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

by George Valsamis

After what we found in the dictionary, our sentence has become:

 

Ὣς[Thus] φάτο[spoke]͵ τὸν[ ] δ΄[and,but] ἄχεος[grief] νεφέλη[cloud] ἐκάλυψε[covered] μέλαινα[dark].

 

There are two verbs: spoke [φάτο=ἔφη] and covered [ἐκάλυψε], therefore we search for two sentences. And we must understand whom τὸν refers to.

We change the order of the words to come closer to how we usually order a sentence in our language:

 

Ὣς[Thus] φάτο[spoke]͵ τὸν[ ] δ΄[and,but] ἐκάλυψε[covered] μέλαινα[dark] νεφέλη[cloud] ἄχεος[grief].

 

You may find this change of order useful for the moment - but never forget that it is a change you do, that the order of the text is different, and this difference is important. 

Since Antilochus was speaking about what happened with Patroclus, we can infer that the subject of φάτο is Antilochus. It is time now for Achilles to respond, and therefore τὸν refers to him. It is usual in Greek for a person to be referred to in a sentence with the combination of the pronoun/article and one or both of these two words: μὲν or δέ. Gregory of Nyssa, for example, writes: ὁ μὲν γεννηθεὶς ἦν, ὁ δὲ δίχα γεννήσεως : " ὁ μὲν (=Abel) was born, ὁ δὲ (=Adam) was without birth [he was created]". In all such cases the names (of persons, places, actions, etc) which ὁ μὲν or ὁ δὲ refer to, must have been mentioned or implied in a previous sentence. Note also, that the conjunctive words μὲν and δὲ are never placed in the beginning of a sentence and they usually occupy the second place introducing a kind of relation, being, e.g. the equivalent of "but" and "while" in English, or "the one" and "the other", etc. - "But John left, while I stayed", "the one left, the other came", "this happened, that not".

Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/lessons/lesson2b.asp?pg=11