optatio

1. Expressing a wish, often ardently. (Silva Rhetoricae)

2. Optatio is a forme of speech, by which the speaker expresseth his desire by wishing to God or Men. (Peacham)

3. Optation, or Wish, is very natural in an aroused state of mind. Chatham, in the dose of his speech against the quartering of soldiers on the people of Boston, carries optation up into the sacredness of prayer. It was on May 27,1774:
"I will venture to declare that the period is not far distant when my country will want the assistance of her most distant friends. Length of days be in her right hand, and in her left riches and honor; may her ways be ways of pleasantness, and all her paths be peace!" (Macbeth)

4. An Expression of Feeling by way of wishing or hoping for a thing. (Bullinger, 899)

1. O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.
—Isaiah 48:18 (Silva Rhetoricae)

1. Shylock: Why, look you how you storm! / I would be friends with you, and have your love.
—Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice 1.3.137-138 (Silva Rhetoricae)

2. I would the immortall Gods had granted that wee might rather have given thankes to Servius Sulpitius being alive, than now to examine his honours being dead. (Cicero in Peacham)

2. I would to God, that my Lord were with the Prophet that is in Sameria. (2.Reg.2. qtd in Peacham)

2. I would to God they were separated from you. (Gal.5. qtd. in Peacham)

4. Isa. 48:18. -"O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea." (Bullinger, 900)