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Past general conditions have, in the protasis, εἰ with the optative; in the apodosis, the imperfect indicative or an equivalent. εἰ ταῦτα ποιοίης (ποιήσειας), σὲ ἐπῄνουν
εἴ πού τι ὁρῴη βρωτόν, διεδίδου εἰ δέ τις καὶ ἀντείποι, εὐθὺς . . . ἐτεθνήκει
they performed some noble action, and stood by them in times of misfortune (lit.
a. The optative is here sometimes called the iterative optative. This mood has however no iterative force in itself, the idea of repetition being derived solely from the context. In Homer the iterative optative after εἰ (found only Ω 768) is an extension of the iterative optative in temporal clauses where this use originated.
2341The iterative imperfect or aorist with ἄν ( cross1894, cross1933): εἰ δέ τις αὐτῷ περί του ἀντιλέγοι . . ., ἐπὶ τὴν ὑπόθεσιν ἐπανῆγεν ἂν πάντα τὸν λόγον
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Herbert Weir Smyth [n.d.], A Greek Grammar for Colleges; Machine readable text [info] [word count] [Smyth].
