Here's the best I can render it:  andros dikaiou karpos ouk apollutai

I can't put in the accent marks or the breathing symbols, distinguish
the sigmas, etc., but if you know Greek you will be able to read
through this coarse transliteration.

I just want to know what this quotation from Menander says in English.
 Once I get past "man," I can't do it by back-formation through
English etymology.

Thank you,
Archae0pteryx

I think it refers to "the calumny of Apelles", but unfortunately I
don't read Greek...

Scriptor

Consistent (I think) with scriptor-ga's translation is this snippet
from an online auction catalog:

?'Andros Dikaiou Karros Ouk Appolutai'. (Die Verleumdung des Apelles).
Die eselohrige Dummheit auf dem Thron und die Tyrannei in Wut über
einen jungen Mann, der von der Unschuld und Merkur geschützt
wi...[more] "

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:MVNzMPlT3AIJ:www.icollectorlive.com/viewCatalogLots.aspx%3Fauctionid%3D3391%26page%3D6%26rec%3D25+appolutai&hl=en


Unfortunately, this comes from a Google-cached page, and the original,
which contains the "[more]" is not available.

markj-ga

Hmm, good leads, you two--but no bull's eye yet.  If I could even get
one of the other key words, maybe I could ID it in a list of quotes by
Menander.  I have a Greek dictionary somewhere in my library, but I
can't find it, and because of the different alphabets I can't seem to
get an online dictionary to help me out.  I thought one of you GA
geniuses would be able to figure out a back-door way to startle this
one into revealing itself.  Maybe Scriptor will see a clue in your
find, Markj.

(What I see written down here, though, is not "karros" but "karpos": 
very distinctly kappa alpha rho pi omicron (with a grave accent)
sigma.)

Tryx

It seems to follow a classical meter.

Andros is man, dikaiou means 'once', and apollutai is Greek for
Nantucket, but beyond that, I can't make it out.

paf

Thanks, paf.  Geez, Nantucket, I never thought of that.  It didn't
sound like a limerick to me.  What a sensitive ear you have.

I found my little Greek dictionary (big one is still MIA) and looked
up what I think are the roots or closely related words, but I don't
know the language--the syntax, the rules, the inflected endings,
declensions and conjugations--so I can't piece it together.

Here's what I've got:

dikaiou
     is or seems to be related to
to think right, to justify, judge; to condemn; to claim, desire

karpos
     is or seems to be related to
fruit, corn, harvest, produce; profit, success
also to bear fruit, to gather fruit, to reap

apollutai
     is or seems to be related to
to ruin, destroy, undo; kill, lose

Does that help?
Tryx

I dunno.  It sure is tantalizing that the Botticelli painting that is
called  "Andros Dikaiou Karros Ouk Appolutai" in the auction listing I
found earlier is definitely called "The Calumny of Appelles" in
English:

http://www.abcgallery.com/B/botticelli/botticelli48.html

Can you tell us anything about the source or context of the quote you
have?  How do you know it's Menander?  Could "karpos" be a classical
typo? (Of course, the auction listing could be responsible for the
typo, if there is one.)

Markj,

It was written by hand on a box of books that my son brought home last
night from my late father-in-law's house, which is being readied for
sale.  I am guessing that the line was written by my son's girlfriend,
who excels in advanced Latin and is now taking beginning Greek.  An
error is not only possible but probable, especially in the inclusion
of diacritical marks.  There's also a fair likelihood of error in the
attribution.

However, there is nothing like "karros" in my little dictionary.

The concepts and root words that I was able to find do seem like they
could be resolved into a coherent idea.

If I am going to astound my son and his girlfriend with my erudition,
I have to figure this out before they come home in a few hours' time.

Tryx

I'm in a hurry, alas. I'd go for:
"The fruit of the just man is not utterly destroyed"
or something similar.

Karpos = fruit
Andros = of a man (genitive singular form)
dikaiou = just/ lawful/ observant of duty or custom (genitive singular form)
apollutoi = is utterly desroyed/killed.

Better still. perhaps:
the fruit of a just man is not then utterly destroyed.

Ooh, Amber, that certainly has a ring of authenticity to it!

To rephrase somewhat more poetically, how about this?  "The fruit of a
just man never perishes."

That might even make a good epigraph for a painting of judgment in action:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/arttheft/page/0,13883,1034155,00.html

Apelles, The Calumny, c300 BC
The history of art is full of phantoms, and one of the sources of
creativity is the desire to reconstruct what once existed. None of the
paintings of Apelles, the ancient Greek, has survived. When Leon
Battista Alberti wrote his book On Painting in 1435, the works of
Apelles were remembered only through ancient writings rediscovered in
monastery libraries. Alberti quotes longingly the ancient writer
Lucian's description of Apelles's Calumny as showing "a man with
enormous ears sticking out, attended on each side by two women,
Ignorance and Suspicion; from one side Calumny was approaching in the
form of an attractive woman, but whose face seemed too well-versed in
cunning..." The 15th-century Florentine artist Sandro Botticelli's
painting The Calumny of Apelles reconstructs this lost masterpiece,
and is in turn one of the masterpieces of the Renaissance.

So--it all comes together.  Thank you, Amber.  Thank you, all.

Archae0pteryx