Identify the construction and parse all the verbs used in this sentence .

Example sentence: quod si id ante facere conatus essem, nunc facere non possem (Cicero, Philippic IV)This passage taken from a speech by Cicero is an example of a counterfactual conditional statement, which is signified by the word 'si' followed by verbs in the pluperfect and imperfect subjunctive. It is maybe a little tricky to identify this because we are used to seeing the same tense of the subjunctive in both parts of the sentence, known as the protasis and the apodosis. In the first part of the sentence (the protasis), we see the verb form 'conatus essem', which is a pluperfect, active, subjunctive in the first person singular. Although it looks like a passive form, it is in fact active because the verb 'conor' is deponent, ie. it shows passive forms for active meaning. Also note the formation of the pluperfect subjunctive here, which combines the past participle 'conatus' with the imperfect subjunctive of the verb to be 'esse'. Since the verb of the protasis is in the pluperfect, this part of the conditional must be referring to past time. Remember that in counterfactual conditionals, the tense of the subjunctive in Latin goes on step back from how we imagine it in English ie. the imperfect refers to the present and the pluperfect refers to the past. We can therefore translate the protasis of this conditional as 'If I had tried to do this before...'.The verb in the second part of the sentence (the apodosis) is 'possem': this is an imperfect, active, subjunctive in the first person singular. This means that the apodosis refers to present time, as opposed to the protasis, which referred to past time. We can therefore translate this part of the sentence as '...I would not be able to do it now.'. If we put the two halves of the conditional together, we get the sentence 'If I had tried to do this before, I would not be able to do it now'. This sentence appears difficult at first because it involves different tenses of the subjunctive and also uses the deponent verb 'conor' which looks passive even when it is active.