List of Greek Phrases / Omega
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Ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι.
- Ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι.
- Ō andres Athenaioi.
- "You men of Athens!"
Expression that Socrates often used in his defense speech and also used by the apostle Paul in his speech on the Areopagus :
- Socrates:
- “Please do not become restless, men of Athens, and stick to what I asked you to do: not to let my words disturb you, but to listen; because you get something out of it, I mean, if you listen. "
- Paul:
- “You men of Athens! I see that you are very serious about religion. I've walked through your city and looked at your holy places. I also discovered an altar with the inscription: 'For an unknown God'. " (Paul in his speech on the Areopagus)
Ὦ γάμοι, γάμοι.
- Ὦ γάμοι, γάμοι.
- Ō gamoi, gamoi.
- "Eh'n, you marriages, ah!"
Curse of the king Oedipus in the drama of the poet Sophocles about the institution of marriage , when he has just found out that he slew his own father and married his own mother.
Oedipus also complains in this tragedy:
You begat me, received the
same seed again when you begat me, drew out into the light
siblings, fathers, children, blood from the
same line, wives, brides, mothers, and whatever else of
horrors among people may only be found.
Oedipus is a son of Laios , king of Thebes , whom he kills in a scuffle. Later, as a reward for freeing Thebes from the Sphinx , he received Iokaste , the king's widow and thus his own mother, as his wife. Only later does he learn that Iokaste and Laios are his birth parents. So, as an oracle predicted, Oedipus committed both parricide and incest . In the drama King Oedipus , Oedipus stabs his eyes out at the end and flees into exile.
Ὦ δέσποτα, μέμνησο Ἀθηναίων.
- Ὦ δέσποτα, μέμνησο Ἀθηναίων.
- Ō despota, memnēso Athēnaiōn.
- "Lord, remember the Athenians!"
Words that a Greek slave had to shout to the Persian King Dareios I three times every time he sat down at table, because Dareios wanted to take revenge on the Athenians for the Ionian uprising , a rebellion of the Greeks of Asia Minor and Cyprus against the Persian supremacy .
Although the Ionian Greeks living on the coast of Asia Minor enjoyed numerous privileges under the Persians, they rose up in 500 BC. The Athenians broke the treaty of alliance and sent military support. 499 BC The capital of the satrapy Lydia, Sardis , was captured and destroyed in the 3rd century BC .
In addition, Dareios is said to have shot an arrow towards the sky and exclaimed:
- Ὦ Ζεῦ, ἐκγενέσθαι μοι Ἀθηναίους τίσασθαι!
- "O Zeus, let me take revenge on the Athenians!"
Ὦ Κρίτων […] τῷ Ἀσκληπιῷ ὀφείλομεν ἀλεκτρυόνα.
- Ὦ Κρίτων […] τῷ Ἀσκληπιῷ ὀφείλομεν ἀλεκτρυόνα. ἀλλ 'ἀπόδοτε καὶ μὴ ἀμελήσητε.
- Ō Kritōn […] tō Asklēpiō opheilomen alektryona, all 'apodote kai mē amelēsēte.
- "O Crito, [...] we owe Asklepios a rooster, pay him that, and of course don't fail."
According to Plato, Socrates' last words to his friend Crito after he had been condemned to drink the hemlock cup and drank the poison. Asklepios was the god of healing, and when Socrates felt the effect of the poison, he was compelled to thank Asklepios; for the ancient Greeks made no linguistic distinction between medicine and poison ; for them both were φάρμακον pharmacons . Some interpreters also assume that Socrates wanted to express that death is a redemption for humans.
Compare also Σῶμα σῆμα.
Ὦ ξεῖν ', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.
Ὦ ξεῖν ', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.
Ō xein ', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti tēde
keimetha tois keinōn rhēmasi peithomenoi.
- "Oh stranger, announce to the Spartans that we are here, convinced of their words."
" Τὸ ῥῆμα " (here as τοῖς ῥήμασι ) can also be translated with "law" and " πείθω " (here as participle πειθόμενοι ) also with "obey", together thus "... obeying the laws" (literally "as those who obey the laws") ).
The so-called " Thermopylae epigram " of Simonides von Keos is said to have stood on the memorial stone for the three hundred Spartians who paid with their lives in the battle of Thermopylae for the fight against the Persian superiority.
The Roman politician and speaker Marcus Tullius Cicero strikes a pathetic tone when he speaks of sacred laws:
Dic, hospes, Spartae nos te hic vidisse iacentes,
dum sanctis patriae legibus obsequimur.
The poet Friedrich Schiller found the following translation in his poem "The Walk" in 1795 :
Wanderer, if you come to Sparta, proclaim there that you saw
Us lying here as the law commanded.
On January 30, 1943, in a speech to members of the Wehrmacht , Hermann Göring drew a comparison to the ongoing battle of Stalingrad , in order to legitimize Hitler's orders to fight “down to the last cartridge” ideologically and historically and the population to the unavoidable defeat to prepare:
“Millennia have passed, and today this fight there, this sacrifice there is still so heroic, as an example of the highest level of soldierhood. And one day it will also say: If you come to Germany, report that you saw us lying in Stalingrad as the law, that is: the law of the security of our people, ordered it. "
Heinrich Böll's short story Wanderer, Sie geht zu Spa ... from 1950 ties in with this mendacious heroization of a sacrificial death for the fatherland, which refers to classical antiquity . The narrator finds himself severely injured in a hospital, the facility of which corresponds to that of the humanistic grammar school Friedrich der Große , which he attended eight years ago until three months ago. That he is actually there, however, only becomes certain when he recognizes on the blackboard in the drawing room his own, too large and therefore not completely fitting writing exercise “Wanderer, are you coming to Spa” . Unwrapped on the operating table, he immediately realized: He no longer has any arms and only one leg.
ὦ ξένε
- ὦ ξένε
- ō xene
- "Stranger!"
General address to people whose name you don't know or whose name you don't say. Translated with "my friend" , "my best" .
The German philosopher Bernhard Waldenfels writes in his essay on atopy : (*)
“In the symposium it is Diotima who appears as a messenger from another world; after the table companions at length the [ sic have!] talked about Eros, they are through the mouth of Socrates news of the transforming power of eros - and Socrates, the strangeness, she talks themselves with, O strangers'! ( ō xenē ). One might be inclined to speak of a stranger in an unfamiliar way , just as Holderlin welcomes the night as a 'stranger among people'. "
Ὦ οἷα κεφαλὴ, καὶ ἐγκέφαλον οὐκ ἔχει.
- Ὦ οἷα κεφαλὴ, καὶ ἐγκέφαλον οὐκ ἔχει.
- Ō hoia kephalē, kai engkephalon ouk echei.
- "Oh, what a beautiful head, but the brain is missing!"
The humanist Erasmus von Rotterdam writes in his collection of proverbs Adagia :
“This applies to people who stand out because of their physical beauty but who have no sense. It goes back to a fable that Aesop has handed down. In colloquial language it is said of the crazy and the restricted that they have no brains in their heads. "
The Latin equivalent is " caput vacuum cerebro " .
Ὦ παῖ γένοιο πατρὸς εὐτυχέστερος
- Ὦ παῖ γένοιο πατρὸς εὐτυχέστερος τὰ δ 'ἄλλ' ὁμοῖος.
- Ō pai, genoio patros eutychesteros, ta d 'all' homoios.
- "Child, become happier than your father, otherwise same as him!"
Last wish of the dying Aias for his son in the drama of Sophocles. In the front scene, Odysseus looks for traces to confirm the rumor that Aiax (Ajas) slaughtered the herd cattle. The goddess Athena orders Aias to show himself in his lamentable condition.
In the first main scene, Aias realizes, having regained his senses, that he is hated by the gods and detested by the army. He still wishes to kill the military leaders and then to die himself: "The noble lives with honor or goes away with honor."
Tekmessa begs for pity for her and her son Eurysakes , because she and the child would be slaveless after his death. Determined to die, Aias says goodbye to Eurysakes and appoints his half-brother Teukros to be the child's educator. However, he closes himself off from his wife's plea not to harm himself.
Ὦ παῖδες Ἑλλήνων ἴτε, ἐλευθεροῦτε πατρίδ '.
- Ὦ παῖδες Ἑλλήνων ἴτε, ἐλευθεροῦτε πατρίδ '.
- Ō paides Hellēnōn ite, eleutheroute patrid '.
- “You sons of the Hellenes, up! Free our fatherland! "
The poet Aeschylus explains in his tragedy The Persians (401-405), which treats the sinking of the Persian fleet in the sea battle of Salamis from the fictional perspective of the Persian royal court, what the Greeks are about. When the Persians drove into the sound , they heard loud shouts:
- Ὦ παῖδες Ἑλλήνων ἴτε, ἐλευθεροῦτε πατρίδ ', ἐλευθεροῦτε δὲ παῖδας, γυναῖκας, θεῶν τὑέ νεω νω νω νω ντήκ, ντω νω νω ήπκ, ντω νω νω πρας.
- “You sons of the Greeks, free the fatherland, free the children and women, the seats of the ancestral gods, the graves of the ancestors; all of this is what the fight is about. "
The Greeks were vastly outnumbered. To remedy this, Themistocles asked the Oracle of Delphi for advice. The oracle's answer was: “Seek shelter behind wooden walls!” The Athenians interpreted this saying in such a way that only their triremes could offer protection against the Persians. The men were on the ships and the women and children were brought to safety near Salamis .
Ὤδινεν ὄρος καὶ ἔτεκε μῦν.
- Ὤδινεν ὄρος καὶ ἔτεκε μῦν.
- Ōdinen oros kai eteke myn.
- Variant: Ὤδινεν ὄρος καὶ ἔτεκεν μῦν. Ōdinen oros kai eteken myn.
- "The mountain twitched - and gave birth to a mouse."
This supposed proverb goes back to a fable by Aesop and its content is that a result is unsatisfactory despite great effort. This fable was translated into Latin by Phaedrus and discussed by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in his treatises on the fable , who also cited the poem Der Berg und der Poet by Friedrich von Hagedorn :
You gods save! People, flee!
A pregnant mountain begins to revolve,
and will now, before you know it
, throw sand and clods around it.
It roars, it cracks, and the valley and the field
Are distorted by just fear.
What can prevent the imminent accident?
A miracle will happen:
he must stand pregnant with cities,
and soon give birth to a new Rome.
[...]
Alone, watch out, what comes out?
Here a Sonnet , there a mouse.
The best-known Latin version comes from the Ars poetica ("poetry") of the poet Horace , where it says:
- " Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. "
- "The mountains will circle, and a ridiculous mouse will be born."
With these words Horace criticizes poets who promise a lot but keep little.
ὧραι τῆς ἡμέρας
- ὧραι τῆς ἡμέρας
- hōrai tēs hēmeras
- "Hours of the day"
Jesus said to his disciples when they warned him that he would be stoned in Judea :
- " Ἀπεκρίθη ᾿Ιησοῦς · οὐχὶ δώδεκά εἰσιν ὧραι τῆς ἡμέρας; ἐάν τις περιπατῇ ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ, οὐ προσκόπτει, ὅτι τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου τούτου βλέπει · “
- “Jesus answered: Isn't it twelve hours in the day? He who walks during the day does not stumble; because he sees the light of this world. "
The day division in antiquity already knew twelve hours , but these were calculated from sunrise and were either of the same length ( Babylonian hours ) or of variable length ( Roman hours ) depending on the season .
The Horen , literally "the periods of time", were the originally Greek goddesses who oversaw the orderly life. They were the patron goddesses of the different times of the day. In Greek tradition, the twelve hours were counted from just before sunrise to just after sunset. This ancient division has been preserved as the liturgical division of the day .
| Greek | Summer / winter solstice |
Remarks |
|---|---|---|
|
Άυγή Augē |
3:40 a.m. / 6:21 p.m. | the first light of day Augē, a daughter of the king of Tegea in Arcadia, was originally a priestess of the goddess Athena , who was impregnated by Heracles . |
|
Άνατολή Anatolē |
5:11 am / 7:15 am | Rising of the sun Anatolē was also the name for Asia Minor , from which the Turkish Anatolia is derived . |
|
Μουσική Mousikē |
6:42 a.m. / 8:09 a.m. | first spiritual exercise The mousikē is also a time of singing together in the morning. |
|
Γυμναστική gymnasticsē |
8:13 a.m. / 9:03 a.m. | first physical exercise Gymnastics was forgotten in hostile Christianity. |
|
Νύμφη nymphē |
9:44 am / 9:57 am | morning cleaning the nymph is the time of cleaning after gymnastic exercises in the morning. |
|
Μεσημβρία Mesēmbria |
11:15 am / 10:51 am | Noon Lunch varies according to the holidays and deities to be honored. |
|
Σπονδή Spondē |
12:46 p.m. / 11:45 a.m. | Libation after lunch The spondē does not need the whole hour, just part of it. |
|
Έλήτη Elētē |
2:17 p.m. / 12:39 p.m. | Elētē prayer is the first hour of the afternoon and the first hour of work in the monastery. |
|
Άκτή Aktē |
3:48 p.m. / 1:33 p.m. | Eating, Pleasure Aktē is the second afternoon hour and in the monastery the second working hour. |
|
Έσπέρις Hesperis |
3:40 p.m. / 2:27 p.m. | Evening Hesperis is the daughter of Hesperus , wife of Atlas and mother of the Hesperides . The hour of Hesperis is the time of the evening libation. Hesperis is also a genus in the family of the cruciferous plants (Brassicaceae) after the flowers, which are strongly scented in the evening and at night. |
|
Δύσις Dysis |
6:50 p.m. / 3:21 p.m. | Sunset Dysis is a daughter of Zeus and Themis. The name means going down. The hour of dysis is the time of dinner together. |
|
Άρκτος Arktos |
8:29 am / 4:18 pm | last light Arktos literally means "bear" and is named after the constellations Big Bear and Little Bear . |
The Doctor of the Church Augustine composes the name of the first man Adam from the first letters of four hours :
vt enim ait Augustine.
Adam in quatuor litteris Grecis ex quibus constat.
Quatuor habet principia verborum Grecorum.
Anatole. quod est oriens.
Disis. quod est occidens.
Arctos quod est septemtrio.
Mesembria quod est meridies
quasi subiciantur ei quatuor orbis climata.
As Augustine says,
Adam has
the initials of four Greek words in the four Greek letters that make up him :
Anatole, (land of rise) - that is the Orient,
Dysis, (land of decline) - that is the Occident,
Arktos, ( Bear country) - that is the north (under the seven stars, the great bear),
Mesembria, (midday land) - that is midday (south)
And so the four turning marks of the world are subject to it, as it were.
Ὥρας δ 'ἔθηκε τρεῖς.
- Ὥρας δ 'ἔθηκε τρεῖς.
- Hōras d'ethēke treis.
- "Heaven gave three seasons."
Beginning of a poem by the Spartan poet Alkman An Artemis Orthia , in which the ancient division of the seasons is reproduced:
ὥρας δ 'ἔθηκε τρεῖς, θέρος
καὶ χεῖμα κὠπώραν τρίταν
καὶ τέτρατον τὸ Ϝῆρ, ὅκα
θάλλει δατατ
θτθ.
Heaven gave three seasons:
summer, winter and harvest.
The fourth would be spring: it will
bring blossom and flowers, but
not enough to eat.
In ancient times the Greeks only knew two seasons, summer and winter, which gradually split up according to the climatic conditions of Greece. In Homer four designations find:
- ὁ χειμών ho cheimōn (winter; from the early sunset of the Pleiades to the spring equinox )
- τὸ ἔαρ to ear (spring; until the early rise of the Pleiades on May 20th)
- τὸ θέρος to Theros (summer; to early rising of Arcturus on 20 September)
- ἡ ὀπώρα hē opōra ( time of ripening , actually only the last part of summer [late summer])
The autumn not listed here ( τὸ φθινόπωρον to phthinopōron ) goes from September 20th to the early sunset of the Pleiades on November 4th.
ὡς ἐν ἄλλῳ κόσμῳ
- ὡς ἐν ἄλλῳ κόσμῳ
- hōs en allō kosmō
- "Like in another world"
This phrase is one of the first adagia of the humanist Erasmus von Rotterdam, who wrote:
“Like in another world. This is a proverbial phrase that is now in common use, and it is said of people who are very different from the others in their ways, or of those who find everything unusual or are far from their homeland. "
Erasmus further writes that Plutarch stated in his table talks :
"In essence, the Greeks are so dissimilar and alien to us, as if they had belonged to another world through birth and life."
The editor Theresia Payr notes that Erasmus had a corrupt text. In the original, it is not Greeks, but marine animals that belong to another world.
Ὡς ἔρις ἔκ τε θεῶν καὶ ἀνθρώπων ἀπόλοιτο.
- Ὡς ἔρις ἔκ τε θεῶν καὶ ἀνθρώπων ἀπόλοιτο.
- Hōs eris ek te theōn kai anthrōpōn apoloito.
- "Waste any quarrel between gods and men!"
Heraclitus distances himself sharply from Homer, whose statement runs counter to his conception of struggle. While Homer articulates a striving for pacification of contending parties, for the Heraclitic philosophy the struggle is a necessarily perpetual process that constitutes existence.
ὡς κλέπτης ἐν νυκτί
- ὡς κλέπτης ἐν νυκτί
- hōs kleptēs in nykti
- "Like the thief in the night"
According to Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians , the day of the Lord is to come like a thief in the night :
- " Περὶ δὲ τῶν χρόνων καὶ τῶν καιρῶν, ἀδελφοί, οὐ χρείαν ἔχετε ὑμῖν γράφεσθαι · 2 αὐτοὶ γὰρ ἀκριβῶς οἴδατε ὅτι ἡ ἡμέρα Κυρίου ὡς κλέπτης ἐν νυκτὶ οὕτως ἔρχεται . "
- “ 1 But of the times and hours, dear brothers, there is no need to write to you; 2 for you yourselves know for sure that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. "
Day of the Lord (Hebrew jom adonai) denotes in the Old Testament the moment of divine judgment, which brings end-time justice for the godly. It later also became a menacing cipher of apocalyptic .
Ὠτίων πιστότεροι ὀφθαλμοί.
- Ὠτίων πιστότεροι ὀφθαλμοί.
- Ōtiōn pistoteroi ophthalmoi.
- "Eyes are more reliable than ears."
This statement that the eyes are more reliable witnesses than the ears corresponds to the following finding of the philosopher Heraclitus:
- " Κακοὶ μάρτυρες ἀνθρώποισι ὀφθαλμοὶ καὶ ὦτα βαρβάρους ψυχὰς ἐχόντων. "
- "People are bad witnesses when they have barbaric souls, eyes and ears."
Elsewhere in Heraclitus it says:
- Ὀφθαλμοὶ γὰρ τῶν ὤτων ἀκριβέστεροι μάρτυρες.
- "Because the eyes are better witnesses than the ears."
Individual evidence
- ↑ TU Berlin.de: Basic orientations of ethical philosophy: Plato, Apologie des Sokrates 30 a - 36 a (18 - 24) ( Memento from September 26, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Taunusportal.de: Traveling in Athens
- ↑ Navicula Bacchi, Sophocles: KING OIDIPUS - ΟΙΔΙΠΟΥΣ ΤΥΡΑΝΝΟΣ
- ↑ according to the Histories of Herodotus 5.102
- ^ Plato, Phaedo 118, op. Translation: Friedrich Schleiermacher .
- ^ The Walk (Wikisource); First published in 1795 in Die Horen (Schiller) under the title "Elegie"
- ↑ Hermann Göring's speech to members of the Wehrmacht in the hall of honor of his Reich Aviation Ministry on January 30, 1943 on the tenth anniversary of Hitler's seizure of power , speech recording (MP3; 10.7 MB) ( Memento from December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Published in: local shifts, time shifts. Modi of bodily experience , Frankfurt am Main 2009, pp. 119-126, ISBN 978-3-518-29552-6 . Digital version (PDF, 85.6 kB; p. 6)
- ↑ a b Erasmus of Rotterdam: Selected writings . Volume 7. Scientific Book Society. 1972
- ↑ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Treatises on the fable - Chapter 2 in the Gutenberg-DE project
- ^ Friedrich von Hagedorn: The mountain and the poet
- ↑ Horace: Ars poetica , verse 139
- ↑ Gospel according to John , 9/11
- ↑ http://www.bibel-online.net/buch/43.johannes/11.html#9
- ↑ Information for the 43rd degree of latitude N, according to The Pagan Book of Hours: The Daily Hours ( Memento of May 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Gervasius of Tilbury , Otia imperalia 1, cap. 10, translation by Hans Zimmermann, quoted from Otia 1, 10–11
- ↑ Quoted from Navicula Bacchi , Alkman, Greek Lyrik - Jahreszeiten ; Translation: Karl Preisendanz
- ^ 1. Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, 5.2
- ↑ Sextus Empiricus , adv. Math. VII = D 22 B 107.
