Indirect commands: impero ut, rogo ne

An indirect command reports an order, a request or a piece of advice. English uses an infinitive: he ordered them to stay. Latin uses ut plus the subjunctive, and ne for not to. The exception is iubeo, which takes an infinitive just like English.

The verbs on one screen

Every verb of ordering, asking, begging, advising, persuading and urging works this way. What changes from verb to verb is the case of the person told.

Hortor is deponent, so its forms look passive: hortatur milites ut pugnent, he/she urges the soldiers to fight. Two more verbs, iubeo and veto, take an infinitive instead; they have their own section below.

Indirect command is on the OCR GCSE Latin prescribed syntax list, with ut and ne.

ut means to, ne means not to

The negative is ne, not ut non. A command is about what somebody wants, and Latin negates wanting with ne, as in purpose clauses and in ne veniat, let him/her not come.

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1. 1Imperat ut sedeamus.
2. 2Monet ut librum aperiamus.
3. 3Imperat ne curramus.
4. 4Rogat ut taceamus.

Four classroom instructions, reported. 1 Imperat ut sedeamus: he orders us to sit down. 2 Monet ut librum aperiamus: he/she tells us to open the book. 3 Imperat ne curramus: he/she orders us not to run. 4 Rogat ut taceamus: she asks us to be quiet.

Two extensions of ne:

• Imperavit ne quis exiret. - He/she ordered that nobody should go out (ne quis, that nobody).
• Monuit eos ut manerent neve fugerent. - He/she advised them to stay and not to flee (neve, or neu, and not).

Present or imperfect: the sequence of tenses

Whatever is ordered has not happened yet, so an indirect command only uses the present subjunctive (after a present or future main verb) and the imperfect (after a past one).

-a- marks the present subjunctive of venio, and -re-, the infinitive venire, marks the imperfect. A perfect or pluperfect subjunctive would mean ordering somebody to have already done something, which nobody can obey; see the sequence of tenses.