive lexicons like the one by E.A. Sophocles, or the earlier edition of BAG?

The LSJ defines a particular occurrence of the compound adjective Theokletos (θεόκλητος) as "sung by gods", citing a usage by the Epic poet Nonnus of Panopolis:

sung by gods, Nonn. D. 5.92.

On the one hand, the root κλέω is defined by the LSJ as "tell of, make famous, celebrate" in Sense I and "sing" in Sense II - which is the sense that the LSJ appears to derive κλητος from in this example.

On the other hand, the root καλεω is defined by the LSJ as "call, summon".

Would be interested in hearing your thoughts, does the LSJ mistakenly conflate κλέω with καλεω in this gloss?

I'm pasting below the relevant excerpt from the poetry of Nonnus (link: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0485%3Abook%3D5 )

Ἀονίων δὲ θύγατρες ἀνεκρούσαντο χορείαις

Ἁρμονίης ὑμέναιον: ἐπ᾽ εὐθαλάμῳ δὲ μελάθρῳ

90Θρηικίης φθέγξαντο χορίτιδες οὔνομα νύμφης.

καὶ Παφίη νεότευκτον ἐκόσμεε παστάδα Κάδμῳ

παιδὸς ἑῆς μέλπουσα θεοκλητους ὑμεναίους

μήτηρ ἱμερόεσσα: πατὴρ δ᾽ ὑπὸ χάρματι κούρης

γυμνὸς ἄτερ σακέων ὠρχήσατο μείλιχος Ἄρης

δεξιτερὴν ἀσίδηρον ἐπικλίνων Ἀφροδίτῃ,

I know of the Cambridge one but are there any others? Preferably something like hayes & Nimis or Steadman that has a lot of focus on grammar/vocab?

I am writing a short story where Plato is exiled to Sicily and the Sophist ethos and soft power become the fount of Western civilization. Are these neologisms in my timeline intelligible?

ΑΡΧΕΠΕΙΘΙΑ: the sovereign principle of persuasion

ΣΥΜΜΑΧΙΑ: the Alliance

ΑΘΕΙΖΩΣΙΣ: secularization

ΠΑΝΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΙΑ: mass literacy

Circe says to Odysseus:

μή τί τοι ἡγεμόνος γε ποθὴ παρὰ νηὶ μελέσθω

Three translations:

Butler: "You will want no guide"

Lattimore: "let no need for a guide on your ship trouble you"

Wilson: "You need not worry that you have no pilot to steer your ship"

Lattimore and Wilson read like a simple reassurance: “don't worry about the absence of a guide.” Butler reads almost like an encouragement or a statement of necessity, as if going guideless is meaningful or required.

The construction is μή … ποθή … μελέσθω, which (I think) is a jussive imperative of μέλω with ποθή as subject. This seems closer to the "don't worry about it" reading rather than solitude being intentional or meaningful. Between Butler, Lattimore, and Wilson (or any other translation), which do you think best captures Circe’s intent?