LESSON 2 - First Part / Second Part
ACHILLES' GRIEF - From Homer's Iliad

by George Valsamis

Page 12

Voices of the verb

There is a rough classification of the verbs in three categories: active, middle and passive. These are called voices or moods and express the direction of the action. Verbs like λύω (solve) or ἀκούω (hear), belong to the active voice: the subject is related with an object other than itself (I hear a noise, I solve a problem). Verbs like λούομαι (I bath) belong to the middle voice: the subject does something to himself or for himself whether by himself or by means of someone else, like γυμνάζομαι (I'm being trained by a coach). When the subject is just the recipient of someone else's action, the verb is called passive, e.g. the problem was solved (ἐλύθη) by him. Passive voice has proper, passive, forms only in the future and aorist tenses, otherwise middle and passive forms are the same.

Note, that a verb may have middle voice endings with only an active meaning (like ἕπομαι=follow). These are called deponents - and they may confuse you in the beginning, since there is nothing like this in English. You can think of it (although it doesn't actually happens all the time) as an attempt of language to invest some words with the special ability to unite an active sense with a passive one, like when I (decide to) follow someone (active sense) being at the same time attracted by him (passive sense).

Maybe an example would make it clear. When Heraclitus writes "it needs (χρὴ) follow (ἕπεσθαι) the common (τῷ ξυνῷ)" he doesn't use the (active) verb ἀκολουθεῖν (=to follow), but the middle synonym ἕπεσθαι, giving thus to his sentence the nuance of surrendering oneself to the common. To translate this in English, maybe we could say "it needs be conformed to the common", but this is excessively passive - not to mention that following the Common goes beyond any forms whatever. You can somehow explain Heraclitus' sentence if you know Greek, but you can not translate it adequately.

If a verb has both active and middle forms, and a middle form expresses an active action, this action usually has a subjective/personal importance, like in τιμωρῶ and τιμωροῦμαι, both of which mean "I avenge", but in the second case, in the middle form, the verb means that I avenge my honor, that there is a personal case I'm involved in and defend.

Kεῖμαι is a middle voice verb. Of course, there is the meaning of death is, death holds Patroclus on the ground, but there is also the meaning that Patroclus' body by means of its death is being transformed into a message and a place. This can be understood only by him, to whom the message is addressed and the place opened.

In the dust of the battlefield, naked between the two armies, it is not just Patroclus lying: it is the dead body (νέκυς) of the gift of God, it is the dead body of God's and Achilles'glory - which to Achilles means: you can not be ἴσος Ἄρῃ any more, you are not divine any more. Your place and bed, your home and essence, is where κεῖται Πάτροκλος.

Just as Patroclus is not just dead, Achilles has not just to die. He has to get up, fight, fall - and then lie, where Πάτροκλος κεῖται.

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