Molon labe

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Molon Labe! (Greek: Μολὼν Λαβέ, Erasmus pronunciation (IPA): [molɔːn labe], modern: [molon lave]) means "Come and take them!"

1 Grammar
2 History
3 Modern usage
4 Notes
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Grammar

The first word, μολὼν, is the aorist active participle (masculine, nominative, singular) of the Greek verb βλώσκω, meaning "having come."^[1] Λαβέ is the aorist active imperative (second person singular) of the verb λαμβάνω, translated "take [them]."

The two words function together in a grammatical structure not present in English called the circumstantial participle.^[2] Where English would put two main verbs in two independent clauses joined by a conjunction: "come and take", a strategy sometimes called paratactic, ancient Greek, which is far richer in participles, subordinates one to the other, a strategy called hypotactic: "coming take." The first action is turned into an adjective. The English speaker can understand it with a little thought, but he would never use it. In this structure the participle gives some circumstance attendant on the main verb: the coming.

The Greek has a nuance not present in the English: aspect. The aorist participle is used to signify completed action, called the perfective aspect. Moreover, the action must be completed before the time of the main verb. The difference in meaning is subtle but real: the English speaker is being invited to come and struggle with the owner over the object. The Greek is saying "first you have to come up, then you can take it."

[edit] History

Μολὼν λαβέ was the response of King Leonidas I of Sparta to Xerxes I of Persia at the onset of the Battle of Thermopylae. Xerxes, with his 800,000 men, offered to spare the lives of Leonidas and his few hundred defenders if only they would lay down their weapons. Instead, the Spartans held Thermopylae for three days and, while they died to the last man, they inflicted serious damage on the Persian army, delaying it and essentially preventing the conquest of the Greek Peninsula.

The source for this quotation is Plutarch, Apophthegmata Laconica, 225c.11. This work may or may not be by Plutarch himself, but it is included among the Moralia, a collection of works attributed to him but outside the collection of his most famous works, the Parallel Lives.

[edit] Modern usage

In the Anglo-Saxon world, it is often heard from pro-gun activists as a proclamation of belief in the natural right to keep and bear arms (as affirmed by the 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution, the English Bill of Rights 1689 and so on) and as a challenge to those supporting stricter gun control laws (or what they fear would be a government seizure of firearms). It began to appear on pro-RKBA web sites in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In Greece, "μολὼν λαβέ" has been used repeatedly in the modern era by general and politicians to show their determination not to surrender to superior enemy forces. For example when Major Paparrodos was asked by the Germans to surrender to them in 1941 on Mount Olympus during the German invasion of Greece, he gave that ancient reply and kept fighting even though he was alone and armed with only his personal firearm.

The motto ΜOΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ is on the emblem of the Greek First Army Corps (A' ΣΣ).

[edit] Notes

^ Refer to the Internet version of Liddell and Scott (the standard ancient Greek lexicon, which exists in many editions) on Perseus.com.
^ Different ways to phrase this name are in use. For simplicity, the one used here comes from Alston Hurd Chase and Henry Phillips Jr., A New Introduction to Greek, Lesson 21. Chase and Phillips is an elementary textbook on ancient Greek.