488 Mή with the Indicative is used
- a. Often in questions, intimating a hope of a negative answer; so also ἆρα μή and μῶν (for μὴ οὗν).
Μή τι νεώτερον ἀγγέλλεις; no serious news, I hope? PR. 310 b. μὴ αὐτὸν οἴει φροντίσαι θανάτου; you dont suppose he was anxious about death, do yοu? AP. 28 d. μῶν τί σε ἀδικεῖ; he hasn't injured yοu, has he? PR. 310 d.
- b. Sometimes in cautious statement of a present or past fact (cp.
[474](file:///x:/Departments/Classics_Texts/schoolgrammarofa00goodrich_porson/HTML%20Files/Chapter-474.html) and [a](file:///x:/Departments/Classics_Texts/schoolgrammarofa00goodrich_porson/HTML%20Files/Chapter-488.html)), intimating a hope (perhaps ironical) that it is not true:
Ἀλλʼ ἄρα μὴ οὐ τοιαύτην ὑπολαμβάνεις σου τὴν μάθησιν ἔσεσθαι but perhps you mean that your learning will be not like that. PR. 312 a.
- c. In both these uses μή has essentially the same force as with finite modes in other simple sentences (
[486 a](file:///x:/Departments/Classics_Texts/schoolgrammarofa00goodrich_porson/HTML%20Files/Chapter-486.html)). This is plainest in the former, but still traceable in the latter; a deprecatory statement is made, most often in the interrogative tone ([a](file:///x:/Departments/Classics_Texts/schoolgrammarofa00goodrich_porson/HTML%20Files/Chapter-488.html)), but sometimes without it ([b](file:///x:/Departments/Classics_Texts/schoolgrammarofa00goodrich_porson/HTML%20Files/Chapter-488.html)). The μή is an expression of desire on the part of the speaker to negative the statement; but this desire may be merely assumed, or may be nothing more than surprise that the statement should be true.