early medieval poem

Latin Learning Latin
1

i am not sure if this is the right board for this, but i am translating an early medieval poem. two stanzas start out in the following way:

opto meus veniat cuculus, carissimus ales.

if it wasn’t for that “opto” on the beginning i would translate it as “let my cuckoo come, most precious bird.”

my first reaction to the “opto” is to think indirect speech, but it has been a while since first year latin and i am not sure why “venio” wouldn’t be imperfect. is there some construction of indirect speech that calls for “venio” to be in the present active subjunctive?

thanks for the help!

2

yes, i know how to spell medieval, brain fart.

3

I desire that the cuckoo come, dearest bird.

The L&S dictionary has an example of use of opto with the subjunctive without ut in Ovid.

4

And about the present subjunctive, it’s just a matter of the sequence of tenses. Opto is present so it’ll be followed (normally) by either the present or perfect subjunctive.