Horace, Epistles, 2,2, lines 126 ff.

[hlawson38]

Context: In the previous lines Horace praises the spirit of play in poetry.

I can't state a grammatical rationale for the verb tenses in this sentence:

Praetulerim scriptor delirus inersque videri,
dum mea delectent mala me vel denique fallant,
quam sapere et ringi.

Translation:

I a writer would have preferred to look silly and worthless
If only my failings delight me or in the end don't bother me
Than to be wise and bad-tempered [snarling like a dog]

Why is Praetulerim put in the perfect subjunctive, rather than present subjunctive?

[Hylander]

Allen & Greenough (emphasis added):

446. The Potential Subjunctive is used to suggest an action as possible or conceivable. The negative is nōn.

In this use the Present and the Perfect refer without distinction to the immediate future; the Imperfect (occasionally the Perfect) to past time; the Pluperfect (which is rare) to what might have happened.

447. The Potential Subjunctive has the following uses:—

In cautious or modest assertions in the first person singular of expressions of saying, thinking, or wishing (present or perfect):—

“pāce tuā dīxerim” (Mil. 103) , I would say by your leave.
“haud sciam an ” (Lael. 51） , I should incline to think.
“tū velim sīc exīstimēs ” (Fam. 12.6) , I should like you to think so.
“certum affīmāre nōn ausim” (Liv. 3.23) , I should not dare to assert as sure.

. . .

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 99.04.0001

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ythp%3D447

[hlawson38]

Many thanks Hylander. I must review the potential subjunctive. And especially thanks for digging up that grammar reference and quotation. That is such a help!

[rothbard]

I have also sometimes found the perfect subjunctive used in this sense. E.g. "Ipsos Germanos indigenas crediderim minimeque aliarum gentium adventibus et hospitiis mixtos" (Tacitus, De Germania, ch. 2). I remember reading somewhere that this usage is more common in post-Augustan literature

[rothbard]

By the way, M. Weishaupt comments as follows about the "crediderim" in the above passage by Tacitus: "Eleganter dictum pro indigenas credam."

[mwh]

Yes the perfect is certainly more common in later Latin than in earlier, so there’s diachronic development. Cicero freely uses both if I'm not mistaken. I fancy—perhaps it is mere fancy—that present and perfect are never precisely equivalent. But I’d be hard pressed to define the difference. Does Weishaupt get close to it with his “eleganter dictum”? Maybe. Present seems more colloquial, perfect more refined. Or not?