Lesson 6a: First paragraph

Translation paragraph 1

Words and expressions

ὁ βασιλεύς

εἰσὶ πολλοὶ μύθοι about " ὁ βασιλεύς Arthur of the Round Table."
The most famous French king was the βασιλεὺς ἥλιος Louis XIV. No, not Louis XVI, that was the βασιλεύς whose head rolled under the guillotine.
ἆρ' ἐθέλεις γιγνώσκειν the forms taken by ὁ βασιλεύς ?
        Click on the word king and you'll know.
 

ἡ νῆσος (feminine like ἡ ὁδός )

κατὰ τὴν ὁδόν down the road (don't forget to imagine walking down the road)
εἰς τὴν νῆσον onto the island (direction) Note that the Greeks say into the island
πρὸς τῇ ὁδῷ by the road (position)
ἐν τῇ νήσῳ on the island (position, do you see Robinson Crusoe sitting on his island, all alone?) The Greek say in the island
The part of Greece that Sparta (Athen's eternal rival) is situated in is called Peloponnese (Pelops's island), a peninsula (Latin paene insula = nearly island) that is attached to the mainland (near Corinth) by a narrow band of land only. Pelops was the son of Tantalos and that interesting, though rather gory tale you can look up here
The Δωδεκάνησος (δώδεκα = 12) is a group of islands between Crete and modern Turkey, Rhodes being the best known (from τὸ ῥόδον the rose)
 

ἐκεῖ there

he is ἐκεῖ so tell him to come here:
"μὴ μένε ἐκεῖ, ἐλθὲ δεῦρο
Where is your book? - ἐκεῖ - Well then, go get it!
 

τὸ θηρίον

The wolf in lesson 5 is a θηρίον, and for a mouse, so is a cat, an ἄγριον θηρίον (fierce, lesson 5b).There are lots of θηρία in story books for children.
ἔστι πολλὰ θηρία ἐν τοῖς μύθοις αὐτῶν (remember, plural neuter nouns are considered as a group, not as individuals, therefore singular verb:
τὰ θηρία ἄγριά ἐστιν
τὰ θηρία φεύγει
 

τὸ μὲν ἥμισυ θηρίον, τὸ δ' ἥμισυ ἄνθρωπος half beast half man

the devil: τὸ μὲν ἥμισυ goat, τὸ δ' ἥμισυ angel
mermaids: τὸ μὲν ἥμισυ κόραι, τὸ δ' ἥμισυ fish
centaurs: τὸ μὲν ἥμισυ ἄνδρες, τὸ δ' ἥμισυ ἵπποι
 

ἐσθίειν to eat

Normally ἐσθίομεν ταύρους and not:
οἱ ταῦροι ἀνθρώπους ἐσθίουσιν
that's why ὁ Μινώταυρος θηρίον ἐστίν, καὶ δεινόν. ἐσθίει γὰρ ἀνθρώπους.
 

δεινός terrible (both terribly bad or terribly good)

a δεινὸν θηρίον is to be feared
a δεινὸς ἄνθρωπος can be awe inspiringly clever at something or just plain criminal
Daedalus, the Athenian architect who built the labyrinth for Minos, was a δεινός (clever) craftsman who had committed a δεινόν crime. That story I'll tell some other time.
 

ἀναγκάζειν to force, compel

ὁ αὐτουργὸς ἀναγκάζει τὸν δοῦλον πονεῖν (obviously, otherwise he (the slave) wouldn't do any work)
You don't have to ἀναγκάζειν small children to learn, they do it willingly until they hit school. And then, the more you ἀναγκάζεις αὐτούς the less....
ὁ βίος ἀναγκάζει ἡμᾶς to do all sorts of things we don't really want to.
μὴ ἀνάγκαζε others, try to πείθειν αὐτούς (lesson 4, persuade daddy to go to the festival)
ἀναγκάζω comes from " ἡ ἀνάγκη" necessity, that what compels us or what we are compelled to have or do. Like in the Jungle Book, the song about the bare necessities of life:
αἱ τοῦ βίου ἀνάγκαι
 

πέμπω I send

πέμπε μοι an email if you have a problem, suggestion, disagreement...
I hate πέμπειν letters (too much of a hassle as I live far from post office and postal boxes, the price of stamps keeps changing and here you can buy stamps at the post office only) but I πέμπω emails willingly
 

ὁ νεανίας adolescent

comes from νέος young or new (like the infamous neo nazis)
Not sure about the declension (forms), click here for the tables.
 

ἡ παρθένος

obviously feminine, despite the -ος ending.
(like: ἡ ὁδός, ἡ νῆσος)
Athena the patron goddess of Athens being a παρθένος (a maiden),
her temple on top of the Acropolis is called: ὁ Παρθενών, τοῦ͂ Παρθενῶνος,
while she herself, as goddess is ἡ Παρθένος (capital P), which is translated as 'the Maiden', or 'the goddess Athena'
 

ἑπτά 7

If the Pentagon has πέντε (= 5) angles, how many does a heptagon have?
How much is ἑπτακόσιοι if ἑξακόσιοι is 600? So what is 6 in ancient Greek?
And how do we say 500 in Greek?
 

τὸ ἔτος

the year, is neuter like τό ὄρος (the mountain, or hill) and like τὸ ὄρος has strange forms for us who are used to ὁ ἄνθρωπος and Co.:
We saw: the height τοῦ ὄρους (of the hill, genitive) 50 meters e.g.
So: the length τοῦ ἔτους (365/366 days)
ἐν τοῖς ὄρεσιν (where? dative, in the hills)
So: ἐν τοῖς ἔτεσιν of our youth
κατ' ἔτος every year we get older (though not necessarily wiser)
The Greek say: 'down' the year instead of 'every' year, that's why we use the accusative.
κατ' ἔτος after winter comes spring
κατ' ἔτος there are floods in some countries and forest fires in others
Fill in the declension table of THE YEAR
 

singular  nominative   τὸ̀   ἔτος    genitive   τοῦ   dative  τῷ      accusative   τὸ      vocative  ὦ

plural  nominative  τὰ   genitive  τῶν      dative  τοῖς      accusative    τὰ      vocative  ὦ