Future conditional
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Future conditional
I came across this elegiac today by Ovid: "sanguine letifero totus miscebitur orbis / ni teneant rigidae condita bella serae". What I am confused about is the apodosis, in this case the first part of the sentence - is the reason it's future indicative rather than present subjunctive like the protasis, as you would expect, to simply make it more vivid, and, if so, then why didn't he just use future indicative all the way through? Thanks so much for anyone's help.
hic Graeca doctrina ore tenus exercitus animum bonis artibus non induerat.
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Re: Future conditional
I don't see anything unusual here. The normal construction for nisi is future in the first clause and subjunctive in the second: "Nemo mihi persuadebit eos tanta esse conatos... nisi animo cernerent." (Cic.)
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Re: Future conditional
Thanks Nesrad for your reply. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's normal for "nisi" to simply follow the "si" constructions, which by and large means indicative in both protasis and apodosis or subjunctive in both. So as far as I'm aware these two examples are exceptions rather than the norm - my guess is that they are somewhere in between real and unreal conditions.
hic Graeca doctrina ore tenus exercitus animum bonis artibus non induerat.
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Re: Future conditional
Yes, I think you're right.