Greek ἔλεγεν and Latin dicebat are both imperfect (durative/iterative 'he was saying / kept saying'), preserving the Markan habitual sense; the Syriac ܘܐܡܪ is a simple perfect 'and he said', collapsing the imperfective aspect of the Greek into a punctual past, as Syriac lacks a morphologically distinct imperfect for past narration here.