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[*] 694. 1. The principles which govern dependent clauses of indirect discourse (689) apply also to all dependent clauses in sentences of every kind (even when what precedes is not in indirect discourse), if such clauses express indirectly the past thought of any person, even that of the speaker himself. This affects the construction only when the leading verb is past; then the dependent clause may either take the optative, in the tense in which the thought was originally conceived, or retain both the mood and the tense of the direct discourse. When a subjunctive is changed to an optative, ἄν is dropped. 2. Secondary tenses of the indicative here (as in 689, 3) regularly remain unchanged. But an aorist indicative sometimes becomes optative when no ambiguity can result from the change (see 693): this may occur in causal sentences (699 and 714) and in the relative sentences of 700. The principle of 694 applies to the following constructions:—
Macmillan. London, Melbourne, Toronto. 1889. reprint edition:. St. Martin's Press. New York. 1965.
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