The Optative mood is mainly used as a way of expressing wishes, to express potentiality and to replace moods in dependent clauses which are governed by past-tense main verbs. Translations of the volative optative (optative of wish) include "If only.." or "Would that..". The potential optative expresses a future possiblity, and includes the translation of 'would', for example, "I would be delighted to accept yor gift."