>Thanks to all of you who helped re the accents.
>
>I would like to see any of you translate Mark 2:23, particularly HRXANTO hODOV
>POIEIN TILLONTES.
The phrasing in Mark's version of the "Plucking Grain" pericope is indeed
unparalleled and awkward, the chief difficulty lying in the phrase hODON
POIEIN, which can only be construed as complementary to HRXANTO. I take the
sense of hODON POIEIN to be almost equivalent to the English "make a way,"
or "make a path" ("make one's way would normally be POREUESQAI in the
middle voice); here I think the idea must be to "make a path" through the
grain fields as they pluck the heads of grain from the stalks as they go
along. I don't think this normally gets translated very literally. I'd do
it thus literally:
Mark 2:23 KAI EGENETO AUTON EN TOIS SABBASIN PARAPOREUESQAI DIA TWN
SPORIMWN, KAI hOI MAQHTAI AUTOU HRXANTO hODON POIEIN TILLONTES TOUS STACUAS.
"And it happened that he was traveling on the Sabbath through grain fields,
and his disciples began to tread a path (while) picking the heads of grain."
This is indeed awkward. More freely, I'd make it: "And as chance would have
it, as he was journeying on the Sabbath through fields of grain, his
disciples started trampling through them and plucking the heads of grain as
they went."
</x-rich>
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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