Quintilian: DECLAMATIONES MAIORES

Malae tractationis sit actio. Speciosum filium infamem, tamquam incestum cum matre committeret, in secreta domus parte pater torsit et occidit in tormentis. interrogat illum mater, quid ex iuvene compererit; nolentem dicere malae tractationis accusat.

Let an action for maltreatment lie. A father tortured a handsome son of ill repute, as though he were committing incest with his mother, in a secret part of the house, and killed him under torture. The mother questions him as to what he discovered from the youth; when he is unwilling to speak, she accuses him of maltreatment.

[1] Debebatur quidem tristissimae orbitatis misero pudori, ut iam taceremus omnes, et post tam prodigiosas rerum sermonumque novitates oportuerat hoc esse novissimum de malis infelicissimae domus, quod occidi filium pater; sed quoniam mulier inmodici semper adfectus super cuncta, quae vel passus sum paulo ante vel feci, reatus quoque me dolore concussit, veni petiturus a vobis, ne me scientem silentium contentioni praestare credatis; non quia occidi filium, taceo, sed occisus est, ut tacerem. utinam, iudices, negare possem, quod occidi, utinam totum miserae necessitatis ordinem fas esset intra pectoris huius premere secretum! miratur hanc aliquis patientiam meam?

[1] It was indeed owed to the wretched modesty of most sorrowful bereavement, that we should now all be silent, and after such prodigious novelties of things and of speeches it ought to have been the last of the ills of this most unlucky house, that a father killed his son; but since the woman, of ever immoderate passion, over and above all that I a little before either suffered or did, has also shaken me with the grief of an indictment, I have come to ask of you that you not believe that I, knowingly, am furnishing a silence to the contention; not because I killed my son do I keep silence, but he was killed, in order that I might be silent. Would that I could deny, judges, that I killed him; would that it were lawful to press within the secret of this breast the whole order of wretched necessity! Does anyone marvel at this patience of mine?

ardor ille, qui me modo inpegit in filium, ipsa sui immanitate consumptus est. quicquid erumpere posset in proclamationem, parricidio peractum est, in orbitate conticuit. non habeo adfectum, nisi quo cuncta tantum patiar, audiam, feram.

That ardor, which just now drove me against my son, has been consumed by its own immanity. Whatever could burst forth into proclamation was brought to completion in the parricide; in bereavement it fell silent. I have no affect, except that by which I merely suffer, listen, and bear all things.

utrumque de filio fieri non potest, ut et occiderim et fatear, cur meruerit occidi.

Both things cannot be done regarding my son: that I have killed him and that I confess why he merited to be killed.

Quapropter, iudices, satis admirari, satis stupere non possum, quod mulier, cuius praeter optimam sane conscientiam sexus quoque maiorem malis nostris pudorem praestare debebat, tacere non potest silentium meum.

Wherefore, judges, I cannot admire enough, cannot be enough astounded, that a woman who, besides a truly excellent conscience, ought also, by her sex, to have exhibited a greater modesty amid our ills, cannot keep silence about my silence.

[2] novo quin immo fabulosoque secum inpatientiae genere dissentit: queritur de populo, quod loquatur, de patre, quod taceat, nec contenta confessione mariti nihil se dissimulare, nihil scire reatus auctoritate testantis, mavult de silentio meo facere secretum. orbitatis istud amentia sit an innocentia, perditus dolor viderit; ipsius animus potest scire, quid filius meus dixerit, quae me putat habere, quod dicam.

[2] Nay rather, she is at variance with herself by a new, indeed fabulous kind of impatience: she complains of the people, that they speak; of the father, that he is silent; and, not content with the confession of her husband, testifying with the authority of his guilt that she dissimulates nothing, knows nothing, she prefers to make a secret out of my silence. Whether this be the madness of bereavement or innocence, let ruined grief determine; her own mind can know what my son said, the things which she thinks I have that I might say.

Fidem igitur vestram, iudices, ne vos orbitatis miseratione confundat sola mater, neve maximae calamitatis ibi tantum putetis resedisse sensum, unde vos lacrimae gemitusque conveniunt. mei magis debetis in uxoris conparatione misereri, qui filium et perdidi et occidi: ego sum infelicior ex parentibus duobus, qui quicquid, iudices, ista conplorat, et patior et feci. felicem ignoratione conscientiam matris, quae sufficit interrogare!

Therefore, your good faith, judges, let not the mother alone confound you by pity for bereavement, nor think that the sense of the greatest calamity has settled only there, whence tears and groans meet you. You ought rather to pity me in comparison with my wife, I who both lost and killed my son: I am the more unfortunate of the two parents, I who, judges, whatever that woman bewails, both suffer and did. Happy in ignorance is the mother’s conscience, which suffices to ask!

maior me inpatientia, maior urit adfectus. cur filium occiderim, indicare non possum, nec paenitet, quod occidi.

A greater impatience, a greater passion burns me. Why I killed my son, I cannot indicate, nor do I repent that I killed him.

Infelix senectus, misera patientia, sic quoque quam multa dicenda sunt! fuimus quondam, iudices, fuimus felicissimi parentes, cum adhuc rudis unici nobis blandiretur infantia, duravitque domus tota prosperitas, quamdiu pariter fruebamur, pariter dileximus, quamdiu civitas de nobis hoc solum poterat loqui, filium nos habere formosum. ut vero in eam adolevit aetatem, in qua corporalibus bonis iuventus insolenter exultat, superbus atque adrogans in nullum vitae genus, non in privatos, non in publicos actus florentem duxit aetatem.

Unhappy old age, wretched patience, even so how many things must be said! We once were, judges, we were most felicitous parents, when the still raw infancy of our only child was coaxing us, and the prosperity of the whole household endured, so long as we together enjoyed, together cherished, so long as the civitas could speak this only about us, that we had a handsome son. But when he truly grew up into that age in which youth insolently exults in corporal goods, proud and arrogant, he directed his flourishing season into no kind of life—neither into private nor into public acts.

[3] dii inmortales, quantus qualisque circa iuvenem rumor ingemuit! omnium maledictis succlamatus, omnium denotatione damnatus est, donec et ipse consensum circa se publici doloris agnosceret. inde rarus in publico, et tamquam patris occursus, tamquam civitatis ora vitaret.

[3] Immortal gods, how great and of what sort a rumor groaned around the youth! Cried down with the maledictions of all, condemned by the denunciation of all, until he himself recognized the consensus of public grief around himself. Thenceforth seldom in public, and he avoided—as he would the encounter of his father—the faces of the city.

non est leve concipere verbis, in quantam civitatis execrationem, in quantam culpam iuvenis inciderit: dictus est occidere posse patrem, dictus est dignus, quem posset etiam pater occidere. quid facerem, iudices, infelicissimus senex? iamiam non evitabat fama nec patrem, iam meis auribus nemo parcebat.

it is no light thing to conceive in words into how great the city's execration, into how great a culpability the youth fell: he was said to be able to kill his father; he was said to be worthy, whom even his father could kill. What was I to do, judges, a most unfortunate old man? By now he no longer shunned the talk nor his father; already no one spared my ears.

interrogare non audebam, dissimulare non poteram. fallitur, quisquis me putat quicquam fecisse consilio: impetus ac temporis ipsius nescio quis ardor explicuit. praeparari filio tormenta non possunt.

I did not dare to interrogate, I could not dissimulate. He is mistaken, whoever thinks that I did anything by counsel: an impetus and some I-know-not-what ardor of the time itself worked it out. Torments cannot be prepared for my son.

Est in miseris penatibus pars remota, seposita, profunda tenebris, tristis accessu, omnibus apta flagitiis, et in qua audeat facere facinus et pater. illo, fateor, dum me variae cogitationes per totius domus spatia circumagunt, quantum intellegere licuit, inprovisus adveni. et ille quidem ad conspectum meum tamquam deprehensus obstipuit refugitque trepidus, puto, ne quaererem causam.

Within my wretched household there is a part remote, sequestered, profound in darkness, grim in approach, apt for all flagitious deeds, and in which even a father would dare to perpetrate a crime. Thither, I confess, while various thoughts were carrying me around through the spaces of the whole house, so far as it was permitted me to understand, I arrived unforeseen. And he indeed, at my sight, as though apprehended, stood stupefied and shrank back in trepidation, I think, lest I inquire the cause.

inrumpo festinanter, avide, sine liberto, sine servulo, sicut me deprehenderat temporis illius fatum, manibus, ictibus et quaecumque ex obviis dolor in telorum transtulerat usus, ultra vires senectutis adgressus; ignes ex proximo raptos, verbera, quae casus obtulerat, non diviso dolore, non per partes nec per intervalla suspenso, sed semel, sed pariter invado, pars secreti fuit, ut ipse torquerem.

I burst in hastily, avidly, without a freedman, without a servant-boy, just as the fate of that moment had caught me, with my hands, with blows, and with whatever from what was at hand grief had turned, by use, into weapons, having set upon him beyond the powers of old age; firebrands snatched from nearby, lashes which chance had offered, I assail not with pain divided, not in parts nor with pauses interposed, but at once, but all together; it was part of the secrecy that I myself should do the torturing.

[4] dii inmortales, quae contumacia, quae fuit illa patientia, cum domi torqueretur a patre, non invocare matrem! non repugnavit iuvenis, non opposuit manus, nullum imploravit auxilium; mersis tantum deiectisque luminibus, tamquam numquam flagella sustinuisset, tamquam meis torqueretur oculis, omnis ictus excepit in faciem; verberibus, ignibus laudatos vultus, velut illis irasceretur, opposuit. reddo testimonium novissimum pudori: cum iam mori vellet, occisus est.

[4] Immortal gods, what contumacy, what was that patience, that, while he was being tortured at home by his father, he did not invoke his mother! The youth did not resist, did not set his hands in opposition, implored no aid; with his eyes only plunged and cast down, as if he had never sustained lashes, as if he were being tortured before my eyes, he received every blow upon his face; to lashes and to fires he put forward his lauded countenance, as though he were angry at it. I render the last testimony to modesty: when he already wished to die, he was slain.

Laudo, iudices, patientiam matris: cum et ipsa semper plurimum esset domi, et ab illo secreto fortasse non longe, intervenire noluit, interpellare non ausa est. sed et manibus meis gratulor, quod non propinquus aliquis, non amicus inrupit; occidissem, quisquis me tunc ausus fuisset interrogare pro filio. sepelivi tamen lacera membra, funus indulsi, ossa collegi.

I praise, judges, the patience of the mother: since she herself too was always very much at home, and perhaps not far from that secret place, she did not wish to intervene, she did not dare to interpellate. But I also congratulate my hands, that no relative, no friend burst in; I would have killed whoever then had dared to ask me on behalf of the son. Yet I buried the torn limbs, I granted a funeral, I gathered the bones.

non iniecit uxor lectulo manum, non inter exequias planctibus elisisque uberibus mihi fecit invidiam. unde in hanc inpatientiam prorupit, exiluit? domi me nihil interrogavit.

the wife did not lay a hand upon the bier, nor during the obsequies did she, with lamentations and with breasts bruised, make me the object of ill-will. from where did she burst forth, leap out into this impatience? at home she asked me nothing.

Possum iam, mater infelix, coram liberis ac parentibus, possum audientibus diis hominibusque clamare: et ego amavi filium meum, non osculis, non infirmitate, non lacrimis, sed viribus, dolore, patientia. unicum, quem, si acie clausisset hostis, vicaria morte servassem, si subitum cinxisset incendium, extulissem relicta meorum parte membrorum, eripui malignitati, abstuli famae. habeo, quod inputem tibi, natura, pietas: rem difficillimam feci, quod non me potius occidi.

I can now, a wretched mother, before my children and parents, I can, with gods and men listening, cry aloud: I too loved my son, not with kisses, not with infirmity, not with tears, but with strength, with pain, with patience. My only one, whom, if the enemy had shut him in the battle-line, I would have saved by a vicarious death, if a sudden conflagration had surrounded him, I would have carried out, leaving behind a part of my own limbs, I snatched from malignity, I took away from fame. I have something to impute to you, Nature—piety: I did a most difficult thing, that I did not kill myself instead.

[5] Malae tractationis accusat. adeone, uxor, tibi parum videor dedisse poenarum post parricidium, ut labores, ne lucrifaciat pater, quod occidit filium suum? non pudet ergo, si irasceris parricidae?

[5] He accuses me of ill-treatment. Is it to such a point, wife, that I seem to you to have imposed too few penalties after the parricide, that you toil lest the father profit by the fact that he killed his son? Are you then not ashamed, if you are angry at a parricide?

quid tibi cum lege, quam propter alios minores accepistis adfectus? querelas habet ista, non gemitus, et matre seposita solam conplorat uxorem.

What have you to do with a law, you who have assumed an affection on account of other minors? That has complaints, not groans, and, with the mother set aside, he bewails the wife alone.

Rursus ad populum vocas miserum pudorem, materiam novi rumoris accendis; perdidi ergo rationem secreti mei. sic omnia feceram, ne quid aut quaeri posset aut dici. iam vero quid inpudentius, quid indignius quam cum sibi de liberis credunt licere tantundem, et aequum ius patris ac matris esse contendunt, quasi nesciant nobis arbitrium vitae necisque commissum!

Again you call my wretched modesty before the people; you kindle the material of a new rumor; I have therefore lost the plan of my secrecy. Thus I had done everything, so that nothing could either be inquired into or said. And now indeed, what is more impudent, what more unworthy, than when they believe just the same license is permitted to themselves regarding the children, and contend that the equal right of father and mother exists, as if they did not know that to us the discretion of life and death has been entrusted!

non est privilegium filium occidere, cum fieri potest, nec quisquam tantum ideo fecit, quia liceret. viscera unici lacerare suffeci; ignosce. si non potes, mihi crede: nemo filium suum occidit odio; non erit tanti iuvenis invisus.

it is no privilege to kill a son, even when it can be done, nor has anyone ever done so for that reason alone, because it was licit. I was capable of lacerating the entrails of my only child; forgive. If you cannot, believe me: no one kills his son out of hatred; an odious youth will not be worth so much.

illud est in patribus usque ad parricidium terribile, quod amant, quod succurrunt, quod sibi videntur aliter non posse misereri. non est, quod vos ab aestimatione malorum meorum mollior sexus abducat; maioris adfectus est filium occidere quam vindicare. desine igitur me, mulier, fatigare interrogationibus tuis.

This is the terrible thing in fathers—even unto parricide—that they love, that they succor, that they seem to themselves to be unable to pity in any other way. There is no reason for the softer sex to draw you away from an estimation of my misfortunes; it is of greater affection to kill a son than to punish him. Therefore cease, woman, to wear me out with your interrogations.

ita tibi non videtur omnia respondere pro filio, qui dicit 'occidi'? et licet comprimantur exclamationes, ora claudantur, nihil negat, qui hoc fatetur. atquin summorum facinorum ipsa inmanitas innocentia est.filium pater non demens, non insanus occidi -- hominem extra sensus adfectusque positum, quisquis non miseretur! -- occidi[t].

So does it not seem to you that he answers everything on behalf of the son who says ‘I killed’? And even if exclamations are compressed, mouths are closed, he denies nothing who confesses this. And yet the very monstrosity of the highest crimes is innocence. A father—not demented, not insane—killed his son—whoever does not pity a man placed outside sense and affections!—he kille[d].

[6] vides senem sanguine suo fluentem, laceratis exustisque illis sanctioribus carioribusque visceribus super exanimis unici corpus cruentis manibus iacentem; horre[o] cadaver et velut corpora, quae caelestis exanimavit ignis, adire propius time[o]. ad quaedam facinora sufficit claudere oculos, vultus avertere, tacere, mirari et incredibilis calamitates relinquere suis causis. miserere, ne quid amplius quaeras, ne quid interroges. dicturum me putas: 'parce saeculo, parce marito, parce patri'? tu vero parce illi, qui occisus est.

[6] you see an old man streaming with his own blood, with those more sacred and dearer viscera torn and burned, lying with bloody hands over the lifeless body of his only son; I shudder at the corpse and, like at bodies which a celestial fire has slain, I fear to approach nearer. For certain crimes it suffices to close the eyes, to turn away the face, to be silent, to marvel, and to leave unbelievable calamities to their causes. Take pity: do not seek anything further, do not inquire anything. Do you think I am going to say: “spare the age, spare the husband, spare the father”? Nay rather, you spare him who has been slain.

Novum, iudices, uxoris in marito crimen audite: silentium est, de quo queritur. solebat indignatio vestra convicia nostra ferre non posse, et matronalis indignatio dicere videbatur: 'non parcis erga me, marite, verbis, nullam habet nostri tuus sermo reverentiam; facile prorumpis in opprobria, facile quodlibet obicis, exclamas, et, dum nimium libertati vocis indulges, potest populus aliquem de me facere rumorem.' tu, mulier, obicis mihi rem, quae nulli umquam crimini fuit, solam in nostris moribus innocentiam, voce<m> repressam [taciturnitas]. vide, cur manus, cur verba peccare videantur: illis infamamus, his torquemus, occidimus. vis scire, quam non possis queri de silentio meo?

New, judges, hear the wife’s charge against her husband: it is silence, of which she complains. Your indignation used to be that you could not endure our revilings, and matronal indignation seemed to say: 'you do not spare me, husband, in words; your speech has no reverence for me; you easily burst forth into opprobria, you easily throw anything in my teeth, you shout, and, while you indulge too much license of voice, the people can make some rumor about me.' You, woman, allege against me a thing which was never any crime to anyone, the sole innocence in our customs, a voice repressed [taciturnity]. See why hands, why words seem to sin: with words we defame, with hands we rack, we kill. Do you wish to know how you cannot complain of my silence?

felicissima fueras, si idem fecissemus omnes.

you would have been most felicitous, if we had all done the same.

Finge me paulisper sepositis silentii causis hoc tantum respondere: non prodo secretum.

Imagine me for a little while, with the causes of my silence set aside, to respond only this: I do not betray a secret.

[7] ex omnibus, iudices, quibus humana pectora seriis gravibusque complentur adfectibus, nullam difficiliorem quam silentii credo virtutem, adeoque promptissimo sermone facile delinquimus, ut constantiam tacendi neque in aliis ferre possimus. crimen hoc in me mulier vocat, quod in priscis illis morum mentiumque rectoribus fuit prima sapientia, quod quosdam totius vitae pertulisse patientia[m] magis illa seria miratur antiquitas, quam quod temporum vices, siderum cursus et profunda naturae velut conscia ratione sanxerunt. quae, per fidem, inpotentia est effringere rigens sacra dissimulatione pectus, evolvere animum, quem supra sua secreta compositum non laetitia, non dolor, non necessitas, non fortuita laxaverint!

[7] Among all the affections, judges, with which human hearts are filled, serious and weighty, I believe no virtue more difficult than that of silence; and so, with speech most prompt, we easily transgress, such that we cannot even bear in others the constancy of keeping silence. For this crime the woman arraigns me—what, in those ancient rulers of morals and of minds, was prime wisdom; that certain men carried it through the whole of life by patience—this the sober antiquity admires more than that they sanctioned, as though by conscious reason, the vicissitudes of times, the courses of the stars, and the profound things of nature. What impotence, by my faith, it is, to burst open a breast rigid with sacred dissimulation, to unroll a mind which, poised above its own secrets, neither joy, nor grief, nor necessity, nor fortuitous events have relaxed!

quisquis de tacente queritur, multo minus ferre poterit loquentem. nec adeo coniugali societate cuncta miscentur, ut nihil sibi adversus hanc concordiam proprium relinquat animus. est aliquis etiam a sanguine suo secretus adfectus genusque reverentiae, ut tacenda minime velis scire carissimos, quaedam non possis verberibus, eculeis eruere, et plerosque videas fortiter supra sua secreta morientis.

Whoever complains of a silent person will be far less able to endure a speaking one. Nor are all things so commingled by conjugal society that the mind leaves to itself nothing proper in the face of this concord. There is also some affection separated even from one’s own blood and a kind of reverence, such that you would by no means wish your dearest to know things that must be kept silent; certain things you cannot wrench out by beatings and by racks; and you may see very many dying bravely with their own secrets kept intact.

agedum, si videtur, utrumque sexum, omnem condicionem, omnem scrutemur aetatem: nullum sine conscientia pectus, nulla vita sine causis tacendi. si te interrogaret omnia maritus, haberes aliquid et tu, quod non fatereris. et quanto silentium gravius est in sene, verecundius in marito, sanctius in patre!

Come then, if it seems good, let us scrutinize both sexes, every condition, every age: no breast without conscience, no life without causes for keeping silence. If your husband were to interrogate you about everything, you too would have something that you would not confess. And how much more grave is silence in an old man, more modest in a husband, more sacred in a father!

[8] pudeat nos, mulier, infirmitatis: vicit nos modo iuvenis ille constantia; mori voluit, ut taceremus.

[8] let us be ashamed, woman, of infirmity: that young man has just conquered us by his constancy; he wished to die, that we might be silent.

Vides, mulier, quibus in<ter>pretationibus praestes tuum dolorem? diceris ideo me interrogare, quia scias omnia me potius pati malle quam loqui. quis enim in hac civitate non novit taciturnitatis meae rigorem, quis ignorat, qua cuncta soleam ferre patientia?

You see, woman, with what interpretations you present your grief? It will be said that for this reason you interrogate me, because you know I would prefer to endure all things rather than speak. For who in this city does not know the rigor of my taciturnity, who is ignorant with what patience I am wont to bear everything?

ne occisurus quidem suspiria gemitusque praemisi, nihil feci, unde erupturum quandoque per orbitatem patris animum aut tu praescio timore sentires aut ipse periturus. hanc nunc me iactare constantiam putas, quod nihil in publico, nihil in ullo mihi permisi proclamare conventu? ego vero non sum questus de iuvene nec tibi, nec captavi, ut illum mecum et mater odisset.

Not even when about to kill did I send beforehand sighs and groans; I did nothing from which you, with prescient fear, might sense that someday a father’s spirit, through orbity, would burst forth, or that I myself was doomed. Do you think I am now vaunting this constancy, because I allowed myself to proclaim nothing in public, nothing in any convocation? I for my part have not complained about the youth, not even to you, nor did I angle that his mother too should hate him together with me.

frustra te putas extorquere accusatione posse, quod mihi non ipsae calamitates, non dolor, non meditatio orbitatis expressit. Uras licet, durabo, perferam. passus sum iam, quod erat difficilius: occidi.

In vain you suppose you can extort by accusation what not the calamities themselves, nor pain, nor the meditation of bereavement has wrung from me. Burn if you will; I shall harden, I shall endure. I have already suffered what was more difficult: I have been slain.

'Torsit,' inquit, 'filium meum.' breviter, iudices, ratio reddatur: infamem; quid refert, an innocentem, si aliud omnibus liquet? iuvenem cunctis pignoribus invisum, omnibus adfectibus gravem maligni fecere sermones. quid agimus, anime, quemadmodum effugimus, evadimus?

'He tortured,' he says, 'my son.' briefly, judges, let an account be rendered: infamous; what does it matter, whether innocent, if something else is evident to all? malignant talk made the youth odious to all his pledges, grievous to all affections. what are we to do, my soul, how do we escape, how do we evade?

in tanta infamia nihil facere credentis est. vis me circumire singulos, reclamare populo, cum rumore rixari? tuae fortassis infirmitati conveniat negare; me tantum fortior adsertio unici decet: eripiendus est non contentione verborum, sed ut civitas stupeat, ut erubescat.

in such great infamy, to do nothing is to be a believer. do you want me to go around to individuals, cry out to the people, wrangle with the uproar? perhaps denial suits your infirmity; for me, a so much stronger vindication of my only son is befitting: he must be snatched away not by a contention of words, but so that the city is stupefied, so that it blushes.

[9] torquere me filium putas? invidiam facio populo: videor mihi illis verberibus lacerare famam, illis ignibus increpare rumorem. quaestio de infami filio unam ratione habet, ut probes innocentem.

[9] Do you think I am putting my son to the rack? I bring odium upon the people: I seem to myself with those lashes to lacerate the slander, with those fires to chide the rumor. An inquest concerning an infamous son has one rationale, that you prove him innocent.

Dii mala prohibeant, ut noveris illum dolorem, quo potest torquere filium pater! nihil est infelicius homine, cui de unico suo mors sola non sufficit. iuvenem, in cuius animo perdiderant nomina nostra respectum, quem cotidie necesse habebamus excusare rumori, qui inter nos formosum malebat agere quam filium, verberibus ignibusque consumpsi.

May the gods forbid that you come to know that pain with which a father can torture his son! Nothing is more unfortunate than the man for whom, in the case of his only child, death alone does not suffice. The youth, in whose mind our names had lost respect, whom we were compelled every day to excuse to rumor, who among us preferred to play the handsome one rather than the son, I consumed with blows and with fires.

vis scire, quanta tormentorum ratio fuerit? debuit etiam tortus occidi.

Do you wish to know what rationale of the torments there was? He ought even, when tortured, to have been killed.

Si tamen utique, mater, vis scire causas, breviter audi. prospiciebam miser in grande quandoque facinus prorupturum, quod otio vitam, quod desidem domi perdebat aetatem. non peregrinationibus excolere mentem, non experiri militiam, non temptare maria, non rura colere, non administrare rem publicam, non ducere volebat uxorem.

If, however, mother, you indeed wish to know the causes, listen briefly. I, wretched, was foreseeing that at some point a great crime would burst forth, because he was wasting his life in leisure, because, idle at home, he was squandering his span. He was unwilling to cultivate his mind by peregrinations, not to experience military service, not to tempt the seas, not to till the fields, not to administer the republic, not to take a wife.

praeterea traxerat ex frequentibus castigationibus taedium patris, et in execrationem mei conscientia, quia non emendabatur, exarserat. timebat occursus, non audebat adire conloquia; oscula convictusque fugiebat. breviter perditissimae mentis definienda mensura est: oderat me filius et timebat.

Moreover, from frequent castigations he had drawn a weariness of his father, and his conscience, because he was not being amended, had blazed into an execration of me. He feared encounters, he did not dare to approach colloquies; he fled kisses and fellowship. Briefly, the measure of a most ruined mind is to be defined: my son hated me and feared me.

Filium igitur totius civitatis existimatione damnatum, quem adhuc vivere mirabantur homines, torsisse me putatis? ego vero occidi tarde, diu. quaestionem illud vocas?

Therefore, a son condemned in the estimation of the whole city, whom men marveled was still alive, do you think I tortured him? I indeed killed slowly, for a long time. Do you call that an inquisition?

poena, supplicium et malorum meorum exitus fuit. nulla ratio est interrogandi hominem, cui non est fas nisi negare. quanta tamen mihi fuit et in quaestione moderatio!

It was a penalty, an execution, and the exit of my evils. There is no rationale for interrogating a man who by right may do nothing except deny. How great, however, was my moderation even in the questioning!

[10] non enim praecipiti raptus inpulsu exsilui repente, subito, nec captus dolore caeco inpatientiae meae velox vulnus inflixi. non potest non ratione occidi filius, cum ante torquetur. dedi moras, spatium, tempus indulsi.

[10] for I did not, snatched by a precipitous impulse, leap forth suddenly, all at once, nor, seized by blind pain, did I, swift in my impatience, inflict a wound. the son cannot but be slain with reason, since beforehand he is tortured. I granted delays, a span, I indulged time.

vides, quantam hinc malignitatibus potuerim praestare materiam: si in illo secreto gladio tantum, si vulneribus egissem, exitum fecerat iuvenis deprehensi.

you see how much material for malignities I could have furnished from this: if, in that secrecy, I had used only the sword, if I had proceeded by wounds, I would have made an end of the youth who was caught.

Non est igitur, mulier, quod mihi facias duplicatae questionis invidiam, id est, quod torsi et occidi. sola est huius necessitatis ratio de morte. illud est parricidium, filium torquere victurum.

Therefore, woman, there is no reason for you to fasten upon me the ill-will of a doubled inquisition, that is, that I tortured and killed. The sole rationale of this necessity is about death. That is parricide, to torture a son destined to live.

putas iuvenem vivere potuisse, cui iam non poterat nisi morte succurri? quem contra ma<li>gnos sermones adserere coeperam, non reddidi rursus infamiae, neque in oculos et ora vulgi de secreto patris emisi. providentia[m] mea[m] tibi quoque, mater, ne in hunc interrogetur, eripui.

Do you think the youth could have been able to live, for whom now no succor could be given except by death? The one whom I had begun to defend against malignant speeches, I did not hand back again to infamy, nor did I send him out of the father’s secret place into the eyes and mouths of the crowd. By my providence I have also rescued you, mother, lest inquiry be made into him.

ille vero non fuit post tormenta laturus vitae pudorem, ut interrogaretur a singulis, ut negaret. verum, mulier, adfectibus tuis renuntiandum est: ad totius domus nostrae pertinere innocentiam credidi, ne se ipse potius occideret.

he indeed would not, after the torments, have borne the shame of life, to be interrogated by individuals, to deny. but, woman, your affections must be renounced: I believed that the innocence of our whole house was at stake, lest he rather kill himself.

Sentit, iudices, mulier ad ius querelae suae nec quod torserim, nec quod occiderim pertinere, itaque quaerit, quid mihi dixerit ille, de quo nescit, an dixerit. quid ais, mater inpatiens? ita in morte filii tui nihil aliud ad te pertinet, quam quid locutus sit, ita, si respondero, remittis parricidium, tormenta non obicis?

She perceives, judges, that neither the fact that I tortured nor that I killed pertains to the right of her complaint, and so she asks what that man said to me, about whom she does not know whether he said anything. What say you, impatient mother? So, in the death of your son nothing else pertains to you except what he spoke—so, if I answer, you remit parricide, you do not object the tortures?

o inconsultam muliebrem semper amentiam! quid iuvenis in tormentis dixerit, tamquam ignoret, interrogat; nihil comperisse non credit, tamquam sciat, quid dixerit!

O ever ill-considered womanly madness! She asks what the youth said under torments, as though she were ignorant; she does not credit that she has discovered nothing, as though she knew what he said!

[11] Fidem communis sanguinis, fidem communium malorum! ne parricidii me velis agitare secretum, ne calamitatibus nostris gravem facias innocentiam tuam! viderit, quid meruerit, iuvenis ille; ego iam possum suprema revereri et post exitum unici revertor in patrem.

[11] By the faith of our common blood, by the faith of our common misfortunes! Do not wish me to agitate the secret of parricide; do not make your innocence burdensome to our calamities! Let that young man see what he has deserved; I now can revere the last rites, and after the demise of my only one I return to being a father.

maior defunctis liberis praestanda reverentia est, nec quicquam minus convenit adfectibus patris, quam si insultare videatur occiso. in gratiam me cum filio reduxit orbitas, iram nostram mors severa conposuit. quin immo recogitanti mihi totum secreti illius ordinem subit tacita miseratio.

Greater reverence is to be rendered to deceased children, nor does anything less befit a father’s affections than that he seem to insult the slain. Bereavement has brought me back into favor with my son; stern death has composed our anger. Nay rather, as I reconsider the whole order of that secret, a silent commiseration comes over me.

quantam ego debeam reverentiam filio, quem potui torquere solus, quem potui solus occidere!

how great a reverence I owe my son, whom I alone could torture, whom I alone could kill!

Perseveras, cogis, instas? invicem te, mulier, interrogo, cur, si tanto opere volebas scire, quid interrogarem, quid ille loqueretur, non inruperis in quaestionem, quam nullis ministris, nullis custodibus vallaverat pater. quanto melius, mater, ipsum adisses, quanto fortius interrogasses una, quanto tibi plura dixisset!

Do you persist, do you compel, do you press? In turn I question you, woman: why, if you so greatly wanted to know what I was asking, what he was saying, did you not burst into the interrogation, which the father had surrounded with no attendants, no guards? How much better, mother, you would have gone to him himself, how much more bravely you would have questioned him together, how much more he would have said to you!

quis te, mulier, adfectus abegit, tenuit, exclusit? agnosco verecundiam tuam: timuisti, credo, ne, si in illo secreto fuissemus omnes, occidisse filium diceretur et mater.

what affection, woman, drove you away, held you back, shut you out? I recognize your modesty: you feared, I believe, lest, if we had all been in that seclusion, it would be said that the mother too had killed the son.

Instas tamen et miseri senis ora diducis? puta me hoc solum dicere: ex maximi facinoris colluctatione veniens, quid audierim, nondum scio; totus adhuc sum in parricidio meo, et post mortem unici omnia, quibus laceratus, occisus est, in animum meum tormenta redierunt. est quidem difficile, ut aliquem pati pudorem parricida videatur, verumtamen stupore<m>, amentia<m>; et in silentium orbitate defeci: ablata est mihi omnium verborum fides, omnis sermonis auctoritas, nec habet causam loquendi, cui non potest credi.

And yet you press on and pry open the lips of a wretched old man? Suppose me to say only this: coming from the struggle of a very great crime, what I have heard I do not yet know; I am still wholly in my parricide, and after the death of my only son all the torments by which he was torn, slain, have returned into my mind. It is indeed difficult that a parricide should seem to suffer any shame, nevertheless by stupor<m>, by insanity<m>; and by bereavement I have sunk into silence: the credence of all words has been taken from me, the authority of every discourse, nor has a cause for speaking, he to whom credence cannot be given.

[12] desine, mulier, interrogare; filium, quem occidit pater, nec absolvere nec accusare iam debet.

[12] cease, woman, to interrogate; one ought now neither to absolve nor to accuse the son, whom his father killed.

'Quid,' inquit, 'dixit, cum occideres?' miseram parricidii innocentiam, quod hoc me non potestas, non magistratus, non propinquus aliquis, non amicus, non ille semper loquax populus ac malignus interrogat! quiescitis, tacetis; me infelicem, numquid scitis omnes? puta me, mulier, hoc tibi respondere: non habent incredibilia vocem; quaedam maiora sunt, quam ut illa capiat modus sermonis humani.

'What,' she says, 'did he say, when you were killing him?' Wretched the innocence of parricide, that this no authority, no magistrate, no kinsman, no friend, not that ever-loquacious and malign populace asks me! You keep quiet, you are silent; wretched me—do you all perhaps know? Suppose me, woman, to answer this to you: the unbelievable have no voice; certain things are greater than that the measure of human speech can grasp them.

tu vero crede nihil aliud fuisse quam furorem, insanisse me puta. videbam quae non fiebant, audiebam, quae nemo dicebat. hoc solum non insanientis habui, quod tacebam.

But do you indeed believe it was nothing other than frenzy; suppose that I was insane. I was seeing things that were not happening; I was hearing things that no one was saying. This alone I had of one not insane: that I kept silent.

finge me respondere: nihil dixit, nihil locutus est. non credis? atquin multo minus creditura quid dixerit.

imagine me answering: he said nothing, he spoke nothing. do you not believe it? but indeed you will be much less likely to believe what he said.

Accipe, mulier, brevem veramque rationem, cur in quaestione iuvenis occisus est: torquebam nec interrogabam. si qua ad aures tuas ab illa quamvis remota domus parte perlata vox est, meus gemitus fuit, meorum viscerum dolor. quaeris, cur nihil dixerit?

Receive, woman, a brief and true rationale, why in the interrogation the young man was slain: I was torturing and I was not interrogating. If any voice has been borne to your ears from that part of the house, however remote, it was my groan, the pain of my viscera. You ask, why he said nothing?

quia non habuit. quod scire vellem, quod audire deberem. nihil aliud quaestio illa captavit quam silentium, quod praestare vita non poterat.

because he did not have it. that which I would wish to know, that which I ought to hear. that inquisition captured nothing else than silence, which life could not provide.

quisquis in tormentis occiditur, ideo tortus est, ut occideretur. an tu quaestionem illam fuisse credis, qualis vernilibus corporibus adhibetur? ideo enim eculeos movebam artifex senex, ten<d>ebam fidiculas ratione saevitiae, ut leviter sedibus suis remota compago per singulos artus membra laxaret.

Whoever is slain under torments is tortured for this reason: in order that he be slain. Or do you believe that that inquisition was the kind applied to servile bodies? For this reason I, an old artificer, was setting the racks in motion; I was stretching the fidiculae-cords by a method of savagery, so that the framework, slightly displaced from its sockets, would loosen the limbs joint by joint.

consumptus est spiritus silentio sui, et verbera ignesque animum pariter vocemque cluserunt. videbatur mihi premere gemitus, tenere suspiria, et sic nihil dixit, tamquam torqueretur ab homine, qui sciret.

his spirit was consumed by his own silence, and blows and fires shut in alike his soul and his voice. it seemed to me that he was suppressing his groans, holding his sighs, and so he said nothing, as though he were being tortured by a man who knew.

[13] miraris hanc in filio contumaciam, in iuvene patientiam? patri torquenti non potest aliter responderi, quam ut mori malit quam confiteri.

[13] Do you marvel at this contumacy in a son, this patience in a youth? To a father who is torturing, it cannot be answered otherwise than that he prefers to die rather than confess.

Quod sufficit igitur, interrogantibus respondeo, mulier: occidi. fallitur, quisquis expectat, ut obiciamus illa communia. ego vero proclamo non luxuriosum, non amore meretricis infamem; nihil ille delinquebat, quomodo liberi solent.

Therefore what suffices, I answer to those questioning: The woman—I killed. He is mistaken, whoever expects that we will throw those commonplaces. I for my part proclaim him not luxurious, not infamous by love of a prostitute; he was committing no delinquency, as children are wont.

monstrum erat inenarrabile, quod nollem deprehendere, quod ferre non possem.

It was an inenarrable monster, which I would not wish to apprehend, which I could not bear.

Miratur aliquis, quod non abdicaverim, nec notissima ultione patrum fuerim tantum expulisse contentus? tuus, mulier, nefarius, tuus inconsultus non permisit adfectus. filium, cui contra severitatem meam ignoscebas.

Does anyone marvel that I did not disown him, nor was I content, with the most notorious vengeance of fathers, merely to have expelled him? It was your, woman, nefarious—your unadvised—affection that did not permit it: for the son, whom you were pardoning contrary to my severity.

quem mecum odisse non poteras, secuta fuisses abdicatum.

whom you were not able to hate along with me, you would have followed him, disowned.

Finge iuvenem dixisse nescioquid; ego audire nihil potui. non enim potestatis alicuius more consederam, nec torquentibus aliis agebam iudicem pater. ego tunc cuncta et passus sum pariter et feci.

Imagine that the youth said I-know-not-what; I could hear nothing. For I had not sat down in the manner of some authority, nor, while others were tormenting, was I, a father, acting the judge. I then both alike endured everything and did it.

non vacabat aures praestare verbis, excipere gemitus, aestimare singultus; avocavit me contentio, dolor, orbitas, parricidium, omnia facta sunt festinatione praecipiti. idem patris adfectus est torquere, ut scias, occidere, ut nescias.

I had no leisure to lend my ears to words, to catch the groans, to estimate the sobs; contention, dolor, bereavement, parricide drew me away—everything was done in precipitate haste. The same paternal affect is to torture, so that you may know; to kill, so that you may not know.

'In meam,' inquit, 'infamiam taces.' ita nunc primum laboras, misera, de fama, et post unici mortem pertinere ad te coepit, quid loquantur homines? scilicet filius inpensus est, ut erubesceres, ut male audires. adeone hoc captanti non erat satis rem totam commisisse rumori?

'Into my infamy,' she says, 'you are silent.' So now for the first time you toil, wretched woman, about fame, and only after the death of your only son has it begun to matter to you what men say? Obviously the son was expended, so that you might blush, so that you might be ill-spoken of. Was it not enough for you, grasping at this, to have committed the whole matter to rumor?

[14] ego vero me famae tuae, mulier, opposui, et inter matrem filiumque medius parricidium feci, unicum occidi, ne quid aliud loquerentur homines. alioquin si hoc capto, quod putas, quousque taceo, in quod tempus differo illam, quam me putas premere, vocem? ecce reatus, iudicium, pronuntio: ego tamen scire me nego.

[14] I indeed opposed myself to your fame, woman, and, standing between mother and son in the middle, I committed parricide—I slew the only one—lest men should say anything else. Otherwise, if I am chasing after this, which you suppose, how long do I keep silent, to what time do I defer that voice which you think I am pressing down? Behold the charge, the judgment, the pronuntio: I nevertheless deny that I know.

egregiam rationem malignitatis: locuturus adversus uxorem feci, ne mihi crederetur!

An egregious plan of malignity: being about to speak against my wife, I contrived it, so that I would not be believed!

Fateor igitur: nihil ad certum indubitatumque perduxi. hoc est quin immo, propter quod ad mortem usque contendi. non explicant tormenta quaestionem, quae occidunt.

Therefore I confess: I have brought nothing to what is certain and indubitable. This is—nay rather—precisely that on account of which I contended even to death. Tortures do not explain the question; they kill.

'Quid,' inquit, 'dixit?' felicem te, misera, si nescis! 'quid dixit?' ita non es contenta conscientia tua? non sufficit, quod non habuit ille, quod negaret, quod fateretur?

'What,' you say, 'did he say?' fortunate are you, wretched woman, if you do not know! 'what did he say?' so you are not content with your conscience? is it not sufficient that he had nothing—either to deny or to confess?

poscis verba quaestionis, cogis, extorques? testor, tu facis, ne possis negare, quod dixero. 'quid dixit?' parasse se parentibus venenum?

you demand the words of the interrogation, you compel, you extort? I testify: you make it so that you cannot deny what I will have said. 'what did he say?' that he had prepared poison for his parents?

negas. proditionis agitasse sermones? negas.

You deny it. To have agitated discussions of treason? You deny it.

tyrannidis inisse consilium? negas, et quicquid dixero, negabis. o bonae conscientiae incauta simplicitas!

to have entered upon a counsel of tyranny? you deny it, and whatever I will have said, you will deny. O incautious simplicity of a good conscience!

ita non times, ne coactus loqui multa fingam, multa componam? si potes scire, mulier, an mentiar, scis, quid dixerit. 'quid dixit?' nihil.

so you do not fear, lest, compelled to speak, I may fabricate many things, compose many things? if you can know, woman, whether I lie, you know what he said. 'what did he say?' nothing.

'quid dixit?' omnia: maledixit saeculo, fecit temporibus invidiam, detestatus est patrem, conviciatus est matri. 'quid dixit?' plus quam interrogabam. vicisti, mulier, obstinationem meam; audi breve succinctumque responsum, quid dixerit: quod quaeris, quod putas.

'what did he say?' everything: he cursed the age, he cast reproach upon the times, he detested his father, he reviled his mother. 'what did he say?' more than I was asking. you have conquered, woman, my obstinacy; hear a brief and succinct response, what he said: what you seek, what you suppose.

[15] O si quis in illam vos secreti nostri potuisset adhibere praesentiam! vidissetis novum genus quaestionis. stabam senex furiis monstrosae feritatis accinctus, manibus exertis, hinc ignibus, hinc verberibus armatus.

[15] O if anyone could have admitted your presence to that secrecy of ours! You would have seen a new kind of inquisition. I stood, an old man, girded with the furies of monstrous ferocity, with hands outstretched, armed on this side with fires, on that side with scourges.

super ora, super oculos iacentis adsistens clamabam: 'furiose, demens, tace!' et ille velut exustis amputatisque, per quae dolor exit in verba, fuit adtonitus, amens. quotiens admotis ignibus ad aliquam corporis partem totum pectus inposuit! quotiens hiatu oris avide flammas adversus exeuntia verba collegit!

standing over the mouth, over the eyes of the one lying there, I kept shouting: 'furious one, demented one, be silent!' and he, as if those very parts through which pain goes out into words had been burned and cut off, was thunderstruck, out of his senses. how often, when fires were brought near to some part of the body, he pressed his whole breast upon them! how often, with the gaping of his mouth, he greedily gathered the flames against the words going out!

cum vero iam totus calor verberibus expulsus viribus novissimi doloris erumperet, pertractis ab ima pectoris parte suspiriis brevissime collecti spiritus, ille, quo redditur anima, singultus fuit similis exclamaturo nescio quid, quod et tu fortassis audires. occupavi, fateor, et advocatis, quas iam consumpseram, viribus, manibus, telis totoque corpore pariter adnisus, antequam mentiretur, occidi.

but when indeed now all the heat, expelled by the beatings, was bursting forth with the forces of the final pain, after sighs had been drawn from the lowest part of the chest and the breath, very briefly collected—the sob by which the soul is rendered back—was like that of one about to exclaim I know not what, which perhaps you too would have heard, I forestalled him, I confess, and, summoning to my aid the strengths which I had already consumed, straining equally with hands, weapons, and my whole body, before he could lie, I killed him.

Misera temporis illius recordatio! deficientem in manibus meis filium vidi, aspexi ora pallentia, frigidos anhelitus, interrupta suspiria et animam magno silentio exeuntem. non tamen tormenta laxavi, non subtraxi restinxique flammas.

Miserable the recollection of that time! I saw my son failing in my hands, I beheld pallid features, cold gasps, broken sighs, and the soul going forth with great silence. Yet I did not loosen the torments, I did not withdraw and quench the flames.

miserere, mulier, ne quaeras amplius vocem huius adfectus. filium, qui moriebatur, occidi, non perdidi tamen, non perdidi unici mortem, fortuna, non perdidi: iam me non interrogat nisi sola mater. consiste agedum, mulier, loco meo, et in habitum paterni furoris accincta admove eculeos, flagella, laminas; praedico, testor, aliter non possum loqui, aliter mihi non potest credi.

Have mercy, woman; do not seek any further the voice of this affect. My son, who was dying, I killed; yet I did not lose him, I did not lose the death of my only one, O Fortune, I did not lose it: now none questions me save the mother alone. Come now, woman, stand in my place, and, girded in the habit of paternal fury, bring up the racks, the scourges, the plates; I foredeclare, I testify, I cannot speak otherwise, otherwise I cannot be believed.

[16] Quamquam, miserrime iuvenis -- fas est enim iam tuos alloqui manes -- exprimere mihi vocem nullus poterit dolor. quantum volet, laceret, vel occidat; vincere me tormenta docuisti. si tamen fas est cogitationis memoria tractare verba miserae quaestionis, cur me coram populo magis interrogas?

[16] Although, most wretched young man -- for it is right now to address your shades -- no pain will be able to force a voice from me. Let it rend as much as it will, or even kill; you have taught me to conquer torments. If, however, it is right by the remembrance of thought to handle the words of the wretched inquest, why do you interrogate me before the people?

eamus, uxor, in illam desolatam domum, in illud iam patris filiique secretum; ibi me interroga, ibi, ubi torsi, ubi occidi, ubi adhuc forsitan filii tui vaga per maestos penates anima discurrit. porrigat aliquis imaginem iuvenis occisi, ponat in sinu matris illas vestes, quibus ipsa iuvenem misera comebat. eamus ad tumulum, misceamus supra busta lacrimas.

let us go, wife, into that desolate house, into that secret-place now of father and son; there question me, there, where I tortured, where I killed, where still perhaps your son’s wandering spirit runs through the mournful household gods. let someone bring forth the effigy of the slain youth, let him place in the mother’s lap those garments with which the wretched woman herself was clothing the youth. let us go to the tomb, let us mingle tears over the pyres.

ibi aut tacebimus pariter aut invicem confitebimur.

there either we will be silent together or we will confess to each other in turn.

Iamiam miser mori possum: explicui[t] te, sollicitudo, pietas. non scribo tabulas, testamento suprema verba non credo. et ego moriar in tormentis meis.

Now now, wretched, I can die: I have discharged toward you my solicitude, my piety. I do not write tablets; I do not entrust my last words to a testament. And I too shall die in my torments.

illud tantum novissimis precibus a te, civitas, per liberos ~ferre coniuges paterne~ a te, uxor, per occisi iuvenis umbram peto, a te, mater, ne quid amplius quaeras ~tu famam ne dicas~.

only this I ask with my latest prayers from you, city, by your children ~to support spouses in a fatherly way~ from you, wife, by the shade of the slain youth, I ask, from you, mother, that you seek nothing further ~you, do not call it "fame"~.