previous next

[285] Τρῶας ἀποδοῦναι: compare the cases of acc. and infin. in prayers, as 2.413, 7.179, Od. 17.354. It is evidently a case here of the ‘infin. for imper.’ though in that idiom the subject when in the 2nd person is in the nom., 5.124 “θαρσῶν μάχεσθαι,” 22.259 “ὧς δὲ σὺ ῥέζειν”, and once even in the 3rd person, 6.87-92 “ἣ δὲ .. θεῖναι” (in 23.247 “λίπησθε” shews that the 2nd person is in the speaker's mind). Whatever the origin of the constr. it is clear that, while a person directly addressed is vividly present to the speaker's mind as the subject of the verb, and hence naturally is in the nominative, when he is only spoken of indirectly in a prayer he becomes in a sense the object of the prayer. Thus the Trojans here are regarded virtually as objects in relation to the gods of the oath, who are called upon to be the active parties. Hence we can see that even if the nom. was the original constr. it was certain to be attracted by the commoner class of accusatives with the infin. In the case of prayers the constr. is commonly explained as due to an ‘ellipse of “δός”,’ or acc. to Ar. of “εἴη” or “γένοιτο”. H. G. § 241, M. and T. §§ 784-5, van L. Ench. § 124.

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide References (7 total)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: