This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[*] 269. The present or past tenses of the indicative with μή or μὴ οὐ may express a similar cautious assertion or suspicion about a present or past act. As φοβοῦμαι μὴ πάσχει (or ἔπαθεν) means I fear that he is suffering (or suffered), so μὴ πάσχει or μὴ ἔπαθεν may mean I suspect he is suffering or I suspect he suffered, and μὴ οὐ πάσχει or μὴ οὐκ ἔπαθεν may mean I suspect he does not (or did not) suffer. (Cf. 265.) E.g. Μὴ γὰρ τοῦτο μὲν, τὸ ζῆν ὁποσονδὴ χρόνον, τόν γε ὡς ἀληθῶς ἄνδρα ἐατέον ἐστὶ καὶ οὐ φιλοψυχητέον (i.e. καὶ μὴ οὐ φιλ.), for I am of the opinion that this, merely living for a certain time, is what one who is truly a man should disregard, and that he should not be fond of life. PLAT. Gorg. 512D. (This passage is often strangely emended and explained.) Ἀλλ᾽ ἄρα μὴ οὐ τοιαύτην ὑπολαμβάνεις σου τὴν μάθησιν ἔσεσθαι, “I suspect that you do not think your learning will be like this.” Prot. 312A. Ἀλλὰ μὴ τοῦτο οὐ καλῶς ὡμολογήσαμεν, “but perhaps we did not do well in assenting to this.” Men. 89C. (This may be interrogative (268): can it be that we did not do well, etc.?) So Aristotle, Eth. x. 1, Eth. 3, μή ποτε δὲ οὐ καλῶς λέγεται, but it may be that this is not well said: compare x. 2, Eth. 4, quoted in 265.
Macmillan. London, Melbourne, Toronto. 1889. reprint edition:. St. Martin's Press. New York. 1965.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.