Quintilian: DECLAMATIONES MAIORES

Filium ter abdicare voluit pater, victus. invenit quodam tempore in secreta domus parte medicamentum terentem. interrogavit, quid esset, cui parasset.

The father, overcome, wished to disown his son three times. found him at a certain time in a secret part of the house grinding a medicament. asked what it was, for whom he had prepared it.

ille dixit venenum et se mori <velle>. iussit pater bibere. ille effudit medicamentum. accusatur a patre parricidii.

He said it was poison and that he wished to die. The father ordered him to drink. He poured out the medicament. He is accused by his father of parricide.

[1] . . . lassatusque per diversos miserae mentis aestus et eundem dolorem, dum me ab utroque animi genere semper quod inpulerit, abducat, et in pertinaciam desperationemque neutram mihi liceat perferre patientia, hoc primum a notissima clementia vestra peto, ne miremini, quod inter tam varia tristissimaque fata consilio diductus sum; nec pro malis meis quicquam melius invenire potui, quam ut morerer, nec pro innocentia, quam ut viverem. novo igitur, iudices, inauditoque genere discriminis utriusque animi reus qua satis calamitates meas comploratione, quo deflebo gemitu? filium mori volentem paene occidit, quod intervenerat pater.

[1] . . . and wearied through the diverse surges of a wretched mind and the same pain, while from each kind of spirit whatever has impelled me is always drawing me away, and between pertinacity and desperation patience allows me to carry through neither, this first I beg from your most well-known clemency: do not marvel that among such various and most mournful fates I have been divided by counsel; nor, in proportion to my evils, could I find anything better than that I should die, nor, in proportion to my innocence, than that I should live. Therefore, judges, a defendant in a new and unheard-of kind of crisis of both dispositions of mind, with what lamentation shall I sufficiently bewail my calamities, with what groan shall I weep them? he almost killed a son willing to die, because the father had intervened.

vidistis adhuc illa secreti nostri contentione rixantem: quidquid citra suprema, citra exitum est, contumaciam vocat, tamquam absolutionem aspicit vitam. quis post hoc quaerat ac dubitet, quo me affectu iusserit virus haurire? qui parricidium vocat, quod non biberim, permissurus fuit, si bibere voluissem.

You have seen up to now that woman wrangling in contention about our secret: whatever falls short of the ultimate, short of an exit, she calls contumacy, and she regards life as an absolution. Who after this would ask and doubt with what affect she ordered me to draught the poison? She who calls it parricide that I did not drink would have been going to permit it, if I had wished to drink.

Quaeso itaque, iudices, delationis hodiernae penitus velitis perspicere causas. obicere putatis parricidium patrem? pro se negat.

Therefore I beg, judges, that you be willing to perceive thoroughly the causes of today’s delation. do you think the father is alleging parricide? on his own behalf he denies it.

uritur sine dubio, torquetur; vitam ex hoc tamen non potest ferre, quod mori filium iussit nec coegit, et scit facinus fuisse in inperio, si innocentia est, quod recusavi. suae quod crudelitatis est, vel ab invidia se criminibus meis defendit, excusat, et, ne vocem illam tamquam peractum facinus oderitis, substituit pro malo patre miserum.

He burns, without doubt, he is tormented; yet he cannot bear life on account of this, that he ordered his son to die and did not compel, and he knows the crime was in the command, if innocence lies in what I refused. What belongs to his own cruelty he excuses, or he shields himself from envy by charges against me; and, lest you hate that utterance as though the crime were accomplished, he substitutes a wretch in place of the bad father.

[2] hic est, iudices, deprehensae impietatis aestus: nemo umquam volet innocentem filium videri, quem voluerit occidere.

[2] this is, judges, the surge of an apprehended impiety: no one will ever wish the son to appear innocent whom he wished to kill.

Illud quoque, iudices, a gravitate publica peto, ne quis me mori voluisse non credat. contumaciter adhuc, prioris constantiae meae more, defendor; alia est mihi ratio, cum vici. fortior sum reus quam absolutus, et tunc tantum par esse non possum calamitatibus meis, cum me constare coepit nihil aliud esse quam miserum.

This too, judges, I ask from public gravity: let no one disbelieve that I wished to die. Contumaciously still, in the manner of my former constancy, I defend myself; my reasoning is different when I have conquered. I am stronger as an accused than as an absolved man, and only then am I not able to be equal to my calamities, when it has begun to be settled for me that I am nothing else than wretched.

bene, quod rursus vocavit in forum, iussit integritatis agere causam! fecit, ut mihi videar perdidisse mortem: si paenitet patrem, quod me bibere iussit venenum, ego ferre non possum, quod effudi.

good, that he called me again into the forum, he ordered the cause of integrity to be pleaded! he has made it so that I seem to myself to have lost death: if the father repents that he ordered me to drink the venom, I cannot bear that I poured it out.

Licet igitur inmitissimus senex confundere publicos conetur adfectus querelarum fronte mutata, non sumus novi vobis accusator et reus, nec nos modo pietatis eversae recens adseruit inmanitas; parricidam me olim vocat. ita est enim, iudices, ita est: iam pridem omnium nefandorum solis nominibus accusor; sic mihi illa prima patris maledixit asperitas. hic est ille, quem desinere iam iusseratis, qui semper ad vos recurrit et vincitur.

Granted, then, that the most merciless old man tries to confound the public affections with the face of his complaints changed, we are not new to you, accuser and defendant, nor has only now the fresh inhumanity of overthrown pietas asserted us; he has long been calling me a parricide. So it is, judges, so it is: long since I have been accused by the mere names of all nefarious things; thus did that first harshness of my father curse me. This is that man whom you had already ordered to cease, who always runs back to you and is vanquished.

fallitur, quisquis ullam de moribus senis lassitudinem vel patientiam sperat: patri, qui abdicare non potuit, minus est filius nocens <reus> quam absolutus.

He is deceived, whoever hopes for any lassitude or patience from the old man’s morals: to a father who could not disinherit, the son is less nocent as <reus> than when absolved.

[3] O pertinacissimum accusatorum genus, victi parentes! dum auctoritatem nominis vestri fortius imperiosis adseritis adfectibus, et, ne pudorem paenitentiamque fateamini, contumacia vindicatis errorem, calamitatibus meis accessit, ut ter absolverer. namque ut erat in supervacuo odio mei senex prima lite deprensus, ferre non potuit, quod reddebar invito, et, quia a iudicibus non inpetraverat, ut abdicaret, apud se tenuit, ne desineret hoc velle.

[3] O most pertinacious kind of accusers, parents vanquished! While you more stoutly assert the authority of your name to imperious affections, and, lest you confess shame and penitence, you by contumacy vindicate your error, there was added to my calamities that I was acquitted three times. For, as the old man was caught in a superfluous hatred of me in the first suit, he could not bear that I was being restored to him against his will; and, because he had not obtained from the judges that he might disown, he kept it with himself, so as not to cease from willing this.

credidit tamen aliquid profecturum querelarum errore repetito, et speravit, iuxta contentionem suam ut lassesceret aliquando pro me iusta miseratio. quid facerem igitur, quo verterem iam fatigatam innocentiam? nec exire me decebat ex domo, ne viderer quicquid vos non credideratis, agnoscere, nec expectare poteram, cum mihi rursus aliam seriem malorum minaretur, quod me iam coeperat pater contentione, qua vobis irascebatur, odisse.

He believed, nevertheless, that something would be accomplished by the error of the complaints repeated, and he hoped, in accordance with his contention, that in time a just compassion on my behalf would grow weary. What, then, was I to do, whither was I to turn my innocence now fatigued? Nor did it befit me to go out of the house, lest I should seem to acknowledge whatever you had not believed, nor could I wait, since another series of evils was again menacing me, because my father had already begun, by the very contention with which he was angry at you, to hate me.

tandem infelix miseritus mei, miseritus patris, cum de praeteritis prospicerem iurgia tam longa quam vitam, captavi, fateor, hominis ~occursum~ quem mihi videbar exasperare praesentia, exorare, dum morior, et tamquam novissimi ambitus genus excogitavi, ut me in honorem sui reverentiamque pereuntem sic odisse desineret, quomodo parcere solet ira cedenti. non habet alium quam mortis exitum filius, qui nec reconciliari potest nec abdicari.

at last, unhappy, taking pity on myself, taking pity on my father, since from past things I foresaw quarrels as long as life, I hunted for, I confess, the man’s ~meeting~ whom I seemed to exasperate by my presence, to implore him, as I die; and I devised, as it were, a kind of very last canvassing, that, with me perishing for the sake of his honor and reverence, he might thus cease to hate me, just as wrath is wont to spare one who yields. A son who can be neither reconciled nor disowned has no other outcome than death.

[4] Erat in domo nostra locus, in quem secedebam semper reus, in quem revertebar absolutus, querelis meis lacrimisque iam conscius [in quem se ferant]. in hunc, non tamquam custodiae patris inponerem, (nam quid posset inveniri, quo non me captantis aliquid deprehendere cura sequeretur?) sed sicut solent, qui mori volunt pudore, non ira, ab omnibus, quae videbantur avocatura, secessi. nam nec placuerat exitus genus querulum, tumultuosum aut quod faceret invidiam. sed quid mihi tecum est, integritatis nimia simplicitas?

[4] There was in our house a place, into which I always withdrew as accused, to which I returned acquitted, already cognizant of my complaints and tears [into which they might betake themselves]. Into this, not as though I were surrendering myself to my father’s custody (for what could be found, to which the vigilance of one trying to catch me at something would not follow?), but as those are wont who wish to die from shame, not from anger, I withdrew from all things which seemed likely to call me away. For neither did a kind of exit that was querulous, tumultuous, or that would make ill-will, please. But what have I to do with you, excessive simplicity of integrity?

non putat se posse deprehendi, quisquis venenum parat ipse poturus. totus oculis animoque conversus haerebam miser in opere moriendi, nec dissimulo, cum quadam cunctatione, cum mora, sicuti bonae conscientiae lenta mors, nec praecipiti per suprema trepidatione festinant, quos hoc solum, quod sui miserentur, occidit. abiit per tacitas conquestiones mens in obitus contemplatione posita, et hausurus potionem, qua renuntiarem rebus humanis, totam apud se reputabat animus innocentiam suam, cum pater secretum, quod per inpatientiam pereuntis impleveram, quantum credo, lacrimis meis gemituque perductus, intravit.

He does not think he can be apprehended, whoever prepares a poison that he himself is going to drink. Entirely turned with eyes and mind, wretched, I was fixed on the work of dying; nor do I dissemble: with a certain hesitation, with delay—such as is the slow death of a good conscience—nor do they hurry headlong with last trepidation, those whom this alone kills, that they pity themselves. My mind went off through silent complaints, set upon the contemplation of my obit, and, about to drink the potion by which I would renounce human affairs, my spirit was reckoning with itself its whole innocence, when my father entered the retreat which, through the impatience of one perishing, I had filled—as I believe—drawn by my tears and groaning.

non potest videri, iudices, suspicatus aliquid de parricidio: quid tererem, cui pararem, nesciebat, qui interrogavit.

He cannot seem, judges, to have suspected anything about parricide: he who interrogated did not know what I was grinding, for whom I was preparing it.

[5] Nuntio vobis, sanctissimi viri, nihil a morientibus fingi; nihil vita laborante simplicius. ad subitum interventum patris non tamquam deprehensus obstipui, facinus me tacente non pallor, non est confessa trepidatio, nec, sicut accidere nocentibus solet, illa obvia semper errantium patrociniorum verba variavi, cum me repente interrogatione subita avocavit, abduxit, quaesivit, quid tererem, cui pararem. sed ego sine cunctatione, sine tarditate respondi; et me mori velle eadem veritate et confessus sum venenum esse, quod terebatur.

[5] I report to you, most holy men, that nothing is feigned by the dying; nothing is more simple when life is laboring. At the sudden intervention of my father I did not stand stupefied as though apprehended; while I was silent, neither pallor nor an avowed trepidation confessed the deed, nor, as is wont to happen to the guilty, did I vary those ever-ready words of defense of the erring, when he suddenly, by a sudden interrogation, drew me aside, led me away, and asked what I was grinding, for whom I was preparing it. But I replied without hesitation, without tardity; and with the same truthfulness I confessed both that I wished to die, and that what was being ground was poison.

date, iudices, patrem, qui filium mori nolit et credit; quis habeat, iudices, dicenti fidem? venenum filii, quod invenerat pater, non ille potius effudit; stetit quin immo intrepidus, adrogans iuxta orbitatem, quam videbat, et mihi mortem, quam promiseram, quam minabar, ingessit. 'bibe,' inquit.

grant, judges, a father who is unwilling that his son die and gives credence to him; who, judges, would give faith to one speaking? the son’s poison, which the father had found, he did not rather pour away; no, he stood intrepid, arrogant beside the bereavement he saw, and he thrust upon me the death which I had promised, which I was threatening. “drink,” he said.

quis post hoc, iudices, expectat, ut continuo paream iubenti? ita demum mihi non est aliud relictum, si patri par<a>vi.

who, after this, judges, expects that I straightway obey the one commanding? only then, for me, nothing else is left, if I obeyed my father.

[6] Audite nunc, dii pariter atque homines, quid post tres abdicationes et querelas totiens iudicum gravitate percussas velut attonitus, amens nuntiet saeculo pater: parricida saevus, parricida crudelis non bibi venenum! hoc est totum facinus meum: vivo, respondeo, non fugio iudicem, non cedo criminibus. iam non miror, quid sit, circa quod inpatientia deceptae crudelitatis exaestuet: plus quam orbitatis gaudium , quod modo perdidit senex: speraverat, ut occidere me posset meo veneno.

[6] Hear now, gods and men alike, what, after three disinheritances and complaints so often smitten by the gravity of the judges, as if thunderstruck, out of his mind, the father announces to the world: savage parricide, cruel parricide—I did not drink the venom! This is my whole crime: I live, I respond, I do not flee the judge, I do not yield to the charges. I no longer marvel what it is around which the impatience of a deceived cruelty seethes: there more than the joy of childlessness, which the old man has just lost: he had hoped that he might be able to kill me with my own venom.

sed quatenus invenisse se putat, quod crederetis, et, <ut> contentionibus subinde damnatis auctoritatem de novo dolore circumdaret, inusitata commentus est, quae sola mihi superest ratio vivendi, facinus ea simplicitate, ea fide denego, qua confessus sum de veneno.

but inasmuch as he thinks he has found something that you would believe, and, so that, with his contentions repeatedly condemned, he might gird his authority with a new dolor, he has concocted unprecedented things—what alone remains to me as a ratio of living: I deny the crime with that simplicity, with that faith, with which I confessed about the poison.

Parricidii agis. abstulisti quidem mihi partem, ut exclamarem hoc loco: 'fieri non potest'. scio, quantum defensioni meae difficultatis adiecerit, quod iam pridem in domo nostra humanorum pignorum ratio non constat; sed pronuntiatum liquet, utri ex nobis facilior sit inpietas, uter iuxta alterius languorem, suprema ~non fecerit: tu unicum cotidie proturbare conaris e domo, velles inopiam meam, velles aspicere squalorem. ego osculor illas expellentis manus, ego abicientis genua teneo, et ad patrem, qui me tam notabiliter odit, non habeo, cur velim redire, si non amo[r].

You are prosecuting for parricide. You have indeed deprived me in part, so that I might exclaim at this point: ‘it cannot be.’ I know how much difficulty it has added to my defense, that for a long time now in our house the account of our human pledges does not stand; but a ruling makes clear, which of us finds impiety easier, which one, right beside the other’s infirmity, ~did not perform the last rites: you try every day to drive the only son out of the house, you would wish my poverty, you would wish to behold squalor. I kiss those hands that expel, I clasp the knees of the one who casts me away, and to a father who so notably hates me I have no reason why I should wish to return, if not lo[ve].

[7] Praevaleret nominis tui fortassis auctoritas, si contentio nostra coepisset a veneno. consumpsisti quicquid est, quod parentes ab omnium scelerum suspicione defendit. non habet pater, unde parricidium de filio credat, nisi quem posset occidere.

[7] Perhaps the authority of your name would prevail, if our contention had begun from the poison. you have consumed whatever there is that defends parents from the suspicion of all crimes. a father has no ground from which to believe parricide about his son, except one whom he would be able to kill.

me quidem, pater, et infelicis huius persuasionis simplicitatem si quis interroget, nec a te parricidium fieri posse credo nisi meo veneno, facinus tamen in omnibus incredibile pignoribus nullis difficilius quam liberis puto. vos adhuc in suprema nostra praecipitat auctoritas, qui filium occidere vocatis plerumque gravitatem, sicut abdicationis emendationem, sicut reliqua supplicia nostra rationis fronte protegitis, cunctosque praerigidae mentis adfectus vocabulo molliore lenitis. nos nec felices facinus istud possumus concipere nec miseri.

As for me, father—and if anyone should question the simplicity of this unlucky persuasion—I do not believe that parricide could be wrought by you except by my poison; yet I think the deed, in all its forms, incredible, with no pledges more difficult than children. It is Authority that still hurls us headlong into our last moments: you who for the most part call the killing of a son “gravity,” just as you call abdication a “correction,” just as you cloak our remaining punishments with the front of reason, and you soften all the affections of a chill mind by a milder word. We can conceive that deed neither in good fortune nor in misery.

non perveniunt ad nefas istud nec necessitates, omnis citra desperationem dolor, ira languescit. et quanto, dii deaeque, difficilius, si paretur sine conscio, sine ministro, totumque facinus et animum filii poscat et manus! memento, cuius obicias immanitatis horrorem; patrem occidere velle hinc tantum accipit vires, ut mori possis deprehensus.

Even necessities do not reach to that nefarious deed; every pain short of desperation—anger languishes. And how much, gods and goddesses, more difficult, if it be contrived without a confidant, without a minister, and the whole crime should demand both the son’s mind and his hands! Remember upon whom you are casting the horror of monstrosity; to want to kill a father gains strength only on this ground—that, if apprehended, you can die.

'Ut sciatis,' inquit, 'verum esse quod obicio, et abdicare volui.' non potest, pater, efficere pertinacia querendi genus probationis. tu, cum dicis 'filius me voluit occidere,' videris tibi facere prioribus iudicibus invidiam, exclamare: 'vos faciles, vos misericordes, hunc mihi redditis?'

'That you may know,' he says, 'that what I allege is true, and that I wished to disown him.' The pertinacity of complaining, father, cannot make a kind of proof. You, when you say, 'my son wanted to kill me,' seem to yourself to be creating odium against the earlier judges, crying out: 'you indulgent ones, you merciful ones, are you giving this man back to me?'

[8] sed iniquissimum est, ut abdicatio, quae nec in sui valuit effectum, fidem maiori crimini praestet. non sum reus inexplorati pudoris, nec ante acta vitae meae sub hodierna primum lite tractantur. felicior innocentia est citra suspiciones, certior post reatum, et quantum infamiae praestant obiecta dum nutant, tantundem auctoritatis absoluta restituunt.

[8] but it is most iniquitous that an abdication, which did not even prevail to its own effect, should afford credence to a greater crime. I am not an accused of unexplored shame, nor are the things previously done in my life being handled for the first time under today’s litigation. Innocence is happier without suspicions, more certain after a charge; and as much infamy as the charges, while they waver, confer, just so much authority do absolutions restore.

an scilicet superatus est gratia pater, et apud senes et apud parentes auctoritate praevalui? viderint, qui calamitatibus suis sic blandiuntur, ut sibi adfuisse credant misericordiam, favorem; filius a patre delatus numquam poterit superior esse nisi causa. sane tamen feramus, ut prima abdicatione non egesseris totum dolorem, multa tibi de criminibus meis verecundia querendi, multa paternae pietatis abstulerit infirmitas; quid non implet repetita delatio?

Or was the father, forsooth, overcome by grace, and did I prevail by authority both among the elders and among the parents? Let those see to it who so flatter themselves in their calamities that they believe mercy and favor to have stood by them; a son delated by his father will never be able to be superior except by his cause. Granted, however, let us concede that by the first abdication you did not discharge the whole grief, that a modesty of complaining took much from you in speaking of my crimes, that the infirmity of paternal piety took much away; what does a repeated delation not supply?

reversus es in forum iam ad iudices iratos. quanto terrore cuncta perculit pudor ille iam victi et redeuntis in damnatam conluctationem! acrior semper ex verecundia dolor.

You have returned into the forum now to irate judges. With what terror did that shame of the already vanquished, returning into a condemned colluctation (struggle), strike all things! Pain is always keener from shame.

sed et iudicum cura quanto malignior circa redditum reum! quam multis placet illa de dissimilitudine pronuntiationis auctoritas, et severior videtur diversa sententia!

But also how much more malign is the concern of the judges toward the defendant returned! How many are pleased by that authority from the dissimilarity of pronouncement, and the diverse sentence seems severer!

[9] Tertia vero abdicatio, dii inmortales, quem adparatum, quem movit ambitum! ego miror, quod mihi licuit audiri, quod me non statim primus querelarum tumultus oppressit. quid post ista novi, pater, obici potest?

[9] But the third abdication—immortal gods!—what a preparation, what canvassing it set in motion! I marvel that it was permitted me to be heard, that the first tumult of complaints did not immediately crush me. What new thing, father, can be objected after these?

inter leges, inter iura consenui, non habeo in moribus meis, quod non melius iudices sciant. scilicet capit natura rerum, ut futurus parricida non praemiserit notas, nullis ante sit maximi sceleris inmanitas tumultuata flagitiis, et quandoque culleo, serpentibus expianda feritas sub placida mente primam pertulerit aetatem? aliud est miserorum genus, quod clementia, quod succurrendi favore dimittitur: absolverunt me qui sciebant non profuturum mihi, quod non abdicarer.

amid laws, amid rights I have grown old; I have nothing in my morals that the judges do not know better. Of course the nature of things allows that a future parricide would not have sent ahead signs, that the inhumanity of the greatest crime has not previously rioted in any flagitious deeds, and that a ferocity, to be expiated someday by the culleus with serpents, bore its first age beneath a placid mind? There is another kind of the wretched, which is dismissed by clemency, by the favor of succor: those acquitted me who knew that it would not be of benefit to me that I not be disinherited.

Proclames igitur licet: 'subinde detuli, saepe questus sum, ter abdicare volui!' hoc tamen res ista debet efficere, ut tibi non oporteat credi, quicquid aliud obieceris. Non enim sequitur, pater, ut me tuis criminibus accuses, quod nocentem tuis moribus probes. filium parricidam non facit severitas vestra, non saevitia, non terror; ad tam grande facinus non ira opus est, sed moribus, non dolore, sed mente.

You may proclaim then, to be sure: 'I repeatedly brought charges, I often complained, I wished three times to disinherit!' nevertheless this matter ought to effect this, that you ought not to be believed, whatever else you may allege. For it does not follow, father, that you accuse me with your indictments because you prove me guilty by your own mores. It is not your severity, not cruelty, not terror that makes a son a parricide; for so great a crime there is need not of anger, but of mores/character, not of pain, but of mind/intent.

omnes iniuriae levius exasperant, levius offendunt; innocentis fili ultio est mori.

All injuries exasperate less, offend less; the vengeance of an innocent son is to die.

[10] Quod si manifestum est nihil tunc in moribus meis fuisse, quod posset esse suspectum, aestimemus, unde postea traxerim parricidii causas. vos hoc loco libet interrogare, iudices: quis magis debet innocentiam amare? vici patrem, omni nunc sollicitudine, omni labore custodiam illam gratiam, illum ambitum meum, quo remuneror advocatos, quo persolvo iudicibus, illud propter quod audeo domum reverti, propter quod non timeo casus, non subita pro patre, non maligna fata.

[10] But if it is manifest that there was then nothing in my morals which could be suspect, let us appraise whence afterward I drew the causes of parricide. At this point it pleases me to ask you, judges: who ought to love innocence more? I defeated my father; with every solicitude, with every labor I shall now guard that favor, that ambition of mine, by which I remunerate advocates, by which I pay in full the judges— that thing on account of which I dare to return home, on account of which I do not fear mishaps, not sudden ones on account of my father, not malign fates.

fidem non capit, ut me tres absolutiones et innocentem probaverint et effecerint parricidam.

it does not admit belief that three acquittals have both proved me innocent and made me a parricide.

Praeterea, pater, quam infirmum me, quam trepidum reddit ipsa victoria! an scilicet ignoro, quod me reversum circumstat totius domus maligna cura, quod vivo inter homines, quibus apud te gratiam parat, si de nobis aliqua mentiantur, fingant? videlicet hoc nos in facinus praecipitat, inpellit, quod aliquid speramus de testamento tuo.

Moreover, father, how infirm, how trepid victory itself makes me! Or do I, forsooth, not know that, upon my return, the malignant care of the whole household surrounds me; that I live among men for whom it procures favor with you, if they should lie anything about us, if they feign it? Evidently this precipitates us into a crime, impels us, because we hope for something from your testament.

quid? ego non sentio, quod, sim licet remissus in domum, a caritate tamen exclusus, abiectus sum? rogo, qua fiducia facinus paro totiens delatus et paterna conquestione praedi<c>tus?

What? Do I not perceive that, although I have been remitted back into the house, yet I have been shut out from affection, that I am cast aside? I ask, with what confidence am I to prepare a crime, I who have so often been denounced and singled out by a father’s complaint?

quod vis patrocinium sperem pro parricidio meo? defendi non possem, si bibisses tu venenum. finge me parricidii voluntatem.

What sort of advocacy should I hope for on behalf of my parricide? I could not be defended, if you had drunk the poison. Imagine me to have the volition of parricide.

finge habere causas; unde occasionem, unde fiduciam? ego nec mori possum, nisi ut deprehendar.

Imagine I have causes; whence the occasion, whence the confidence? I cannot even die, except on condition of being apprehended.

[11] venenum paro, qui ministrum, qui non invenio conscium? despicior a liberis, contemnor a servulis, evitant sermonem meum, conloquia fugiunt, et caritatem tui simulant odio mei. an videlicet spero posse fieri, ut ipse porrigam?

[11] I am preparing poison—who is the minister, when I do not find an accomplice? I am despised by the freedmen, scorned by the servant-boys; they avoid my discourse, colloquies take flight, and they feign affection for you with hatred of me. Or, forsooth, am I to hope it can come about that I myself should proffer it?

est enim mihi ad convictus tuos facilis accessus. Venenum mehercule putabis quicquid dederint hae manus. et virus praesentaneum paro, quod statim, quod subito corripiat?

I have, in fact, easy access to your meals. By Hercules, you will think whatever these hands give is poison. And am I to prepare a present-acting venom, one that at once, that suddenly may seize?

at quemadmodum mihi supersit ulla defensio? an lentum et quod tarda peste consumat? scilicet ut non statim exclames, ut te meum virus bibisse non credas?

But how should any defense be left to me? Or a slow one, one that consumes with a tardy plague? Of course—so that you do not cry out at once, so that you do not believe that you have drunk my virus?

rogo, cui paravi venenum, quod dare non possum nisi mihi?

I ask, for whom have I prepared the poison, which I cannot give except to myself?

'Ita,' inquit, 'parricidii argumentum est et hoc ipsum, quod habuisti venenum.' omnibus, iudices, quibus ad scelerum conatus adiuvatur deteriorum cotidie fecunda mortalitas, non hanc solam potentiam natura concessit, in quam malis mentibus et nocentium ducuntur ingeniis, sed illis usus ex animo est, totumque, quod faciunt, de conscientia possidentis accipiunt. quid enim, si latronem gladio tantum probes? sic munimus et somnos.

'Yes,' he says, 'this is an argument of parricide, even this very fact: that you had poison.' Judges, to all those whose attempts at crimes are aided by mankind, daily fecund in worse men, Nature has not conceded this power alone, into which evil minds and the talents of the guilty are drawn, but for those things the use is from intention, and they take the whole character of what they do from the conscience of the possessor. For what then, if you prove a robber merely by a sword? Thus we even fortify our sleep.

excute peregrinantium sinus, haerent tela sollicitis. non vetant ista leges parare, prospicere, nec instrumenta prohibent, sed aestimant usus. finge me velut in media prosperitate vitae proclamare: 'venenum paravi, ad quod incerti casus, ad quod languor, dolor, ad quod confugeret improvisa debilitas.'

Shake out the folds of travelers’ cloaks; weapons cling to the anxious. The laws do not forbid to prepare, to provide, nor do they prohibit the instruments, but they assess the uses. Imagine me, as if in the midst of life’s prosperity, proclaiming: 'I have prepared poison, to which uncertain contingencies, to which languor, pain, to which unforeseen debility might take refuge.'

[12] Miramini, quod hoc fecerim homo, qui circa me fortunam, qui discrimina humana lassavi? cui nescio quid adhuc paret totiens victa delatio? debuit habere in sua potestate mortem, quem iam pater poterat occidere.

[12] Do you marvel that I should have done this—I, a man who have wearied Fortune about me, who have worn out human crises? to whom—how, I know not—delation, so often conquered, still obeys? He ought to have had death in his own power, the man whom already a father could kill.

'Non est,' inquit, 'credibile, ut mori volueris absolutus, qui reus noluisti.' poteram quidem dicere: pater, vixi, dum spero fas esse, ut incipias aliquando misereri, ut te squalor meus frangat, mitigent lacrimae, pallor exoret; sed ignosce innocentiae, tunc me decuit pertinax, rigida defensio. vixi, ne me videretur expulisse de saeculo profundorum scelerum deprehensa trepidatio, ne super cadaver meum proclamare posses: 'certe merito timui, merito praedixi; venenum qui <bibit>, vivendi non habebat audaciam', ne supremis meis conviciareris, ne quid posses obicere iam non negaturo. verum tibi de impatientia mea fatendum est: eadem mente nolui mori, cum abdicares, qua non bibi, cum iuberes.

'It is not,' he says, 'credible that you wished to die when acquitted, you who did not wish to when an accused.' I could indeed say: father, I lived so long as I hoped it was right that you might at some time begin to pity, that my squalor might break you, my tears might soften you, my pallor might win you over; but pardon my innocence—then a stubborn, rigid defense was fitting for me. I lived, lest it seem that a panic, deep crimes having been discovered, had expelled me from the world, lest over my cadaver you could proclaim: 'surely I feared with good reason, with good reason I foretold; he who <drank> the poison had no audacity for living,' lest you rail at my last rites, lest you could allege anything against one who would now not deny. But I must confess to you about my impatience: with the same mind I did not wish to die when you disinherited, with which I did not drink when you ordered.

Sed fruere iterum, fruere saepius confessione tam misera, et, quia oculos spectaculo non licuit implere, satientur aures: volui mori. adice, si videtur, hanc malis nostris contumeliam, ut interroges quare; abdicare me subinde voluisti. quid ais, rerum natura, pietas?

But enjoy again, enjoy more often so wretched a confession, and, since it was not permitted to fill your eyes with the spectacle, let your ears be sated: I wished to die. Add, if it seems good, this contumely to our evils, that you ask why; you kept wanting to disown me. What say you, nature of things, piety?

ita <non> iustiores causas habet <haec> inpatientia quam corporum damna, quam facultatium tristis eversio? in suprema praecipitat me pater. ita non haec una vox complectitur omnes calamitates?

So does not this impatience have more just causes than the damages of bodies, than the sad overthrow of resources? My father precipitates me into the last extremities. So does not this single utterance embrace all calamities?

non videmini nunc vobis universos audire miseros? possimus fortassis aliorum accidentium sperare finem; non habent proximorum odia regressum. quaecumque nexus accepere naturae, et quae sanguine visceribusque constricta sunt, non laxantur diducta, sed pereunt, et quae de primo tenore nascendi vix in contrarium victa deflectunt diuque pravitatis suae rigore durata, mox in pristinum cursum remissa non redeunt, sed quo totum pondus omnesque vires inclinata traxerunt, vigore, quo sibi permissa crevissent, in ipsius vitii robur adolescunt.

Does it not now seem to you that you are hearing all the wretched as one? We may perhaps hope for an end of other accidents; the hatreds of those nearest admit no return. Whatever bonds have been received from nature, and those which are constricted by blood and by the viscera, when drawn asunder are not loosened but perish; and those things which from the first tenor of birth, scarcely when overcome bend aside into the contrary, and have long been hardened by the rigidity of their own depravity, once soon released do not return into their former course, but toward that point to which, once inclined, they have dragged their whole weight and all their powers, by the very vigor with which, when allowed to themselves, they had grown, they grow up into the strength of the very vice.

[13] in hoc est tota difficultas, ut incipiat non amare filium pater. hoc cum frontem confessionis accipit, reliqua praecipiti furore decurrunt, et redituris caritatibus obstat quicquid obstiterat ab odiis. semel sibi parentes liberique mutantur, semel auferuntur.

[13] in this is the whole difficulty: that a father begins not to love his son. When this takes on the front of confession, the remaining things run their course with precipitous fury, and whatever had stood in the way because of hatreds obstructs affections when they would return. Parents and children are once for all changed toward one another, once for all taken away.

felices, qui habent in conscientia sua, quod debeant emendare, corrigere! illa demum potest ira desinere, quae coaluit ex vitiis liberorum. ego quid facio, cui non luxuria, non est mutanda petulantia, cuius abdicatio non de meis, sed de patris moribus venit?

Happy are they who have in their conscience something they ought to emend, to correct! That anger at last can cease, which has coalesced from the vices of children. But what am I to do, I for whom there is no luxury, no petulance to be changed, whose disowning comes not from my character, but from my father’s morals?

frustra mihi exhortationes, frustra blandientur vana solacia. hominis, quem pater odisse non desinit, unus exitus est, ut se oderit.

Exhortations are in vain for me; in vain do empty solaces flatter. For a man whom his father does not cease to hate, there is one outcome: that he hate himself.

Et quantulum habet de toto dolore nostro ille, quo venitur ad iudicem, dies! ego, cum dico: pater me odit, illud exclamo: omnes sine me sunt festi dies, omnis laetitia sine filio; non adloquitur maestum, non adsidet ille languenti. gratissimus, quisquis de nobis tristius aliquid attulerit, quisquis maledixerit, conviciatus fuerit absenti.

And how little does that day, on which one comes to the judge, have of all our sorrow! I, when I say, “my father hates me,” cry out this: all feast-days are without me, all joy is without the son; he does not address the sorrowful, he does not sit beside the languishing. Most welcome is whoever has brought something sadder about us, whoever has spoken ill, has railed at the absent one.

ego si hoc possum ferre, merui. alia sunt adversa, quae de continuatione sui patientiam parant, quae durant adsiduitate firmantque mentem; quod te pater oderit, cotidie novum est. minus fortassis urant invicem simultates et mutuis detestationibus invisa respirent; odium is tantum filius perferre poterit, qui et ipse oderit patrem.

If I can bear this, I have merited it. There are other adversities, which by the continuation of themselves prepare patience, which by assiduity endure and strengthen the mind; that your father should hate you is every day a new thing. Perhaps enmities burn each other less in turn and, odious through mutual detestations, respire; such hatred only that son will be able to endure, who himself also will hate his father.

[14] Vos nunc, iudices, universos quin immo mortales infelicissimus iuvenis interrogo: quid me facere vultis? explicuit nos sine dubio de criminibus exitus, quod absolutus sum; tamen non hoc effecit, ne mori velim, sed ut mihi liceat et vivere. victus sum enim mehercules, victus sum, iudices, absolutionibus meis, et, quae certissima est animae laborantis infirmitas, misera felicitate defeci.

[14] You now, judges, all of you—nay rather, mortals—I, a most unfortunate young man, ask: what do you wish me to do? The outcome has without doubt extricated us from the charges, in that I have been acquitted; yet this has not effected that I should not wish to die, but that it may be permitted to me also to live. For, by Hercules, I am conquered—I am conquered, judges—by my acquittals; and, which is the most certain weakness of a laboring soul, I have failed under a miserable felicity.

quem mihi vultum domum reverso, quem suadetis animum? non decet gaudium me[um]: exaspero hilaritate, offendo tristitia. capto sermonem; invisus sum, tamquam adroganter insultem doloris causa dicor, si propius aspiciar, videor, si recedo, contemnere.

What countenance do you advise me, as I return home, what spirit? My joy is not fitting: I exasperate by hilarity, I offend by sadness. I catch at conversation; I am hateful, as if I were arrogantly insulting for the sake of causing pain; if I am looked at more closely, I seem to be doing so, if I withdraw, to be showing contempt.

quousque vincemus? nesciunt prorsus abdicationibus mederi, qui non statim cedunt, qui conscientiae suae rigore nituntur. non vincitur pater, non sum absolutus: cum domum veni, nemo me diligit, nemo reveretur.

How long shall we be winning? They utterly do not know how to remedy by abdications, who do not yield at once, who rely on the rigor of their conscience. The father is not conquered, I am not absolved: when I come home, no one loves me, no one reveres (me).

iam ad nos de penatibus illis non pertinent nisi secreta, nisi latebrae. non exuo, non depono sordes, et mihi cotidie senex tamquam accusaturus occurrit. attendo, quid faciam, quid loquar, qualis aspiciar, et, quod malignissimum est sollicitudinis genus, me ipse custodio.

now there pertain to us from those Penates only secrets, only hiding-places. I do not strip off, I do not lay aside the squalor, and every day the old man meets me as if about to accuse. I attend to what I do, what I speak, how I am looked upon, and, which is the most malignant kind of solicitude, I keep watch over myself.

satiasti me, vita, satiasti, et cum felicibus quoque veniat ex nimia prosperitatis continuatione fastidium, quod taedium paras lassitudine miserorum! consumpta est in lacrimis, in precibus aetas, exacti sordibus dies, anxietate noctes. quid mihi contra tam indigna, tam gravia promittit integritas?

you have satiated me, life, you have satiated me; and even for the fortunate there comes, from the excessive continuation of prosperity, a distaste; what tedium you prepare by the weariness of the wretched! my lifetime has been consumed in tears, in prayers; my days spent in defilements, my nights in anxiety. what does integrity promise me against such indignities, such grievous burdens?

abdicari debet, quem nocentem pater odit, mori, quem innocentem.

He ought to be disinherited, him whom a father hates as guilty; to die, the father who hates him as innocent.

[15] 'Sed, ut credamus,' inquit, 'voluisse te mori, cur potissimum veneno?' possis quidem, pater, hanc de omni supremorum genere litem facere morientibus, et, quia rerum natura varias fatorum vias indulsit animae, in nullo non exitu simili ratione reprehendas, quicquid electum est. sic super strictum nudatumque mucronem proclamares: 'cur non veneno?' sed nihil est delicatius exitu, quem non supplicia, non metus, sed collecta de calamitatibus commendat infirmitas. mihi tamen praecipue cum hoc mortis instrumento propria concordia est: non spargit cruorem, nec trucem cadaveris relinquit aspectum; placida est, quieta est.

[15] 'But, so that we may believe,' he says, 'that you wished to die, why chiefly by poison?' You could indeed, father, make this quarrel against the dying about every kind of final end, and, since the nature of things has indulged to the soul various paths of fate, you would by similar reasoning censure in no exit, whatever has been chosen. Thus over a drawn and bared blade you would cry out: 'why not by poison?' But nothing is more delicate than a departure which is commended not by torments, not by fear, but by a weakness gathered from calamities. For me, however, there is a particular concord with this instrument of death: it does not scatter gore, nor does it leave a savage aspect of the cadaver; it is placid, it is quiet.

ingratissime senex, ego et hoc sic moriendo prospexeram, ne me occidisse alius videretur.

most ungrateful old man, I too had provided for this by dying thus, lest it should seem that another had killed me.

Te nunc adprehendo, te interrogo, pater: ita parricida sum ego, qui venenum adfero in domum tuam inparatum, rude, terendum, cui tam multa restant, ante quam dari possit? ita parricida sum, qui iuxta te quaero secretum, qui de potione tibi incerta, quam nemo detulit, tam simpliciter, tam facile respondi? secedo in medios penates, nullos ab introitu praepono custodes, non evito transitus, non excludo venturos.

You now I apprehend, you I question, father: am I thus a parricide, I who bring into your house a poison unprepared, crude, to be ground, to which so many things remain before it can be given? Am I thus a parricide, who seek secrecy right beside you, who, about a potion uncertain to you, which no one has brought, have answered so simply, so easily? I withdraw into the midst of the Penates, I set no guards at the entrance, I do not avoid passages, I do not shut out those about to come in.

rogo, utrum haec omnia sunt occidere volentis an mori? venenum, quod tibi pararetur, invenisses absconsum, reconditum; multum circa illud palloris attoniti, concisa verba, trepida suspiria et me negantem. parricida deprehensus effudisset venenum, ne fateretur.

I ask: are all these the acts of one willing to kill, or to die? The poison that would have been prepared for you you would have found concealed, laid away; there would have been much astonished pallor about it, clipped words, trembling sighs, and me denying it. A parricide, apprehended, would have spilled the poison, lest he confess.

[16] 'Cur ergo,' inquit, 'si tibi paraveras, non bibisti?' breviter, pater, et secundum naturam condicionis humanae respondeo nihil aliud esse in potestate miserorum, quam ut mori velint. ego cum dico 'mori volo', non hoc dico 'moriturus sum'; de animo meo respondeo, non promitto de fato. miraris!

[16] 'Why then,' he says, 'if you had prepared it for yourself, did you not drink?' Briefly, father, and according to the nature of the human condition I answer that there is nothing else in the power of the miserable than that they should wish to die. I, when I say 'I wish to die', do not say this, 'I am going to die'; I answer concerning my mind, I do not promise concerning fate. You marvel!

quod, quamvis iam teneam venenum, multum tamen adhuc casibus incertisque superest? accepere perfossis plerumque visceribus vitam tamen ab ipsa desperatione redeuntem; strictos circa colla laqueos aut nexus aut ipsius corporis ruina decepit; rotatos per abrupta mollis iactus explicuit. tam consentaneum est, ne moriatur qui velit, quam quod morimur inviti.

that, although I already hold the poison, still much remains subject to chances and uncertainties? often, even with the viscera perforated, they have received life returning, brought back by desperation itself; tight nooses drawn around the neck have been foiled, either by the knots or by the collapse of the body itself; those whirled over precipices a soft casting has unrolled. it is as consentaneous that he who wishes to die does not die, as it is that we die unwillingly.

sed malo, sicut coepi, simplici tecum ratione consistere. nihil aeque, pater, impetu constat, quam mori velle, nec quicquam res humanae inpatientius habent pereuntis adfectu. hunc si retinere velis, sufficit, ut moreris, et rationem quoque homini mortis eripiet, si quis abstulerit ardorem.

but I prefer, as I began, to stand with you on a simple reasoning. Nothing, father, is so much determined by impulse as to wish to die, nor do human affairs possess anything more impatient than the passion of one bent on perishing. If you wish to retain this, it is enough that you delay, and someone will even snatch away from a man the very reason for his death, if anyone removes his ardor.

frangit animum quisquis intervenit; abducit, avocat, quisquis adloquitur. ambiunt[ur] cuncta moriendi spatia pro vita. ideo nos mehercules crediderim <in> eiusmodi exitum eligere secretum.

Whoever intervenes breaks the spirit; whoever addresses one draws him away, calls him off. All the intervals for dying are encompassed for the sake of life. Therefore, by Hercules, I would believe that we choose seclusion in an exit of this kind.

minimum est, quod confundat hominem infirmitate morientem, et exiguis causis opus est, ut displiceat obitus, quem misero suasit integritas. quid, si interveniat aliquis, qui gaudeat, qui vindicari se putet, si testis adhibeat oculos, quibus invidendum sit? statim mehercules adrogans vita s<t>imulabitur, statim contumax dolor cum deprehensa morte dissentiet.

It is the least thing that can confound a man dying in infirmity, and slight causes suffice for the decease—which soundness had recommended to the wretch—to become displeasing. What, if someone should intervene who rejoices, who thinks himself avenged, if he bring in as witnesses eyes that are to be envied? At once, by Hercules, an arrogant life will be simulated; at once contumacious pain, with death detected, will dissent.

[17] Nescis, quantum mihi haesitationis paraveris, cum interroges, dum respondere cogis ~setis quem et~ reddere, iterum litigare, defendi. me vero tunc pariter omnes tenuistis, adfectus, indignatio, pietas, reverentia, dolor. ego propter patrem mori possum, coram patre non possum.

[17] You do not know how much hesitation you have prepared for me, when you interrogate, while you compel me to respond, ~which and~ to render, to litigate again, to defend myself. But then you all held me equally—affections, indignation, pietas, reverence, pain. I can die for my father; before my father I cannot.

adice nunc, quod et dixisti: 'bibe!' si mehercules saucium palpitantemque iussisses adigere ferrum, premerem clausis vulneribus animam; <si> stringere aptatos ad colla nexus, conarer abrupto desilire laqueo; si non iniceres manum ad praecipitia properanti, flecterem in plana cursum. Merito prorsus, anime, secretum solitudinemque captaveras. intervenit pater, actum est, perit ille susceptae mortis ardor et utroque nos resolvit adfectu: mori non debeo, si vetuerit, non potero, si iusserit.

Add now, what you also said: “Drink!” If, by Hercules, you had ordered me, wounded and palpitating, to drive in the iron, I would press out my breath with the wounds closed; if to tighten the nooses fitted to my neck, I would try to leap down with the noose snapped; if you did not lay your hand on me as I hastened to the precipices, I would bend my course to the level ground. Deservedly indeed, my soul, you had hunted after seclusion and solitude. The father intervened—it is done; that ardor of the death undertaken perishes, and he loosens us by either affection: I ought not to die, if he has forbidden it; I shall not be able, if he has ordered it.

'bibe', inquit. nondum quidem potioni virus aptatum est, sed me ideo deprehendisti, quia adhuc terebatur. multa tamen mihi, pater, ante facienda sunt: volo prius convocare servulos, contrahere libertos, complorare, conqueri, mandare, defendi.

'Drink,' he says. Indeed the poison has not yet been fitted to the potion, but you caught me for this reason, because it was still being ground. Many things, however, father, must be done by me beforehand: I wish first to call together the servants, to assemble the freedmen, to bewail, to complain, to give instructions, to be defended.

'bibe.' mihi vero tunc adiecisse visus es: 'teneris, haeres, eamus ad iudicem!' 'bibe.' sic hoc iubes, tamquam negem venenum. interrogare vos velut in illa secreti nostri praesentia libet: quem mihi post hanc vocem animum datis? dicit hoc accusator, dicit hoc victus, dicit secreto, dicit sic, ut possit negare, si bibero.

'drink.' indeed, you seemed then to have added: 'you are detained, heir; let us go to the judge!' 'drink.' thus you order this, as though I were denying the venom. it pleases me to interrogate you as if in that presence of our secrecy: what spirit do you grant me after this utterance? the accuser says this, the vanquished says this, he says it in secret, he says it thus, so that he can deny it, if I drink.

'bibe.' ego quidem volo, et hoc cum maxime paro, sed totum hunc animum, senex, tua aviditate mutasti, 'bibe.'

'drink.' I indeed want to, and am at this very moment preparing to do so, but you have changed all this spirit, old man, by your avidity, 'drink.'

[18] quid restat, quam ut recusantis ora diducas, ut infundas per oppositas manus? mihi vero tunc excidit, quid velem, quid pararem. vidi truces loquentis oculos, vultus parricidali ardore suffusos.

[18] what remains, but that you pry apart the lips of the one refusing, that you pour it in with your hands set opposite? As for me, then it slipped my mind what I wanted, what I was preparing. I saw the grim eyes of the speaker, a countenance suffused with parricidal ardor.

iuberi mihi videbar, ut biberem tuum venenum. nescisti, pater, pertinaciam meam servare, nescisti. filium propter te mori volentem deprehendisti; vis occidere?

I seemed to be ordered to drink your venom. You did not know, father, how to preserve my obstinacy—you did not know. You caught a son willing to die on your account; do you wish to kill me?

veta; invade poculum, ne hauriam; bibam. exclama: 'temerari, quid facis? iam desino irasci, iam revertor in gratiam!' properabo, ut hoc secum aures ferant, ut inpatientia tua fruantur oculi.

Forbid; seize the cup, lest I drain it; I will drink. Exclaim: 'Rash man, what are you doing? Now I cease to be angry, now I return into favor!' I will hasten, so that ears may carry this away with them, so that eyes may enjoy your impatience.

tibi inputes, quod me retorsisti, quod ablata sunt sacramenta pereundi; innocenti facilius est mori, si rogetur, ut vivat. fidem deorum, in quam me contumaciam, pater, in quem tunc inpulisti contentionis ardorem, cum diceres 'bibe'! nec vivere mihi libuit nec mori, ereptus sum miser animo meo, et inprovisa voce percussus steti sine affectu, sine [ne]cogitatione attonitus, amens et me paene aliter occidi. nihil est profecto inprovisorum dolore torrentius, et fractae malorum contentione mentes ad inexpectata caligant.

impute it to yourself, that you turned me back, that the sacraments of perishing were taken away; for the innocent it is easier to die, if he is asked to live. by the faith of the gods, into what contumacy, father, into what ardor of contention did you then impel me, when you said “drink”! neither did it please me to live nor to die; wretched, I was snatched from my mind, and, smitten by an unlooked-for voice, I stood without feeling, without [a] thought, thunderstruck, out of my mind, and I almost perished in another way. nothing indeed is more torrential than the dolor of the unforeseen, and minds broken by the contention of evils grow dark at the unexpected.

non querelas post hoc invenio, non verba, non lacrimas. ad nullius rei conatum sufficit mori alterius animo et suo veneno.

After this I find no complaints, no words, no tears. To die by another’s spirit and by one’s own venom is sufficient for no attempt whatsoever.

[19] Licet igitur nova me reatus mole convenias, non paenitet tamen flexisse, non paenitet, illum spiritum rigoremque pereundi; tamquam parricida moriebar. pater, qui queritur, quod non bibi, iam nunc diceret: 'deprehensus erat, negare non poterat.' essem nunc ter abdicatus, et me contenderet ad iudices meos redire non ausum. bene quod sic effudi, tamquam rursus vita placuisset; venenum, quod videretur deprehensum, nemo ideo bibisse crederetur, quia sibi paraverat.

[19] Granted, then, you may arraign me with a new mass of guilt, yet I do not repent of having bent, I do not repent, that spirit and rigidity of perishing; I was dying as though a parricide. father, who complains that I did not drink, even now would be saying: 'he had been caught, he could not deny it.' I should now be thrice disowned, and he would be contending that I had not dared to return to my judges. It is well that I poured it out thus, as if life had pleased again; the poison, which seemed to have been detected, no one on that account would be believed to have drunk, because he had prepared it for himself.

dic nunc: 'non fui passurus, si bibere voluisses.' deinde hoc sic probas, ut me hodieque coneris occidere? non eras passurus? quando, per fidem, inicis manus?

say now: 'I was not going to suffer it, if you had wished to drink.' then do you thus prove this, that even today you try to kill me? were you not going to suffer it? when, by your good faith, do you lay hands on me?

potuit eadem, potuit peragi brevitate, qua iusseras. non eras passurus? deinde non timuisti, ne mihi animum pereundi vel hoc faceret, quod putabam me iuberi?

It could have been the same; it could have been carried through with the brevity with which you had ordered. You were not going to allow it? Then did you not fear that even this—that I thought I was being ordered—would give me the resolve to perish?

facinus est, si morior, ut postea quaeratur, an volueris occidere. tu licet invidiam vocis illius alterius mentis simulatione defendas, occisuri tamen fuit ipsum experimentum, nec interest rigoris, quaedam patiaris an temptes. numquam movebit patrem filius hoc, quod moritur, quem non movit hoc, quod paratus est mori.

It is a crime, if I die, that afterward it should be inquired whether you wished to kill. Though you may defend the odium of that utterance by a simulation of another mind, nevertheless the very experiment was that of one about to kill, and, in rigor, it makes no difference whether you allow certain things or attempt them. A son will never move a father by this, that he dies, whom this did not move, that he was prepared to die.

Quid nunc faciam, iudices, pertinacissimo rigori? in quod me conponam patientiae genus? videtis hominem, quem nullus animi mei status mutat, quem constantia nostra, quem offendit infirmitas.

What am I now to do, judges, in the face of the most pertinacious rigor? into what kind of patience am I to compose myself? you see a man whom no status of my mind changes, whom our constancy offends, whom infirmity offends.

vivere volo; proturbat, expellit. mori conor; interpellat, exagitat. iam fortassis aliquid, si nobis hodieque clementia vestra succurrerit, paravit, invenit.

I want to live; he drives me off, expels me. I try to die; he interrupts, harasses me. Perhaps already he has prepared, has devised something, if your clemency should come to our aid even today.

qui finis, quis exitus incredibilium malorum? de filio absoluto fecit, ut mori mallet, de moriente, ut viveret.

what end, what outcome of incredible evils? out of the absolved son he made one who would rather die; out of the dying man, one who would live.

[20] Vos vero, sanctissimi viri, quo iam ambitu, quibus possim convenire precibus? ille vester infelix, ille vester absolutus flere vetitus est, non habet gratiam suam totiens genua complecti et ad fatigatam misericordiam novi discriminis pondus attulimus. o mors semper imperata miseris, negata cupientibus, quando succurres?

[20] But you, most holy men, by what approach now, with what prayers can I meet you? that unhappy man of yours, that acquitted man of yours has been forbidden to weep; he does not have his grace to clasp the knees so often, and to mercy wearied we have brought the weight of a new crisis. O death, ever commanded to the wretched, denied to those desiring it, when will you succor?

me infelicem, perdidi venenum! sed quatenus aliquid, pater, expectationi tuae repromisi, nolo desperes. fruere quin immo ante suprema, ante exitum meum hac voce: vicisti.

Unhappy me, I have lost the poison! But since, father, inasmuch as I have promised something to your expectation, I do not want you to despair. Enjoy, nay rather, before the last things, before my exit, this word: you have conquered.

nescio quidem, quod rursus eligam obitus genus, an placeat reparare virus infelix, sed praedico, testor: quaecumque sederit ratio leti, miserere, ne iubeas, miserere, ne cogas. facilius me occid[er]ent gemitus tui, lacrimae tuae. et, ne mihi pute[ti]s illam secreti nostri excidisse vocem, venenum quidem te iubente bibere non potui, quandoque tamen hoc occidet, quod bibere iussisti.

I do not indeed know what kind of death I should choose again, whether it may please to renew the ill-fated poison; but I declare, I testify: whatever plan of death shall be settled, have mercy—do not order it; have mercy—do not compel it. Your groans, your tears would more easily kill me. And do not think that that word of our secret has slipped from me: I could not drink the poison at your bidding; yet someday this will kill me, that which you ordered to be drunk.