The Hypothetical in English

When learning the optative, it is helpful to consider how English expresses hypotheses and potentialities. Consider these sentences in English. In each, the words in bold indicate that an action or state of being is hypothetical.

Once I get to Bimbombey I’ll settle down.

Send me a letter if you go at all.

The dance delights, be it sacrifice or romance.

Come away where they can’t tempt us.

I wanna go to a place I can hide.

Once, if, be, and can help situate the events as possibly taking place in a hypothetical future space-time.

The Hypothetical in Greek

1. Ὀδυσσεύς
   αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα
   ἂψ ἐπέθηκε, ὡς εἴ τε φαρέτρῃ πῶμα ἐπιθείη.

Then he put it back as if he were placing a cap on a quiver.

2. Ὀδυσσεύς
   αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ λιπόμην κακὰ βυσσοδομεύων,
   εἴ πως τισαίμην, δοίη δέ μοι εὖχος Ἀθήνη.

And I was left devising evil,
if I might somehow get revenge and Athene grant my prayer.

3. Ὀδυσσεύς
   δίνεον μοχλόν, ὡς ὅτε τις τρυπάοι δόρυ νήιον ἀνὴρ
   τρυπάνῳ.

I twisted the wood, just like one who bores through a ship’s timber
With a drill.

Note how the optative indicates an event that takes place as a hypothetical or potentiality that may or may not come true.