ὦ παῖ, γένοιο πατρὸς εὐτυχέστερος.
The first reason I am not prepared to impugn. Valeat quantum, &c. The second indicates a class of expressions which tense will not explain, and which mood will. Yet this is not conclusive. Would that thou wert is thoroughly optative: yet it is expressed by a tense.
The form of the so-called optatives proves nothing. Neither the subjunctive nor the optative has any signs of mood at all, except the negative one of the absence of the augment. Their signs are the signs of tense.
In favour of the view are the following reasons:—
1. The analogy of other languages. The imperfect has a subjunctive in Latin. So has the future.
2. The undoubtedly future character of the so-called aorist imperative. To give an order to do a thing in past time is a philological contradiction. Forms like βλέψον must be future. Though θὲς and τίθει differ in power, they both mean an
action subsequent to, or, at any rate, simultaneous with the order given; certainly not one anterior to it.
[§ 618]. Be may stand for may be. In this case the preterite is not were but might be. The sentence, what care I how fair the lady be, if she be not fair to her admirer? is accurate. Here be = may be. But, what cared I how fair the lady were, if she were not fair to her admirer? is inaccurate. It ought to run thus,—what cared I how fair the lady might be, if she were not fair to her admirer?[[65]]
[§ 619]. Disjunctives.—Disjunctives (or, nor) are of two sorts, real, and nominal.
A king or queen always rules in England. Here the disjunction is real; king or queen being different names for different objects. In all real disjunctions the inference is, that if one out of two (or more) individuals (or classes) do not perform a certain action, the other does.