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[2] ni sintvelles: granted that [your love] is not … you would surely be willing, etc. The imperfect tense in both clauses would express at once a conclusion definitively arrived at after past deliberation; the tenses as they here stand convey the idea of a pause for deliberation after laying down the chosen proposition (ni sint, etc.), and then a triumphant pounce upon the inevitable conclusion (velles dicere, etc.). For other instances of this construction cf. Catul. 58b.1 and Draeger, Hist. Synt. 2. p. 721.


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