Latin Indirect Commands: ut and ne with the Subjunctive

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.

iubeo and veto: the two that take an infinitive

Iubeo and veto behave like English order and forbid: the person told goes into the accusative and the command into the infinitive.

Same English, different Latin, and the case changes with the construction: milites with iubeo, militibus with impero. In the passive, iubeo keeps its infinitive and the person ordered becomes the subject:

• Milites manere iussi sunt. - The soldiers were ordered to stay.

Iubeo ut does turn up now and then, more in later Latin than in Cicero or Caesar. Recognise it; do not write it.

moneo and persuadeo have two meanings

With ut, these two give advice or persuade someone to act. With an accusative and infinitive they report a fact, as in indirect statement.

Persuadeo takes the dative in both meanings, so its passive is impersonal: regi persuasum est, literally it was persuaded to the king, so the king was persuaded.

Indirect command or purpose clause?

Both are ut or ne with the subjunctive, with the same two tenses. The main verb decides.

A purpose clause answers why?; an indirect command answers what was asked? After a verb of ordering, asking or advising, the clause is the content of the request, not its reason.

Translating it into English

The English infinitive is nearly always right: to stay, not to leave. Two cases need care.

Inside an indirect command, se can point back to the person giving the order, as here: follow him, the asker. Had he meant someone else, the Latin would say eum. Do not translate ne as lest in a modern version; it survives in the King James Bible and old textbooks.

Reading one: a worked example

Dux, cum hostes venire cognovisset, militibus praecepit ut portas servarent neve quis urbem relinqueret.

1. Main verb praecepit, a verb of instructing: the ut clause is an indirect command.
2. Cum ... cognovisset: cum with the pluperfect subjunctive, when he/she had found out; inside it, hostes venire is an indirect statement.
3. Ut portas servarent: past main verb, imperfect subjunctive, to guard the gates.
4. Neve quis urbem relinqueret: neve is and not, quis after it anyone, so and that nobody should leave the city.

When the leader had found out that the enemy were coming, he/she instructed the soldiers to guard the gates, and that nobody should leave the city.

Mistakes English speakers make

The first two are one mistake from opposite ends: giving each order verb the other one's construction. Learn iubet milites manere and imperat militibus ut maneant as a fixed pair.

What to do next

1. Learn the verbs table with the case of the person told.
2. Say iubeo and impero aloud with the same order until the two shapes feel different.
3. Then go on to indirect questions, which use the whole sequence table.