Lesson 6a: Third paragraph

Translation paragraph 3

And so Theseus embarks in his ship with his comrades and sails towards Crete. When they arrive at the island the king and his queen and their daughter, Ariadne by name, receive them and lead them towards Knossos (for this is how they call Minos's town) and guard them in the prison.

Words and expressions

ἡ ναῦς (see nautical, or even navy)

the forms are a bit strange. Imagining ships shouldn't be too difficult to do, just call them by their Greek label:
ναῦς, νῆες
All sorts of ships, big, small, on the bottom of the sea, in your bath, on rivers, torrents, stranded
προσβαίνω πρὸς τὴν ναῦν 
εἰσβαίνω εἰς τὴν ναῦν 
ἐκβαίνω ἐκ τῆς νεώς 
ἀποβαίνω ἀπὸ τῆς νεώς 
Imagine each situation: walking towards, stepping into, out of, walking away from. See and say, use both imagination and voice!
 

πλεῖ πρὸς τὴν Κρήτην

So now he sails μετὰ τῶν ἑταίρων towards Crete
The forms of this contract verb in e only contract those forms where two e's would meet:
[πλέ-ω]   πλέω,
[πλέ-εις]  πλεῖς,
[πλέ-ει]    πλεῖ,
[πλέ-ομεν]  πλέομεν,
[πλέ-ετε]     πλεῖτε,
[πλέ-ουσιν] πλέουσιν
ὁ Θησεὺς ἀποπλεῖ ἀπὸ τῆς Ἀττικῆς
πλεῖ εἰς τὴν Κρήτην
Do you like to πλεῖν or are you afraid to? φοβεῖ τὸ πλεῖν;
Imagine yourself sailing, floating, a leaf on the water, boats....

εἰς τὴν νῆσον ἀφικνοῦνται

they arrive at the island
I found ἀφικνέομαι difficult to remember, it doesn't remind me of anything, so I had to come back to it many times, think of lots of instances where people/things arrive. For me, a typical case of: if at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. It took time, ὅμως (nevertheless, remember?) I got there in the end (=τέλος δέ ouff!)
In the evening ἀφικνοῦμαι οἴκαδε exhausted
μένω φίλον at the airport. The plane ἀφικνεῖται,
lots of passengers ἀφικνοῦνται, but
ὁ φίλος μου οὐκ ἀφικνεῖται. (He'd missed his plane.)
In the car, impatient children:
πότε (when?) ἀφικνούμεθα;
Mother, to children who are going away, alone, for the first time:  
ἐπεὶ πρῶτον ἀφικνεῖσθε πέμψατέ μοι a letter immediately! Sorry about this strange imperative form, there are 2 imperatives, one 'do it some time, generally speaking, keep doing it' and another one, more specific 'do it now!, once and for all'. We've seen the first one, the 'in general' one:
 πέμπετε  send me a letter sometime or send me some postcards please, will you?
Of the second kind, the 'do it once and for all, straight away now, without fail' we've already seen several examples:
ἐλθὲ δεῦρο (Come here! now, at once!)
ἴθι δή  (go on, now!)
ἄπιθι (go away! now!)
and   πέμψατε  (send! without fail, as soon as you get there!)

ὅ τε βασιλεὺς καὶ ἡ βασίλεια

the king and his queen, like in fairy tales:
Now this king and his queen have a lovely daughter by name of .....
τῷ βασιλεῖ τε καὶ τῇ βασιλείᾳ ἔστι θυγάτηρ τις καλὴ ὀνόματι Ἀριάδνη ... but in this story they didn't live happily ever after.
Don't confuse the forms βασιλέα (accusative of βασιλεύς who is a man, with βασίλεια (nominative form for his queen)
ἡ βασίλεια θεᾶται τὸν βασιλέα καὶ λέγει....
Still not sure about the forms taken by ὁ βασιλεύς ?
        Click on the word king for review.

δέχονται αὐτούς

They receive them. Funny sort of reception, king, queen and princess receiving people and then leading them to the prison where they'll spend an anxious night awaiting next day's dire fate.
I like δέχεσθαι letters but hate πέμπειν them.
We often δεχόμεθα φίλους on Sundays (but we don't put them in prison)
ἆρ' δέχει many emails  καθ' ἡμέραν ; (When? accusative of time after κατά "down, along" the day, month, year, meaning "every" day, evening, night....)
Like  κατ' ἔτος every year, elision of final vowel when the next word starts with a vowel: κατὰ ἔτος becomes κατ' ἔτος
Remember: ἡμέρα starts with an h sound and t + h is θ so
Remember: καθ' ἡμέραν every day (when?)
 

οὕτω γὰρ ὀνομάζουσιν

for this is how they call...
after ὀνόματι "by name", we now have the verb: to call, to name: ὀνομάζειν
πώς ὀνομάζουσι τὴν τοῦ Μίνω πόλιν;
πώς ὀνομάζουσι τὴν τῆς Ἀγγλίας βασίλειαν;

φυλάττουσιν ἐν τῷ δεσμωτηρίῳ

keep, guard them in the prison:
τό δεσμωτήριον is where criminals are locked up and guarded  φυλάττονται (passive) ὑπὸ δεσμοφυλάκων (by prison guards of course)
The Athenians οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἀφικνοῦνται 
The Cretans δέχονται αὐτούς (receive them)
ἄγουσι πρὸς τὴν Κνωσσόν (towns in -ος are feminine)
ἐπεὶ δὲ ἀφικνοῦνται εἰς τὴν Κνωσσόν
the Cretans ἄγουσι τοὺς Ἀθηναίους εἰς τὸ δεσμωτήριον 
      καὶ φυλάττουσιν αὐτοὺς ἐν τῷ δεσμωτηρίῳ
Remember εἰς  movement: accusative
Remember ἐν   position: dative
Have you ever been ἐν δεσμωτηρίῳ ?, visited a δεσμωτήριον I mean.
We often see δεσμωτήρια in films, most inmates of τῶν δεσμωτηρίων are μαστιγίαι (lesson 3a:
μὴ φλυάρει, ὦ μαστιγία, ἀλλά...
The word μαστιγία (jailbird) comes from μάστιξ (a whip). Our word "masticate" (chew) comes from μαστιχάω meaning gnash teeth (when whipped I suppose) so masticating really means whipping food around in your mouth and gnashing your teeth.