108
state capital of Alaska but also in historians’ renderings of ancient place-names
such as Myos Hormos, ‘Mussel Anchorage’ (also the name of the accompanying
settlement).
Although a phrase such as ‘small harbour’ might do justice to some instances of
hormos, we do not know that places called hormoi necessarily accommodated
fewer ships than those referred to as limenes. Accordingly, ‘anchorage’ is a good
compromise, as long as we let readers know that it does not necessarily imply
that a ship would need to drop anchor there rather than be tied up. (In later
sources, such as the anonymous Stadiasmos, section 45, we encounter terms
such as ἀγκυροβολία, ankyrobolia, ‘place to cast anchor’.)
3. The terms ‘road’ and ‘roadstead’, already introduced, better suit salos (hardly
ever used in the plural and then mostly metaphorically), which is related to the
verb σαλεύω (saleuō), ‘undergo a tossing motion’, often a violent one. More
appropriately than in the case of hormos, the dictionaries concur in making salos
a piece of open but safely sheltered water.
10
Since ‘roads’ in this sense will probably be unfamiliar to readers who do not sail, and would need explaining in a
translation, salos had better have ‘roadstead’ reserved for it. It is less familiar
than some terms, but a quotation from the first paragraph one of the most famous
novels in English, Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne Du Maurier (perhaps not coincidentally set near Falmouth), justifies its adoption: ‘When the east wind blows
up Helford river the shining waters become troubled and disturbed and the little
waves beat angrily upon the sandy shores. […] The open roadstead is deserted,
for an east wind makes uneasy anchorage’.
4. That leaves hyphormos (pl. hyphormoi), a compound of hypo-, ‘under’, and hormos: a ‘sub-anchorage’, then. In practice, what? Once more we need to modify
the dictionaries’ recommendations: LSJ simply gives ‘anchorage’, obscuring the
distinction between hormos and hyphormos, while Brill offers ‘place of anchorage, port’, even though in geographical texts a hyphormos is clearly a minor
locality whereas ‘port’ implies some degree of organization. On this occasion a
phrase of two words may be the best solution: ‘minor anchorage’.
This cluster of words may serve to highlight several issues: the tendency of lexicons not always to define terms adequately in relation to one another; the need to
consider whether or not to employ familiar English words in an unfamiliar sense
(such as ‘road’) or to employ unfamiliar terms at all (‘roadstead’); and the desirability of following lexical distinctions present in Greek, as far as possible, when
choosing words in a translation.
10 LSJ offers ‘open roadstead, roads, [as] opp[osed to]. a harbour’; Brill ‘anchorage, mooring, usu.
Opp. to λιμήν harbor’.
D. G. J. Shipley
state capital of Alaska but also in historians’ renderings of ancient place-names
such as Myos Hormos, ‘Mussel Anchorage’ (also the name of the accompanying
settlement).
Although a phrase such as ‘small harbour’ might do justice to some instances of
hormos, we do not know that places called hormoi necessarily accommodated
fewer ships than those referred to as limenes. Accordingly, ‘anchorage’ is a good
compromise, as long as we let readers know that it does not necessarily imply
that a ship would need to drop anchor there rather than be tied up. (In later
sources, such as the anonymous Stadiasmos, section 45, we encounter terms
such as ἀγκυροβολία, ankyrobolia, ‘place to cast anchor’.)
3. The terms ‘road’ and ‘roadstead’, already introduced, better suit salos (hardly
ever used in the plural and then mostly metaphorically), which is related to the
verb σαλεύω (saleuō), ‘undergo a tossing motion’, often a violent one. More
appropriately than in the case of hormos, the dictionaries concur in making salos
a piece of open but safely sheltered water.
10
Since ‘roads’ in this sense will probably be unfamiliar to readers who do not sail, and would need explaining in a
translation, salos had better have ‘roadstead’ reserved for it. It is less familiar
than some terms, but a quotation from the first paragraph one of the most famous
novels in English, Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne Du Maurier (perhaps not coincidentally set near Falmouth), justifies its adoption: ‘When the east wind blows
up Helford river the shining waters become troubled and disturbed and the little
waves beat angrily upon the sandy shores. […] The open roadstead is deserted,
for an east wind makes uneasy anchorage’.
4. That leaves hyphormos (pl. hyphormoi), a compound of hypo-, ‘under’, and hormos: a ‘sub-anchorage’, then. In practice, what? Once more we need to modify
the dictionaries’ recommendations: LSJ simply gives ‘anchorage’, obscuring the
distinction between hormos and hyphormos, while Brill offers ‘place of anchorage, port’, even though in geographical texts a hyphormos is clearly a minor
locality whereas ‘port’ implies some degree of organization. On this occasion a
phrase of two words may be the best solution: ‘minor anchorage’.
This cluster of words may serve to highlight several issues: the tendency of lexicons not always to define terms adequately in relation to one another; the need to
consider whether or not to employ familiar English words in an unfamiliar sense
(such as ‘road’) or to employ unfamiliar terms at all (‘roadstead’); and the desirability of following lexical distinctions present in Greek, as far as possible, when
choosing words in a translation.
10 LSJ offers ‘open roadstead, roads, [as] opp[osed to]. a harbour’; Brill ‘anchorage, mooring, usu.
Opp. to λιμήν harbor’.
D. G. J. Shipley