I’m having trouble understanding the following sentence (Cic. Lael. 3, 10)
Ego si Scipionis desiderio me moveri negem, quam id recte faciam, viderint sapientes…
Which is translated as
If I were to assert that I am unmoved by grief at Scipio’s death, it would be for “wise” men to judge how far I am right…
Why is “viderint” in the perfect subjunctive and not the present? In other words, how does a completed action “viderint” come after/occur simultaneously with an incomplete action “faciam”?
I found two sentences by Cicero in Lewis and Short with similar constructions.
quae (ars) quam sit facilis, illi viderint…
viderint ista officia viri boni
I’m thinking potential subjunctive, but according to Gildersleeve
The Pf. Subjv. as a potential seems to have been very rare in early Latin. Cicero extended the usage slightly and employed more persons; thus the first person plural and second singular occur first in Cicero.
Am I right in saying that “viderint sapientes (quam id recte faciam) acts as the apodosis in the conditional? I’ve seen several examples in A&G of the protasis being in a perfect tense and the apodosis being in the present tense, but not the reverse as here, and that’s what doesn’t make sense to me. It’s confusing from a timing standpoint.
I could see how “viderint” is actually the future perfect as in some situations:
According to Allen and Greenough 516. c. n.1,
The future perfect is often used in the apodosis of a future condition.
But in this sentence the protasis is in the perfect subjunctive, not the present subjunctive as in the sentence in question.
I don’t understand why Cicero chose to use the perfect (whatever the mood) as the apodosis to a protasis with the present subjunctive, and I can’t find a reference to a present subjunctive protasis and a perfect apodosis. I can find references (in A&G) that are similar but there are none for this particular situation as far as I can tell.
I don’t think there’s any real difficulty. It’s true the protasis is formally Ego si Scipionis desiderio me moveri negem, not negabo, but that doesn’t prevent the use of future perfect viderint in this follow-up, especially since the indirect question quam id recte faciam intervenes (cf. Catullus’ quare id faciam), and he is not denying the fact. It’s certainly not perfect subjunctive. I would hope the OLD entry that I referred to may satisfy you on the conventional use of viderint (OLD a much better dictionary than L&S, btw), along with the context here. He acknowledges the proper Stoic position but finds himself incapable of adopting it.
Looking at the OLD entry and your explanation, this is completely clear to me now. (And you’re right, OLD is way better than L&S.) Apparently I was fixated on the wrong thing. Thank you again, mwh.