Deliberative Subjunctive
The deliberative subjunctive is the Latin sound of someone asking the air — quid faciam? — "what am I to do?" Not a request for information, not a prediction. A question of doubt, perplexity, or indignation, addressed to the speaker's own conscience or to the situation itself.
The form is just a subjunctive verb wrapped in a question. Present subjunctive for present deliberation: quid agam? "what AM I to do?" Imperfect subjunctive for past deliberation: quid agerem? "what WAS I to do?" Often introduced by quid, quō, cūr, an, or no question word at all.
The negative is nōn — a clean tell that separates it from the wish/command subjunctives that take nē.
The trap: quid agam? and quid agēs? look superficially close but mean very different things. One is anguish; the other is a forecast. Read the register, not just the ending.
"what am I to do? what was I to do?" — a question of doubt, perplexity, indignation, or impossibility, addressed to the speaker's own conscience.
Negative is nōn (not nē). The deliberative is a self-question, not a request for information — and not a prediction (that would be future indicative).
See It In Action
— Cic. Verr. v. 2
Two textbook deliberatives in one breath. Agam and vertam are present subjunctive — Cicero is asking himself, not predicting. The vocative iūdicēs keeps the courtroom register but the question is rhetorical anguish, not real consultation.
— Cic. Att. vi. 3. 9
Pure imperfect-tense deliberative. Dīcerem tells you the deliberation happened then, not now. English "was I to say" preserves the back-shift; "should I say" loses the past-time anchor.
— Cic. Phil. ii. 3
Indignation, not real doubt. Cicero is rejecting the suggestion that he should have stayed away — the question form does the rhetorical work. Nōn (not nē) confirms this is deliberative, not optative.
— Ov. Her. xv. 7
Sappho speaks in Ovid's Heroides. The question implies impossibility — "who could possibly hide it?" — and the deliberative bleeds into the potential subjunctive (§ 445). A&G flags this overlap as native, not a parsing failure on your part.
First-conjugation 1st-singular agam is BOTH present subjunctive AND future indicative. Same letters; opposite meanings.
self-question of doubt or indignation
quid agam?
what am I to do? (anguish)
real prediction or promise
quid agam crās?
what shall I do tomorrow? (asking)
Tip: Read the register: rhetorical / no real listener / no future time-marker → deliberative. Real interlocutor or future adverb (crās, mox, postrīdiē) → indicative. A&G admits the indicative is sometimes used deliberatively too (§ 444. a, Note) — context wins over form.
Cicero says quid agerem, iūdicēs? in mid-defense. What is agerem doing here?
Study Tips
- •Translate with "am I to / are we to / was I to" — these English auxiliaries capture the deliberation. "Should" works too, but "would" drifts into potential subjunctive territory.
- •Tense maps to time of deliberation, not time of the action: present subjunctive = deliberating now (quid faciam?); imperfect subjunctive = deliberating then (quid facerem?). Cicero uses both within the same speech.
- •When you see quid, quō, cūr, an + a 1st-person verb in a Cicero speech, suspect deliberative before you suspect future indicative. The rhetorical anguish register is the giveaway.
- •Negative is nōn, not nē. If you see nē in front of an independent subjunctive question, you're looking at something else (usually optative or hortatory).