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''Molon labe'' ( ''molṑn labé''), meaning "come and take", is a classical expression of defiance. When the Persian armies demanded that the Greeks surrender their weapons at the Battle of Thermopylae, King Leonidas I responded with this phrase. It is an exemplary use of a laconic phrase. == Grammar == When properly transliterated with diacritics, the spelling becomes ''molṑn labé. ''The modern Greek pronunciation is somewhat different from the ancient Greek: ; . The literal translation is "having come, take". While English normally requires an explicit object in a transitive imperative construction ("Take them!" or "Take it!"), Ancient Greek does not; the object ''them'' is understood from context. The first word, ', is the aorist active participle (masculine, nominative, singular) of the Greek verb ' "to come", meaning "having come".〔See, e.g., entry () at Liddell & Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon''.〕 The root is evidently ΜΟΛ, so that βλώ-σκ-ω is apparently a contraction for μολώ-σκ-ω〔Liddell and Scott: The two words function together in a grammatical structure (not as common in English as in Greek) called the circumstantial participle. 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'' (ISBN 978-0196111704), Lesson 21. Chase and Phillips is an elementary textbook on Ancient Greek.〕 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 expressed with a participle with adverbial force. In this structure, the participle gives some circumstance (the coming) attendant on the main verb (the taking). The aorist participle may be used where the action is completed, called the perfective aspect. That is: the action of the participle occurs before that of the main verb. Thus the Greek provides a nuance similar to the English translation (come and () take it), making clear that the coming must precede the taking (i.e., "having come, take"). The latter is in second person singular, and therefore is not being spoken to a large group of people, but rather to an individual. King Leonidas I of Sparta spoke directly to Xerxes I personally, and not to the Persians en masse. A better Greek designation of the relationship between the participle and the imperative verb is to view the participle not as adverbial (circumstantial) but rather as a verbal participle of attendant circumstances. The indicators of this usage is that the participle typically precedes the main verb and is in the aorist tense while the main verb is in the aorist tense and is in either in the indicative or imperative mood (here the imperative). Finally, the usage normally (but not always) occurs within narrative literature (Daniel Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics (Rapids: Zondervan, 1996 ), 640-45). With these structures in mind, the participle then "borrows" the mood of the main verb and then adds the conjunction "and" after translating the participle. "Come and take!" 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Molon labe」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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