Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

Language, Alphabet, and Literacy 57
Table 3.2:
A Transcription, Transliteration, and Translation of Book 1, Line 1 of
Homer’s The Iliad
Greek MÁn-in ¥-ei-de, qe-£, Phl-h--£d-ew ’Ac-il-h ~ -oj
Transliteration Mên-in a-ei-de, the-a, Pêl-ê-i-ad-eô Ach-il-ê-os
Part of speech noun verb noun adjective noun
Case of noun accusative — vocative genitive genitive
Word meaning anger sing of goddess of Peleus’s son of Achilles
Translation Sing, goddess, of the anger of Achilles, son of Peleus.
Verb: The verb a-ei-de is in the imperative voice, which means that
the person who is speaking (in this case, the poet himself ) is giving
a command. The command is addressed to the-a, “goddess.” The
person who is given the command goes into the vocative case, the
case of address. This is indicated by the-a on the end of the-a.
Object: The object of the verb a-ei-de is the noun mên-in, “anger,”
which is in the accusative case. This is expressed by the ending-in.
But anger has to belong to someone, and in this case that someone
is Achilles, or Ach-il-ê-os, whose name is in the genitive case, the
case of possession. This is expressed by the ending-os.
Polysyllabic words: Many Greek words consist of numerous syllables;
Pêl-ê-i-ad-eô is a prime example. The reason for its length is
that Pêl-ê-i-ad-eô conveys three ideas. The beginning of the word,
Pêl-ê-, is the stem of the proper name, Peleus. The middle part of
the word, -i-ad-, carries the meaning “son of,” in this case “son of
Peleus.” The last part of the word, -eô, is the case ending. It tells
us that the entire word is in the genitive case. So the whole word
means “of the son of Peleus.”
Word order: Because word order does not determine sense, the
Greek language is free to use word order for emphasis. Mên-in,
“anger,” is the leading idea in the line and indeed the leading idea
in the entire poem. It therefore stands at the beginning because the
beginning and end of every line are places of special emphasis. For
the same reason, the last word in the line is Ach-il-ê-os, “of Achilles,”
because Achilles is the principal character in the poem. So Mênin
and Ach-il-ê-os, which belong together grammatically, enclose
the whole line like the cornerstones of a building. In addition, the
adjective Pêl-ê-i-ad-eô and the noun that it qualifies or describes,
Ach-il-ê-os, stand next to each other, as in English usage.