Quintilian: DECLAMATIONES MAIORES

[1] Sentio, iudices, hanc quoque calamitatibus meis accessisse novitatem, ut vobis nondum videar odisse, nec me praeterit plurimum perire de nocentissimae potionis invidia, dum me putatis adhuc inpatientia priore miserum. quaeso tamen vel hinc totam delati sceleris probationem gravitas vestra prospiciat, quod dolori meo querelaeque non creditur; nec amo, qui accusare possum, nec odi, qui amare mallem. quid est aliud quod bibi quam venenum?

[1] I feel, judges, that this novelty too has been added to my calamities, that I seem to you not yet to hate; nor does it escape me that a great deal perishes on account of the prejudice of the most noxious potion, while you suppose me still wretched from my former impatience. I beg, however, that at least from this your gravity may perceive the whole proof of the delated crime, namely, that credit is not given to my pain and complaint; I do not love, since I can accuse, nor do I hate, since I would prefer to love. What else is that which I drank than poison?

Licet igitur nocentissima feminarum rideat quod accuso, et in manifestissimi sceleris confessione per ludibrium malorum evadere temptet meorum, sed quod hodie me torquet ac lacerat, quod a taeterrimae mulieris caritate discessi, sed quod remedii mei patior dolorem, — fidem iustitiae, fidem severitatis humanae! — ne meretrici prosit, vel quod praevaricatione videor explicatus! pro me forsitan fuerit, ut amare desinerem; contra me inventum est, ut invitus odissem.

Let, then, the most culpable of women laugh at what I accuse, and, even in the confession of a most manifest crime, try to escape through a mockery of my misfortunes; but what today tortures and lacerates me is this, that I have withdrawn from the charity of a most foul woman, that I suffer the pain of my remedy, — good faith of justice, good faith of human severity! — let it not profit the prostitute, nor that I seem extricated by prevarication! In my favor perhaps it was, that I ceased to love; against me it has been contrived, that I should hate unwillingly.

[2] Hoc primum itaque, iudices, a clementia publica peto, ne, quod videtis tristem habitu dirumque conspectu, verbis asperum, contentione terribilem, mores putetis. haec est illa sanitas mea, hoc odium, in hanc corporis mentisque dierum noctiumque feritatem ille modo laetus, ille, si creditis, nimium remissus amator excandui. miseremini, iudices, ne vobis venefica sic imponat, tamquam hoc mei caritate commenta sit; suum animum, suum tantum secuta fastidium est.

[2] Therefore this first I ask, judges, from the public clemency: do not suppose that what you see—gloomy in bearing and dreadful to behold, harsh in words, terrible in contention—are my character. This is that “health” of mine, this hatred; into this ferocity of body and mind, by days and by nights, I have flared up—I who lately was cheerful, I who, if you believe it, was an overly remiss lover. Pity me, judges, lest the poisoner thus impose upon you, as though this had been contrived out of affection for me; she has followed her own spirit, her own disgust alone.

odii potionem contra se nemo dabit homini, nisi quem oderit.

No one will give to a man a potion of hatred against himself, except to one whom he has hated.

Quaeso itaque obtestorque vos, sanctissimi viri, ut calamitatis meae penitus velitis aestimare mensuram: perdidi infelix, quod quandoque potui amare desinere, patior necessitatem rei, quam ~breviter utique noluissem. excogitatur contra animum futuramque rationem, ne, quod relinqueretur, meus esset adfectus. iterum cum meretrice compositus sum, rursus in se cogitationes meas, rursus retorsit oculos, et hominem, quem ab incommoda caritate vel satietas vel aetas vel fortunae suae fuit dimissura condicio, ad perpetuam inpatientiam viribus nimiae diversitatis inplicuit.

Therefore I beseech and adjure you, most holy men, to be willing to estimate utterly the measure of my calamity: unlucky, I lost what at some point I could have ceased to love, I suffer the necessity of a matter which I certainly would not have wished even ~briefly. A plan is devised against my spirit and my future reason, lest, whatever would be left, my affect be my own. Again I was composed/reconciled with the meretrix, again she bent my thoughts to herself, again she twisted back my eyes, and the man whom from incommodious charity either satiety or age or the condition of his fortunes was about to dismiss, she entangled into perpetual impatience by the forces of excessive diversity.

hoc solum insanabile genus <a>moris est, ut odisse cogaris.

this alone is the incurable kind of <a>love, that you are compelled to hate.

Festina<s> ad complorationem praesentis doloris, anime, festinas, et te a prioribus malis recens abducit indignitas; altius gemitus, altius querela repetenda est: cum meretricis sit, quod amator odi, cuius putatis esse, quod pauper adamavi?

Hasten<s> to the lamentation of present pain, O soul, you hasten, and a recent indignity draws you away from prior evils; a deeper groan, a deeper complaint must be resumed: since that which, as a lover, I hate belongs to a prostitute, whose do you suppose is that which, being poor, I have loved?

Non quidem ego, iudices, ex illis umquam fui, quibus nobiles opes, adfluentes indulsit fortuna divitias, quorum felicitas capere possit in amore luxuriam. habui tamen, unde ad vitae necessitates concessa gaudia parca mediocritate sufficerent.

Not, indeed, was I ever, judges, among those to whom Fortune indulged noble resources, affluent, overflowing riches, whose felicity could take luxury in love. I had, however, enough, whence, for the necessities of life, the joys conceded might suffice with sparing mediocrity.

[3] ideoque meretrice tantum, et, quae certissima est in voluptate frugalitas, una fui semper eademque contentus. at ista seria, gravis, quae nunc amari recusat, o quam voluit amari! quibus artibus, qua calliditate miseram simplicitatem meam sollicitavit primum, deinde tenuit, donec quantulamcumque substantiam in huius sinus credulus iam iamque securus amator egererem!

[3] and so, with a courtesan only—and that, which is the most certain frugality in voluptuousness—I was always with one and content with the same. But that earnest, grave woman, who now refuses to be loved, oh how she wanted to be loved! By what arts, with what cunning did she first solicit my wretched simplicity, then hold it, until I, a credulous lover, now at last quite at ease, poured out whatever little substance I had into this one’s bosom!

iam frustra captavit videri miserari condicionem, in quam nos ipsa detraxit. breviter totum nocentissimae mulieris accipite facinus: pauperem me fecit, deinde ferre non potuit.

now in vain she strove to seem to pity the condition into which she herself dragged us. briefly, take in the whole crime of the most guilty woman: she made me poor, then she could not bear it.

Sive enim, iudices, ~pro communium~ quae ad corrumpendas expugnandasque mentes excogitant ingenia meretricum, placuit experimentum, et in me temptatum est, quantum quis amare, quantum quis posset odisse, seu mulier omnibus exposita mortalibus vanitatem fastidio mei despectuque captavit, et fama inde quaesita est, ut a solis videretur amari debere divitibus, non eram profecto, qui paulo ante; patiebar iam tunc haustus affectus. quod scortorum foribus haerebam, quod, si istis creditis, pallore deformis, macie <notabilis> paupertatem in lupanarium obsequia transtuleram, inde veniebant, unde nunc quod excandesco, quod fremo.

For whether, judges, ~on behalf of the common~ ingenious contrivances which meretrices devise for corrupting and storming minds, an experiment was approved, and it was tried upon me—how much one could love, how much one could hate—or the woman exposed to all mortals captured vainglory by weariness and disdain of me, and reputation was sought from that, namely that she might seem to have to be loved by the wealthy alone, I was assuredly not the man I had been a little before; I was already then suffering draughts of passion. That I was sticking to the doors of the harlots, that, if you believe those fellows, disfigured by pallor, for leanness, I had transferred my poverty into brothel services—thence were coming the things on account of which now I blaze up, which make me roar.

[4] numquam hoc tantum meretrix scit, quemadmodum non ametur.

[4] A courtesan never knows this so well—how not to be loved.

Quod negari igitur, iudices, non potest, virus homine firmius, mente constantius, quod inmodico ardoris aestu et exundante inpatientia possit etiam recusantis animi dolorem conpescere, diris utique carminibus et feralium precationum terrore permixtum, lenitate vultus et blanda porrigentis dissimulatione protectum iam perustis, iam laborantibus visceribus infudit et hominem solaciis potius ac mollium remediorum ratione tractandum exasperavit ira, dolore concussit, magnaque miserum commutatione renovavit. an fecerit, iudices, ut amare desinerem, vos aestimabitis; fecit, ut amare mallem. explicitum me putatis et ab incommodo hilariorem dimissum?

That, therefore, judges, which cannot be denied— a poison stronger than a man, more constant than a mind— which, by the immoderate heat of ardor and overflowing impatience, can even restrain the pain of a mind that refuses, mixed, to be sure, with dire incantations and the terror of funereal precations, shielded by the lenity of countenance and the coaxing dissimulation of one proffering— into my viscera already seared, already laboring, she poured; and a man who ought rather to be handled by solaces and by the method of soft remedies she exasperated with anger, shook with pain, and with a great commutation renewed the wretch. Whether she brought it about, judges, that I should cease to love, you will estimate; she brought it about that I would rather love. Do you suppose me extricated and dismissed the more cheerful from the incommodity?

nunc, nunc me fateor debere sanari. habet aliquod solacium, quisquis in amore miser est, levior calamitas, cui blanditur aliquid de voluptate laetitia. nunc infelix uror ac laceror, nunc retinere mentem, nunc regere non possum.

now, now I confess that I ought to be healed. whoever is wretched in love has some solace, a lighter calamity, for whom some joy of pleasure offers blandishment. now, unhappy, I burn and am lacerated, now I cannot hold my mind, now I cannot govern it.

crudelius est odisse meretricem.

It is more cruel to hate a prostitute.

[5] Veneficii ago. seposita paulisper, iudices, noxiae potionis invidia, nonne vobis videtur implere sceleris fidem, quod abstulit fidem condicio personae? veneficium, iudices, tota vita meretricis est.

[5] I prosecute for poisoning. with the ill-repute of the noxious potion set aside for a little while, judges, does it not seem to you to satisfy the proof of the crime, that the condition of the person has taken away credibility? poisoning, judges, is the whole life of a prostitute.

parum se lenociniis, parum putant agere mendaciis, et, cum omnis ad expugnandas mentes cura conlata sit, <non> sufficit tamen, ut de sui caritate corpori credant: in hoc noctium dierumque sollicitudo consumitur, quemadmodum de libidinibus fiat adfectus, qua ratione transcurrentia cotidie desideria teneantur, ne cui prosit offensa, ne quem explicet pudor, ne quem satietas aliquando dimittat. en quam putetis ignorare, quibus vinciantur oculi, quae per incommoda desideria flagrantes mentes corrumpa<n>t primum, deinde consuma<n>t, cum sciat, quibus oscula, quibus artissimi rumpantur amplexus, quae pro laetitia dolorem, pro blanditiis gaudiisque tristitiam praecipiti velocitate substituant. infinitum est, quantum ex hoc medicamento deprehendi possit notitia peiorum; . . . nemo scit tantum remedium.

they think they do too little with lenocinations, too little with mendacities, and, although all care has been brought together to storm minds, it nevertheless does not suffice that they trust in being loved on account of their body: on this the solicitude of nights and days is consumed—how an affect may be made out of lusts, by what method the desires that run past daily may be held fast, lest offense profit anyone, lest shame release anyone, lest satiety sometime dismiss anyone. look how far from ignorance you should think them to be, by what things eyes are bound, which incommodities of desire first corrupt, then consume, blazing minds, since she knows by what kisses, by what most tight embraces are burst, what things, in place of joy, substitute sorrow, in place of blandishments and joys, sadness, with headlong speed. it is infinite, how much knowledge of worse things can be detected from this medicament; . . . no one knows so great a remedy.

Temptat, iudices, mulier inpudentissima sceleris invidiam nomine potionis effugere, et venenum negat esse nisi tantum quod occidit. facinus est, iudices, evadere nocentes, quia iam facinus vita deplorat. quid refert, animo noceat aliquis an membris?

She attempts, judges, the most impudent woman, to escape the odium of the crime under the name of a potion, and she denies that anything is venom except only that which kills. It is a crime, judges, for the guilty to evade, since now life itself deplores the crime. What difference does it make whether someone harms the mind or the limbs?

eodem scelere porrigitur omne, quod non licet, unumquodque ex his, quoi datur, venenum est.

By the same crime everything that is not permitted is encompassed; each and every one of these, to whom it is given, is a poison.

[6] excusatius mehercule adhuc pro sexu tuo, pro condicione, mulier, esset, ut illa nosses gratia tui, desideriumque posses ingerere nolentibus; excogitasti, per quod maritos a coniugum caritate diducas, per quod iuvenum mentes abiungas ab aliis fortasse meretricibus. odii medicamentum numquam ideo tantum meretrix habuit, ut illo contra se uteretur.

[6] More excusably, by Hercules, still—considering your sex, considering your condition, woman—it would be, that you should have known those arts for the sake of yourself, and be able to inject desire into the unwilling; you have excogitated something by which you draw husbands away from the conjugal charity of their wives, by which you disjoin the minds of youths from other, perhaps, meretrices. Never for that reason did a meretrix have a medicament of hatred to such a degree that she would use it against herself.

Me quidem, iudices, si quis interroget, in comparatione veneficii, de quo queror, minus odisse debeas, quod occidit, et si qua ex ipsis quoque mortiferis mitiora sunt, quae statim tota velocitate grassantur, et dolorem inter exitum vitamque non detinent, ita crudelius quod sic ordinatur, ut corporis parcat invidiae et sit tantum animi venenum. quid ais? non est noxium virus, nisi quod occidit?

As for me, judges, if anyone should ask, I would say that, in comparison with the poisoning of which I complain, one ought to hate less that which kills; and if among the death‑dealing things themselves there are any gentler, those which at once with all speed make their assault and do not hold pain lingering between death and life—so much the more cruel is that which is contrived in such a way as to spare the body from odium and to be only a poison of the mind. What say you? Is there no noxious poison except that which kills?

quid ergo vocaremus illud, quo lumina sola raperentur, quo pars aliqua membrorum debilitate languesceret? tu te veneficam negas, quae potes potione facere, quantum offensae, quantum ira, quantum dolor? amabit, cui permiseris, execrabitur ille, quem iusseris; accipient a te desideria nostra ortum, finem, modum.

What, then, shall we call that by which the eyes alone are snatched away, by which some part of the limbs would languish with debility? You deny that you are a poisoner, you who can by a potion bring about as much as offense, as much as anger, as much as grief? He will love whom you allow; he will execrate him whom you command; our desires will receive from you their origin, end, and measure.

sane et amor et odium naturales videa<n>tur affectus; veneficium sunt, cum iubentur. quid, quod non potest non habere vim veneni, quod contra voluntatem homini datur? vide[o], cur sibi medicina permittat corporum vitia membrorumque morbos infusis medicaminibus expellere, et sine animae spiritusque contagione quaecumque extrinsecus accidunt, potione vincuntur.

indeed both love and hatred seem natural affections; they are venefice when they are commanded. What then of this—that whatever is given to a man against his will cannot fail to have the force of venom? I see why medicine permits itself to expel the vices of bodies and the diseases of the limbs by infused medicaments; and, without any contagion of soul and spirit, whatever things befall from without are conquered by a potion.

[7] non potest ullus adfectus sedibus suis per virus expelli nisi totorum concussione vitalium, et, cum anima constet ex sensibus, quaecumque auferre temptaveris, illa statim primo haustu ~parte prioribus retento~ confectoque quod petebatur, reliqua quoque viribus vicinae tabis expirant. quaedam fortassis. medicamina possunt aliud vocari quam venenum; dare quod non licet, non est aliud quam veneficium.

[7] no affect can be expelled from its own seats by a poison except by a concussion of all the vital parts; and, since the soul consists of senses, whatever you try to remove, those at once at the first draught—~with a part retained by the earlier ones~—and, once what was sought has been effected, the rest also expire by the forces of adjacent decay. perhaps certain medicaments can be called something other than venom; to give what is not permitted is nothing other than poisoning.

Quantum, nefanda, de poenis humanis excogitare potuisti! innocentius mehercules fuerat, ut amaret aliquis invitus. potionem excogitasti, qua bella committere, qua se totum humanum genus posset odisse.

How much, nefarious one, you were able to devise about human punishments! More innocent, by Hercules, it would have been that someone should love against his will. You devised a potion by which to commence wars, by which the whole human race could hate itself.

potes efficere, ut non ament liberos parentes, ut propinquitates, ut fraternitas, ut amicitia se collidat. odii potionem nemo accipit, nisi contra hominem, quem non debet odisse.

you can bring it about that parents do not love their children, that kinships, that brotherhood, that friendship collide. a potion of hatred no one takes, except against a human being whom he ought not to hate.

Temptat hoc loco nocentissima feminarum de scelere suo facere beneficium: 'meretricem,' inquit, '<ad>amaveras.' differo paulisper, iudices, affectus huius excusationem. dii deaeque, quantum in hoc contumeliae est, quod sibi <male> meretrix videtur adamata! tu tibi cuiusquam adfectus censoria gravitate pensitabis, tu tibi aestimare permittis, quam frequenter aliqui lupanar intret?

Here the most guilty among women attempts to make a benefit out of her crime: ‘a prostitute,’ she says, ‘you had <ad>fallen in love.’ I defer for a little, judges, the excuse of this passion. Gods and goddesses, how much contumely is in this, that to her a prostitute seems <male> to have been fallen-for! Will you, for yourself, weigh anyone’s affections with censorial gravity, will you permit yourself to assess how frequently someone enters a brothel?

tu, cui non licet excludere debilitates, fastidire sordes, exposita ebrietatibus, addicta petulantiae, [et] quaeque novissima vilitas est, noctibus populoque concessa, mores iuventutis emendas? aequiore animo feras, ut meretrix velit adamari.

you—who are not permitted to exclude the debilitated, to disdain sordidness, exposed to drunkennesses, addicted to petulance, [and] to whatever vileness is newest, conceded to the nights and to the populace—are you to amend the mores of youth? With a more even mind you should bear it, that a prostitute should wish to be loved.

[8] 'Eras,' inquit, 'et pauper.' volo, iudices, sic apud vos paulisper agere, tamquam in hoc me adfectu propinqui amicique castigent. non ego alicuius matrimonii corruptor invigilo, nec efferas cupiditates per inlicitos duco conplexus. inventas credo meretrices, ut esset aliquid, quod liceret amare pauperibus.

[8] 'You were,' he says, 'and poor.' I wish, judges, to plead thus for a little while before you, as though in this affect my kinsmen and friends were chastising me. I do not keep vigil as a corrupter of anyone’s matrimony, nor do I lead feral cupidities through illicit embraces. I believe prostitutes were invented, so that there might be something which it might be permitted for the poor to love.

nullam ego circa corpora ista consistere impotentiam puto; diliguntur inmodice sola, quae non licent. ut in furorem caritas aliqua convalescat, opus est difficultatibus. brevis de concessis et statim satietati vicinus adfectus est.

I, for my part, think that no loss of self-mastery resides about those bodies; the only things that are loved immoderately are those which are not permitted. For some love to grow strong into frenzy, there is need of difficulties. The passion that comes from permitted things is brief and straightway next-door to satiety.

non fovet, non nutrit ardorem concupiscendi, ubi frui licet, et quaecumque in mentibus circa permissa coalescunt, non sunt desiderii sed voluptatis. hoc ipsum tibi, mulier, obicio, quod nos in fabulas sermonesque misisti. solus debet amare meretricem, quem meretrix oderit.

it does not foster, it does not nourish the ardor of concupiscence, where it is permitted to enjoy, and whatever in minds coalesce around permitted things are not of desire but of voluptuousness. This very thing I bring as a charge against you, woman, that you have sent us into fables and conversations. The only man who ought to love a courtesan is the one whom the courtesan would hate.

pauperi dedit odii potionem; quid illam putatis dedisse divitibus? si mehercules repente nobis contingerent opes, iterum nos in sui caritatem alia potione revocaret, et ista nunc seria, gravis vellet inpatientia priore retinere. meretrix pauperem amatorem propter se tantum non potest pati.

she gave the poor man a potion of hatred; what do you think she gave to the rich? if, by Hercules, riches should suddenly befall us, she would call us back again into love for herself by another potion, and she would wish to retain this present seriousness with a graver impatience than before. a prostitute cannot endure a poor lover for her own sake alone.

'Amanti,' inquit, 'dedi.' hoc si remedium est, detur scienti; prima pars sanitatis est, ut libenter accipiat. quin immo cur non potius datur amaturo? quanto melius, quanto providentius!

'To the lover,' she says, 'I gave.' If this is a remedy, let it be given to one who knows; the first part of sanity is that he receive it gladly. Nay rather, why is it not given instead to one about to love? How much better, how much more provident!

et minore bibentis dolore constabit, ut adhuc labentem adgrediaris animum, ut coa[du]lescentis ardoris impetus in parvis extinguatur elementis: eo tempore das potionem, quo pariter duos patiar adfectus; aliam inpatientiam paras, et accipio odium, qui[a] iam amorem ferre non possum. non desino, sed esse aliud incipio, nec emendor in amore, sed transferor.

and it will cost the drinker less pain, so that you may approach the mind still slipping, so that the impetus of a coalescing ardor may be extinguished in small elements: you give the potion at that time at which I alike suffer two affects; you prepare another impatience, and I receive hatred, since now I cannot bear love. I do not cease, but I begin to be something else, nor am I amended in love, but I am transferred.

[9] illa vero sunt remedia, quae fugatis morbis causisque languoris postea non sentiuntur, et ea tantum innocenter dabuntur, quae potentiae suae qualitate consumpta desinunt, cum profuerunt. tu mihi dedisti quod semper exasperaret; perpetua res est odisse sine causa. ducam licet uxorem, te tamen odero; in peregrinas expeditiones patria dimittat, te tamen cogitationes sermonesque respicient.

[9] Those truly are remedies which, with the diseases and the causes of languor put to flight, are afterward not felt; and only those will be administered innocently which, their potency consumed by their very quality, cease when they have profited. You gave me something that would always exasperate; to hate without cause is a perpetual condition. Though I may take a wife, yet I shall hate you; let my country dispatch me on foreign expeditions, nevertheless my cogitations and conversations will look back to you.

quid interest, quemadmodum possederis animum meum, quemadmodum mihi a te non liceat abire, discedere? fecisti, ut te ubique persequar, ut meis fortassis manibus invadam, velim dare venenum. qui meretricem odisse non desinit, amator est.

What difference is there, how you have possessed my mind, how it is not permitted for me to go away, to depart from you? You have made it so that I pursue you everywhere, that perhaps I may attack with my own hands, I would wish to give poison. He who does not cease to hate a prostitute is a lover.

'Sed, infelix, misereris mei.' quid ergo sanitate tam rigida? paulatim potius ratione conpesce, misceantur consilia blanditiis, <se>veritas temperetur. alioquin non est, quod abigas, quod expellas; exasperant necessitates, et in amore contentio semper accendit.

'But, unhappy one, do you pity me.' What then, with a sanity so rigid? Rather restrain gradually by reason, let counsels be mingled with blandishments, let <se>verity be tempered. Otherwise there is nothing that you drive away, that you expel; necessities exasperate, and in love contention always kindles.

adiuvabit te interim libertas ipsa, qua fruar, tempus, satietas et fortassis amator alius. admoneas condicionis, sed inter oscula, inter amplexus; paupertatem non tamquam ~exploraris~, sed tamquam miserearis, adlega. quamquam quid opus, inde si non curer, ut desinam, si, quantum adfirmas, invitum miseraris ac diligis?

Meanwhile liberty itself, which I shall enjoy, will aid you—time, satiety, and perhaps another lover. Remind me of the condition, but amid kisses, amid embraces; allege poverty not as though you had ~explored~ it, but as though you pitied it. And yet what need is there of that, if thereby I do not care to cease, if, as much as you affirm, you pity and love one unwilling?

amatori summum remedium est amari. si tamen necessariam putas emendationem, quam multa sunt amantium remedia citra venenum! exclude, dimitte fastidio, posce quantum non possit praestare paupertas.

For a lover the supreme remedy is to be loved. If, however, you consider emendation necessary, how many remedies of lovers there are short of poison! Shut him out, dismiss him with disgust, demand as much as poverty cannot provide.

fac, ut me potius ipse castigem, ut erubescam, ut aliquando desperem. is tantum in amore sanatur, qui, quod desinit, sibi debet.

Bring it about that I rather chastise myself, that I blush, that I at length despair. Only he is cured in love who owes to himself the fact that he ceases.

[10] Homo igitur, qui merito indignarer, si hoc tantum fecisset aliquis, ut diligi desinerem, quanto iustius queror, factus cum iam sum alius infelix, alia patiens! decipiunt vos rerum falluntque nomina: et ille, qui odit, de amore miser est. non refert animi, quid nimium velis, et inter sanitatem languoremque nihil interest, si utrumque ferre non possis.

[10] Therefore I—a man who would deservedly be indignant, if someone had only done this, that I should cease to be loved—how much more justly do I complain, now that I have been made another kind of unhappy man, suffering another affliction! The names of things deceive you and delude you: and he who hates is wretched on account of love. It makes no difference to the mind what you wish excessively, and between sanity and languor there is no difference, if you cannot bear either.

frustra mihi quisquam blanditur remedio, cuius patior tormenta, cruciatus; aliud est, ut amare desinas, aliud, ut oderis. recessisse nunc me tantum putatis ab amore meretricis? ablatus est mihi ille hominis melior adfectus, perdidi miser quicquid est, unde gaudium, unde venit vitae tota laetitia.

In vain does anyone coax me with a remedy, whose torments, whose cruciations I suffer; it is one thing to cease to love, another to hate. Do you now think that I have only withdrawn from love of the courtesan? That better human affection has been taken from me; wretched, I have lost whatever there is whence joy comes, whence the whole felicity of life comes.

amor ille, per quem rerum naturae sacra primordia totiusque mundi elementa creverunt, qui tenet haec figitque rixantia et de contrariis repugnantibusque seminibus molem perpetuae societatis animavit, fugatus, eiectus[que]. non habeo infelix adfectum, quo quandoque possim ducere uxorem, amare liberos, appetere amicitias, sperare convictus. quisquis odii medicamentum biberit, unum fortassis oderit, sed amare neminem potest. dii immortales, quid ego hausi, quale visceribus virus ingestum est?

that Love, through whom the sacred primordia of the nature of things and the elements of the whole world grew, who holds these and fixes them when they are wrangling, and from contrary and repugnant seeds animated the mass of perpetual society, has been put to flight and cast out. Unhappy, I do not have the affection by which I might someday be able to take a wife, to love children, to aspire to friendships, to hope for fellowship. Whoever has drunk the medicament of hatred will perhaps hate one person, but he cannot love anyone. Immortal gods, what have I quaffed—what sort of virus has been introduced into my viscera?

non fuit illud unum venenum: bibi miser execrationis quicquid totius mortalitatis ira contulerat, quo[d] erat omnium ferarum, omnium serpentium congesta rabies. odii medicamentum quid aliud est quam assiduus animi labor, perpetua tristitia? en homo ab omnibus gaudiis in contubernium doloris adductus!

That was not one single venom: wretched, I drank whatever of execration the ire of all mortality had brought together, what was the heaped-up rabies of all wild beasts, of all serpents. What else is the medicament of hatred than assiduous labor of the mind, perpetual sadness? Lo, a man led away from all joys into the companionship of pain!

Fieri non potest, ut virus tam inpotens semel in viscera receptum stet in uno[m] tantummodo sensu[m] mandeturque potioni, quousque dominetur.

It cannot come to pass that a virus so unbridled, once received into the viscera, should stand in only one sense and be consigned to the potion, for as long as it dominates.

[11] ecce iam, mulier, odi; quid tamen adhuc facere illud in vitalibus putas? paulatim se necesse est per totum diffundat animum et, quamvis primo statim haustu illud expugnet, in quod datur, brevi tempore in nominis sui potentiam omnes reliquos stringit adfectus. medicamenti, cui tantum contra animum [primum] licet, prima fortassis vis erit odium, exitus iste, ut venenum sit.

[11] look now, woman, I hate; yet what do you suppose that thing is still doing in the vitals? little by little it must diffuse itself through the whole mind, and, although at the very first draught it overcomes that to which it is given, in a short time it constricts all the remaining affections under the potency of its own name. of a medicament to which so much is permitted against the mind [first], perhaps the first force will be hatred, such the outcome, that it be a poison.

Respondere, iudices, illis libet, qui me paulo ante dicunt in amore fuisse miserabilem. quanto crudeliora, quanto graviora patior, qui dicor explicitus! modestior, cum amarem, et quietior; fuerat sane pallor in facie, sed ipsa quoque comis, optanda tristitia.

Judges, it pleases me to respond to those who a little before say that I was miserable in love. How much more cruel, how much more grave things I suffer, I who am said to be disentangled! I was more modest, when I loved, and quieter; there had indeed been pallor in my face, but even the sadness itself was comely, a desirable sadness.

inveniebam conloquia merebarque sermones; nunc me omnes fugiunt, aversantur, oderunt. tum frequenter a lupanari deducebat pudor, abigebat occursus; nunc publice detinet quod queror, adsisto, convicior.

I was finding colloquies and was meriting conversations; now everyone flees me, turns away, hates me. Then frequently shame led me away from the brothel, drove off encounters; now, publicly, that which I complain of detains me; I take my stand, I am reviled.

[12] pro miseranda condicio! rideor ubique, narror, ostendor, ego sum tota civitate meretricis inimicus; si patior miser illas lupanarium insultationes, illa ~corporarium~ maledicta, convicia. non possum satis tormentorum exprimere mensuram: odi, nec umquam visus sum magis amasse.

[12] O pitiable condition! I am laughed at everywhere, I am talked about, I am pointed out, I am in the whole city the enemy of the prostitute; si I, wretched, suffer those brothel insultations, those ~corporarium~ maledictions, revilings. I cannot sufficiently express the measure of torments: I hate, nor have I ever seemed to have loved more.

Intellegitis, puto, iudices, hominem, qui tantum ad vos detulit animi mentisque cruciatus, et pro vita queri; sic patior infelix quicquid est, per quod paulatim proficitur ad mortem; assidue mecum rixatur adfectus, et brevi necesse est consumar, quo cotidie vincor. quae putatis esse tormenta, quem dolorem, cum mens vetatur oculos sequi, cum a luminibus suis animus abducitur? odio, quod non proficit, hoc superest, ut occidat.

You understand, I think, judges, the man who has brought before you such great torments of spirit and of mind, and who complains on behalf of his life; thus I, unfortunate, suffer whatever there is by which one advances little by little toward death; my affection quarrels constantly with me, and shortly it is necessary that I be consumed by that by which I am conquered every day. What torments, what pain do you suppose there are, when the mind is forbidden to follow the eyes, when the spirit is led away from its own lights? Hatred, since it does not avail, this remains: that it kill.

me infelicem, si venenum istud non habet mortem, si mihi inter hos dolores longior vita ducenda est! quas ego post hoc animi vices, quae tormenta prospicio? si meretricis impotentiae omnia licent, hoc erit remedium, ut amare rursus incipiam.

Wretched me, if that poison does not bring death, if a longer life must be drawn out for me amid these pains! What vicissitudes of mind, what torments do I foresee after this? If everything is permitted to the prostitute’s impotence, this will be the remedy: that I begin to love again.