Yes, Pacifica, you have, indeed;
@EstQuodFulmineIungo was correct in his initial assessment of this passage.
After looking up
lest in the dictionary, I think that I know why this is...I think that I understand the problem that many people have with both English
lest and Latin
ne in cases where
ne is a conjunction.
Lest only has one meaning in English in introducing the complementary clause of a verbal phrase, and that meaning is "for fear that". I must say that I do not like the other common statement of the meaning of
lest, "that not", as it seems to give all kinds of misunderstandings, especially for those learning Latin. When
lest introduces a complementary clause in a situation in which the main clause of the sentence introduces the speaker's apprehension, either by using the verbs "fear", "worry", etc, or in some other way, that sense of the speaker's apprehension presumes the "fear" in the meaning of
lest, and in that case
lest simply takes on the meaning "that" (<"
for fear that"), and naturally the conjunction
that takes the place of
lest in introducing the complementary clause in such cases. Since
lest always means "for fear that", using
lest to introduce a phrase rationalizing an apprehension when the apprehension has already been stated can, given current usage, only lead to a confusing redundancy in the statement of fear, which is why the conjunction
that is always used instead.
Today,
lest is never actually used to introduce a complementary clause in a situation in which the main clause of the sentence introduces the speaker's apprehension. Such a usage, which was apparently once common (maybe in Middle English???), has now become so obsolete as to be virtually proscribed. The conjunction "that" is always used in these cases. Though the construction is not grammatically incorrect, a modern English speaker would never say:
I am worried, lest my responses did not impress the interviewer favorably; rather, the conjunction
that would be used instead:
I am worried that my responses did not impress the interviewer favorably (unless of course the speaker wanted to use some type of affected speech)
. In modern English,
lest is only ever used to introduce a complementary clause in cases for which the full meaning "for fear that" is appropriate, which cases do not include those in which the apprehension of the speaker has been introduced in the main clause of the sentence:
Paul doesn't want to go to the park, lest (for fear that)
it begin to rain as expected.
I think that the problem for English speaking Latin learners, at least those in the U.S., derives from the fact that as a conjunction, Latin
ne simply means
lest, or of course "for fear that". When the main clause of a Latin sentence contains a
verbum timendum or
verba timenda (why they are referred to as
verba timendi I cannot understand in the first place, as
timendi does not agree in gender with
verba), then the thusly expressed apprehension of the speaker displaces the sense of "fear" in the meaning of
ne, and the meaning of
ne becomes simply "that" ("
for fear that"); this is much the same as what happens with English
lest in such cases. My basic thought on this is that
ne never means "that" (and in fact,
ut never really means "that" either...it always means "as" but is sometimes translates as "that" when the English meaning "that" is necessary...I read on one webpage, that Latin has no equivalent for English "that", so
ut and
ne are translated as "that" in cases where English syntax demands the meaning). Rather, the conjunction
ne always means "for fear that", and this meaning is simply reduced (or perhaps "contracted"?, or "syncopated"?) to "that", as it is with English
lest, where the sense of the speaker's apprehension has already been expressed. Since as a conjunction,
ne is taken to mean
lest ("for fear that"), it is difficult for the English speaker to want to use it in Latin sentences in which the apprehension of the speaker is introduced in the main clause of the sentence through the introduction of
verba timenda, and acceptance of that has to be trained in.
I assume that the adverbial
ne ("no", "not") was the semantic original. Why a Latin negating particle "ne" (="not") came to fulfill the same semantic role as English
lest (= "less that") is another question, and is more obscure.