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2409. If the leading verb denotes a repeated or customary action or a general truth, a temporal clause takes the subjunctive with ἄν after primary tenses, the optative after secondary tenses. The negative is μή. Cp. 2336.

a. A present tense denotes action continuing (not completed) and is of the same time as that of the leading verb; an aorist tense denotes action simply occurring (completed) and time usually antecedent to that of the leading verb when the action of the dependent clause takes place before the action of the main clause. In clauses of contemporaneous action the aorist denotes the same time as that of the main verb; in clauses of subsequent action, time later than that of the main verb.

b. ὡς is rare in these temporal clauses (Hdt. 1.17, 4. 172; ὅκως with the optative occurs in 1. 17, 1. 68).

c. On Homeric similes with ὡς ὅτε, ὡς ὁπότε, see 2486.

American Book Company, 1920.

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