r/AncientGreek

I've seen a few different versions of a viral post about Shakespeare. The basic idea is that Shakespeare liked using high-brow Latinate words that would not have been common in most registers of spoken English ("inkhorn" words). But when he did so, he usually glossed them in a subsequent line.

This Quora post traces this observation to literary scholar Ted Hughes. Here's an excerpt of that post:

"A really obvious example of this is from Macbeth, where the title character says:

>

‘Incarnadine’ is the kind of fancy word that the upper-class would have relished, but Shakespeare immediately ‘translates’ it as ‘making the green one red’, so that the groundlings understand that Macbeth’s hand is so bloody that it will turn the sea red, rather than be washed off by the sea."

This is a pretty neat observation, but I wasn't aware of this practice having any foundation in ancient literature. And maybe it doesn't. But in my Iliad reading today I came across something like this phenomenon in one of Hektor's speeches (Il. 8.526-528):

ἔλπομαι εὐχόμενος Διί τʼ ἄλλοισίν τε θεοῖσιν

ἐξελάαν ἐνθένδε κύνας κηρεσσιφορήτους,

οὓς κῆρες φορέουσι μελαινάων ἐπὶ νηῶν.

That third line looks like it's just a gloss of κηρεσσιφορήτους, as it doesn't add any additional information. It's a hapax legomenon, so presumably Homer made it up.

This made me curious as to whether we see this pattern in other passages or even other authors. I would not count a character explicitly explaining the meaning of a word, like recounting the story behind a proper name or giving an etymological allegory. Nor would I count a very obvious authorial explanatory note breaking the flow of the narrative. Like here, the gloss would have to avoid calling explicit attention to itself.

I was experimenting with making a list post and I came with a wish-list for what lost works will be found in the remaining Herculaneum scrolls. I know it's very unlikely any one of those on my list will be found for real, but still it was a fun exercise. What do you think? Do you have your own top 5? or top 10?

I know there is no one "correct" pronunciation of Ancient Greek because of dialects and reconstruction, but I understand there is a pronunciation that understands "η" to make the same sound as "ε" but held for twice as long ("a long e sound"). I also know that (in the classical period?) ει wasn't actually pronounced as a dipthong with ε + ι, but instead made the same long e sound. I've also heard (at least in Attic? not sure if it also happens in Ionic, etc. with ηι) that the iota subscript on ῃ started to fade in pronunciation, meaning ῃ was pronounced as η, making the same long e sound. Do all three of these really make the same sound (in this particular period/theory on ancient pronunciation)?

αἰσχρὰ ἄν πράττοιτε οἵ τοὺς τῆς οἰκλίας ποιήματα μὴ διδάσκοισθε

Unit 7 of Hansen & Quinn's Greek: An Intensive Course has this sentence as a translation exercise. I spent a while trying to translate this; not because it's a difficult syntax, but because my translation makes no sense:

"You all would be doing shameful things, you who should not be teaching yourselves the poems of the house".

Is this an incorrect translation? I feel like translations are way more challenging when the sentences are nonsensical like this. Should I expect to see sentences like this in actual Greek writing, or is this just an H&Qism?

I'm having a few problems translating this sentence:

>ὥστε με ἐμαυτὸν ἀνερωτᾶν ὑπὲρ τοῦ χρησμοῦ πότερα δεξαίμην ἂν οὕτως ὥσπερ ἔχω ἔχειν,��� μήτε���� τι�� σοφὸς������� ὢν�� τὴν����� ἐκείνων��������� σοφίαν������ μήτε���� ἀμαθὴς������ τὴν����� ἀμαθίαν���������,��� ἢ��� ἀμ��φότερα ἃ ἐκεῖνοι ἔχουσιν ἔχειν

What I've got is:

>So that I asked myself (ὥστε με ἐμαυτὸν ἀνερωτᾶν) about the oracle whether I would accept this as ἔχω ἔχειν, and hence (???) being neither wise with respect to the wisdom of those [sc. the craftsmen] nor ignorant about [my own] ignorance, or ἀμ��φότερα ἃ ἐκεῖνοι ἔχουσιν ἔχειν

My problems are:

• why is there the ACI με... ἀνερωτᾶν? I don't see any verb that would trigger it
• is the μήτε...μήτε... an incidental like I've translated it? I'm also not super sure about the rest of this sentence tbh
• what's the deal with ἔχω ἔχειν and with ἀμ��φότερα ἃ ἐκεῖνοι ἔχουσιν ἔχειν?

Can anyone help? Thanks!

The article about lipograms in Greek Wikipedia mentions that the Nicene Creed in its original Greek contains every letter except psi, which is easy to confirm as true, but then it claims that according to tradition this symbolizes the fact that the Creed contains no falsehood (ψεῦδος). I don't find that explanation plausible because it seems coincidental and unsurprising that the least common Greek letter doesn't occur in that text, but I'm trying to trace the history of this ψεῦδος belief and not having much luck.

The source cited by Wikipedia is a Greek webpage that cites no sources and seems speculative rather than factual. Searches in Greek found a few more webpages, but nothing authoritative or sourced and all within the past few years. All I've found from searching Greek books on the Internet Archive is a children's periodical from 1953 where a child wrote in to ask why the Nicene Creed doesn't contain psi, and the answer given was that psi is an uncommon letter, with no reference to the falsehood theory.

From English and Latin searches of the web, Google Books, and books on the Internet Archive, I can't find any discussion of this, even the mere acknowledgement of the absence of psi.

I'm sure there are Greek keywords I didn't think to search, but has anyone here heard this psi/ψεῦδος theory before or know an early source for it? It seems like the kind of linguistic observation and theory that would have originated in Late Antiquity or the Middle Ages, yet I can't find anything prior to very modern times. Thank you.

Ciao a tutti,
ho seguito con grande interesse la recente scoperta annunciata su National Geographic e alla conferenza di Napoli del 25 giugno 2026 riguardante i papiri di Ercolano srotolati e letti virtualmente tramite l’ausilio di tecnologie di ultima generazione.
In particolare sono interessato al rotolo PHerc. 1667. Si tratta di un piccolo rotolo molto antico (II-III secolo a.C.) contenente un testo con forti influenze stoiche (menziona Aristocreonte, nipote di Crisippo). Una delle frasi tradotte sarebbe: “Indagheremo qualcosa, ma non la coglieremo/comprenderemo, se in qualche modo ci allontaniamo da noi stessi e dalla nostra natura.”
Qualcuno di voi ha già accesso alla trascrizione greca pubblicata o può aiutarmi a ricostruire una versione filologicamente plausibile in greco ellenistico?
Nel testo emergono concetti stoici come ὁρμή (hormē) e φρόνησις (phronēsis), quindi una traduzione che tenga conto del lessico stoico sarebbe perfetta.
Grazie mille in anticipo a chiunque possa darmi una mano!

ciao a tutti. avrei bisogno di un aiuto da parte di professori/filologi classici/dottorandi di greco antico.
mi piacerebbe fare un tatuaggio dedicato ai miei nonni che purtroppo non ci sono più.
il tatuaggio deve avere un significato del tipo "ti osservo dall'alto e mi prendo cura di te". Inoltre, quando scrivo "dall'alto" intendo anche in senso fisico vero e proprio, non solo dal cielo.
mi è stata consigliata questa frase: ἐφορῶμεν καὶ σοῦ ἐπιμελούμεθα. voi che mi sapete dire ?
vi ringrazio anticipatamente.

I'm self studying with Athenaze, and I'm trying to understand why καθεύδω is accented κάθευδε in the imperative, instead of something like καθεῦδε. Finite verbal forms are accented recessively so I'm not sure accentuation of the imperative goes in the opposite direction.

Similarly, why is the imperative of φιλέω accented φίλει, especially when the 3rd person singular is accented φιλεῖ?

εἰδὼς ἐμαυτὸν ἀποθανούμενον· ζῶ

-Ὁ Δαμμαφυλακοδιδάσκαλος

Hello everyone, I have a question. After the discovery of the new scrolls, now that they can be read, would scholars find new words that we don’t have translations for because we’ve never seen them before? If so, how would we determine their meanings?

Please help me, I don’t know much about Modern or Ancient Greek, so please bear with me.