- Source
- Herodotus. Godley, Alfred Denis, editor. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1920-1925 (printing).
- Translation
- AI-generated (gemini-3.5-flash) — machine translation; may contain errors
- Languages
- 日本語 · English · 简体中文 · 한국어
- CTS URN
- urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0016.tlg001.humanitext-grc2:1.12.1-1.12.2
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-10-27
Gyges and the queen plot their attack; Gyges hides behind the bedroom door at night and kills Candaules while he sleeps, seizing both the queen and the throne, an event mentioned by the poet Archilochus.
ὡς δὲ ἤρτυσαν τὴν ἐπιβουλήν, νυκτὸς γενομένης (οὐ γὰρ ἐμετίετο1 ὁ Γύγης, οὐδέ οἱ ἦν ἀπαλλαγὴ οὐδεμία, ἀλλʼ ἔδεε ἤ αὐτὸν ἀπολωλέναι ἢ Κανδαύλεα)2 εἵπετο ἐς τὸν θάλαμον τῇ γυναικί, καί μιν ἐκείνη, ἐγχειρίδιον δοῦσα, κατακρύπτει ὑπὸ τὴν αὐτὴν θύρην.
When they had prepared the plot, and night had come (for Gyges was not released, nor was there any escape for him, but it was necessary either that he himself should perish or Candaules), he followed the woman into the bedchamber; and she, having given him a dagger, hid him behind the very same door.
καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ἀναπαυομένου Κανδαύλεω ὑπεκδύς τε καὶ ἀποκτείνας αὐτὸν ἔσχε καὶ τὴν γυναῖκα καὶ τὴν βασιληίην Γύγης τοῦ3 καὶ Ἀρχίλοχος ὁ Πάριος κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν χρόνον γενόμενος ἐν ἰάμβῳ τριμέτρῳ ἐπεμνήσθη.
And after this, while Candaules was resting, Gyges, slipping out and killing him, obtained both the woman and the kingdom. Gyges was also mentioned by Archilochus of Paros, who lived at the same time, in an iambic trimeter poem.
- 1.12.1ἐμετίετο
Imperfect middle-passive of μετίημι (Ionic for μεθίημι, "to let go", "release"). Here it functions either as a passive ("Gyges was not released" by the queen) or as a middle ("Gyges could not extricate himself" from the situation). The imperfect tense denotes the ongoing pressure or constraint he was under.
- 1.12.1ἔδεε ἤ αὐτὸν ἀπολωλέναι ἢ Κανδαύλεα
The impersonal verb ἔδεε (Ionic for ἔδει) governs the accusative and infinitive construction. The infinitive ἀπολωλέναι is the intransitive perfect active of ἀπόλλυμι ("to perish", "be ruined"). The disjunctive conjunctions ἤ ... ἤ correlate the two subject accusatives, αὐτόν (Gyges himself) and Κανδαύλεα (Candaules), meaning "it was necessary either that he himself should perish or Candaules."
- 1.12.2τοῦ
Genitive of the relative pronoun (Ionic for οὗ), referring back to the antecedent Gyges (Γύγης). The genitive case is governed by the subsequent verb ἐπεμνήσθη (aorist of ἐπιμνήσκομαι, "to make mention of").