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[*] 300. All the examples under 297 and 298 are usually printed as interrogative, in accordance with Elmsley's doctrine, stated in his note to EUR. Med. 1120 (1151) and in the Quarterly Review for June 1812. He explains οὐ μὴ λαλήσεις; as meaning will you not stop prating? (lit. will you not not prate?); and when a second clause in the future with μηδέ or ἀλλά follows, he extends the interrogative force of οὐ also to this. But this explanation requires an entirely different theory to account for οὐ μή in clauses of denial (295), where no question is possible. Moreover, the five examples of the second person of the subjunctive quoted under 295, taken in connection with those in 297 and 298, are sufficient to show the impossibility of separating the two constructions in explanation. One of the examples in 298 (AR. Nub. 296), where the imperative εὐφήμει follows in the clause with ἀλλά, seems decisive against the interrogative theory. The examples under 299 are really interrogative; but they consist practically of an exhortation followed by a prohibition (both being interrogative), and contain no construction with οὐ μή at all.
Macmillan. London, Melbourne, Toronto. 1889. reprint edition:. St. Martin's Press. New York. 1965.
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