In Print:

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

by George Valsamis

Chances are, that searching a dictionary for λέλυκα, you will find: "present perfect tense, indicative mode, active voice of the verb λύω = to solve". However, you might not find it, save only into the lemma λύω. At least in that place, a good dictionary would describe all the other tenses. Therefore, in our phrase

 

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

 

we begin to think that maybe the verb(s) have prefixes, and this is the reason why we can't find them in the dictionary. The first thing we know, then, is that our verb(s) are in some past tense (or future perfect).

Here are the words we don't know:

φάτο, τόν, ἐκάλυψε

 

Τόν, is among the words you should memorise, a basic element of speech, a demonstrative pronoun that in the course of time became the article. It is very easy to remember it, and you will encounter it all the times.  

In English we say I see the way, in Greek ὁρῶ τὸν τρόπον. But while in English the article "the" is used always in the same form ("the") for all genders and numbers - the way, the ways, the woman, the girls, the children, etc. - in Greek, which makes your life difficult, there is a different form of the article for each gender and number: e.g. the way = ὁ τρόπος, the ways = οἱ τρόποι, the woman = ἡ γυνή, the girls = αἱ κόραι, the children = τὰ παιδία. 

Tὸν is the accusative case, singular number, of the masculine type of the article (nominative=ὁ). The accusative case is usually the case of the object: ὁρῶ τὸν τρόπον (I see the way).

Therefore, in our text again, we know that τὸν is not a verb. Since τὸν is in accusative case, we expect that maybe the noun that is indicated by τὸν will be the object of our verb(s).

There remain φάτο and ἐκάλυψε.

Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/lessons/lesson2b.asp?pg=8