Though no mortal man would choose thee,
An immortal no less
Deigns not to refuse thee.
Here not to refuse=to accept; and is probably a Grecism. To not refuse would, perhaps, be better.
The next expression is still more foreign to the English idiom:—
For not to have been dipped in Lethe's lake
Could save the son of Thetis from to die.
Here not is to be taken with could.
[§ 626]. In the present English, two negatives make an affirmative. I have not not seen him=I have seen him. In Greek this was not the case. Duæ aut plures negativæ apud Græcos vehementius negant is a well-known rule. The Anglo-Saxon idiom differed from the English and coincided with the Greek. The French negative is only apparently double; words like point, pas, mean not not, but at all. Je ne parle pas = I not speak at all, not I not speak no.
[§ 627]. Questions of appeal.—All questions imply want of information; want of information may then imply doubt; doubt, perplexity; and perplexity the absence of an alternative. In this way, what are called, by Mr. Arnold,[[67]] questions of appeal, are, practically speaking, negatives. What should I do? when asked in extreme perplexity, means that nothing can well be done. In the following passage we have the presence of a question instead of a negative:—