Hmm. I, for one, cannot hear the difference. But Ancient Greek had, it seems, a pitch-accent, like modern Mandarin or Vietnamese. This predominated over a light stress-accent. The word meaning ‘calm’ has an uptone (aptly enough, for the meaning of the line) on its second syllable, whereas the word meaning ‘weasel’ has a neutral or holding tone. As you suggest, that difference would have to be instantly audible to a large audience.
In fact the circumflex is not a neutral tone, we are told, but was up and down in pitch, with an emphasis on the fall. If you just listen out for that syllable you might hear that the first rendering is markedly upwards while the second describes an up-down pitch.
I had to listen 2 times, but then I know nothing of either ancient or modern Greek, nor languages with pitch-accents. It's subtle, but a native speaker would certainly hear it right away and it would indeed be worth laughing about!
The Duolingo Latin course also teaches you the word "weasel' and I realized that even though it's a short course (I was brushing up on my long-ago high school Latin), I had learned enough to describe the scene in "The Big Lebowski" where the criminals fling a ferret into the tub with The Dude. I'm sure that's not an accident.
Hmm. I, for one, cannot hear the difference. But Ancient Greek had, it seems, a pitch-accent, like modern Mandarin or Vietnamese. This predominated over a light stress-accent. The word meaning ‘calm’ has an uptone (aptly enough, for the meaning of the line) on its second syllable, whereas the word meaning ‘weasel’ has a neutral or holding tone. As you suggest, that difference would have to be instantly audible to a large audience.
In fact the circumflex is not a neutral tone, we are told, but was up and down in pitch, with an emphasis on the fall. If you just listen out for that syllable you might hear that the first rendering is markedly upwards while the second describes an up-down pitch.
I had to listen 2 times, but then I know nothing of either ancient or modern Greek, nor languages with pitch-accents. It's subtle, but a native speaker would certainly hear it right away and it would indeed be worth laughing about!
The Duolingo Latin course also teaches you the word "weasel' and I realized that even though it's a short course (I was brushing up on my long-ago high school Latin), I had learned enough to describe the scene in "The Big Lebowski" where the criminals fling a ferret into the tub with The Dude. I'm sure that's not an accident.