Traditional (Archaic) Forms of the Subjunctive Mood

Traditional (Archaic) Forms of the Subjunctive Mood

a) The Subjunctive Mood serves to express wish in the following kinds of sentences.

e.g. Long live the Queen!

Success attend you!

Be ours a happy meeting!

God bless you.

Heaven forbid.

Note. We also find may + infinitive in sentences of this kind.

e.g.. May success attend you!

b) The Subjunctive Mood serves to express concession in the following sentences which can be treated as set phrases in modern English.

e.g. So be it. (Да будет так.)

Come what will. (Будь, что будет.)

Note. Concession may also be expressed by parenthetic phrases with may and let.

e.g. Happen what may... (Что случится, то случится..., что будет, то будет...)

Be this (that) as it may... (Как бы то ни было...)

Let it be so. (Пусть будет так.)

c) The Subjunctive Mood is found in the expressions:

Suffice it to say that... (Достаточно сказать, что...)

Far be it from me... (Я далек от того, чтобы...).

e.g. Far be it from me to contradict you.

d) The Subjunctive Mood is also used in certain imprecations,

e.g. Manners be hanged. (К черту хорошие манеры.)

e) The form were is found in the set phrase as it were (так сказать, как бы) which is used parenthetically.

e.g. Her portrait had been, as it were, stamped on his heart.

They were silent and, as it were, oppressed.

f) Would + infinitive is found in:

luck would have it (пo счастливому стечению обстоятельств)

as ill luck would have it (на беду, как на зло).

e.g. As luck would have it, Iwas invited for that night.

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