Was wondering how one would say "Please let me do X thing" e.g. "Please let me love/win/see"
Would you use some sort of impersonal construction, or would one use "permitto"?
Thanks so much!
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1Do you mean like a general wish ("Please let me do well on that test tomorrow!"), or actually asking someone for permission to do something?– CairnarvonDec 6, 2020 at 14:51
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1the latter, I think, although now I'm curious as to what the first would be as well!– DrwhopsDec 6, 2020 at 15:24
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2 Answers
There would of course be many possibilities, but I believe the verb sinere comes closest to “let.” It can be used in various ways – with an AcI, with ut – but the most compact form would be a bare subjunctive.
“Let me love” then would be: Sine amem – and while I did not find that specific expression in the literature, I did find in Plautus' Casina (2,2; English here):
Sine amet, sine quod lubet id faciat
Let him love, let him do what he wants
answered Dec 7, 2020 at 2:09
As Sebastian points out, there are many ways to say this. His example of sine with the subjunctive is probably one of the more natural ways to do it, Sine, quaeso, ut X faciam.
You can, however, use permitte: Permitte, quaeso, me X facere. Permittere is a rather more concrete verb than sinere, it seems to me. It means to let someone pass (a gate, a wall, a line of armed guards) to do something. Of course, this concrete meaning can be used metaphorically to mean basically the same thing as sinere.
If you have your heart set on an impersonal construction, you could say, Mihi liceat, quaeso, X facere. "Let it be allowed to me to do X."
