A grammar of the Homeric dialect - Wilbourhall.org

79-1 AORIST MEANING. 67
speaker puts himself at the (future) point of time given by the
context, and uses the Tense which then becomes appropriate.
(2) Again
When an assertion is made irrespective of time, the Pres. or
Aor. is used the Pres. for continuous and the Aor. for single or
momentary action. Hence the use
In similes, as II. 3. 23 wore AeW t\apT] as a lion is gladdened
(but in v. 25 /careo-fliei goes on devouring) : II. 4. 75 olov 6* dorepa
. .
rjK TOV 8e re iroXXol CLTTO o-TTivOfjpes teurai.
The only examples of the Impf. in a simile are II. 15. 274.,
495> m the phrase ovb' apa . . ai(n^6v fjv, where it is virtually
a Present.
Also in ' gnomic ' passages, reflexions, general sayings, &c. :
II. T. 218 6s K Oeols eTTtTret^rat pa\a r ZK\VOV avrov.
9. 320 KarOav' OJJL&S 6 T aepyoj avrip, 6 re 7roAA.a eopycoj.
These uses of the Aor. are very common in Homer.
The Impf. may possibly be found in a gnomic passage, II. 13. 730-732
dAAo; fjilv yap 4'5o6 Oebs TroXf^-fjia tpya
d\\q> 8' fv crrjOeffffi TiOfi voov evpvoira Zevs,
where the MS. reading TiOsi may be defended as an Impf. marking subordination
to the Aor. cScoice :
cp. the examples in 71. 2.
Much light has been thrown upon the history of the Aorist by the comparison
of the use in Sanscrit (Delbruck, 8. F. ii, and A. S. p. 280). If the
result has not been to determine the original force of the Aorist, it has at
least shown that the question cannot be settled from the material furnished
by Greek alone. The use which predominates in Greek, the historical use to
assert the happening of a single event in the past, is almost unknown to the
earliest Sanscrit. In the Veda the Aor. is employed, as often in Homer ( 74^
of what has happened in the immediate past. In the early Sanscrit prose (the
Brahmanas) the Aor. is used of what has happened to the speaker himself.
It is worth noticing that these uses, in which the Aor. answers approximately
to the English Pf. with have, are found in later Greek in the case of the verbs
whose Pf. retains its original meaning. As Mr. Gildersleeve '
puts it,
when
the Perfect is used as a Present, the Aorist is used as a Perfect. So e/cTr)aafj.rjv
I have gained possession of, ic4r^fuu I possess' (Am. Journ. of Phil. iv. 429). Hence,
if the Greek Perfect is originally a kind of present, there is a presumption
that the Aor. was originally akin in meaning to our Perfect. On this view the
ordinary historical Aor. is a derivative use.
CHAPTER III.
THE MOODS.
79.]
The Moods of the Verb (properly so called) are the
Subjunctive) the Optative, and the Imperative. It is convenient
however to rank the two Verbal Nouns, the Infinitive
and the