Quintilian: DECLAMATIONES MAIORES

Gemini, quibus erat mater et pater, aegrotare coeperunt. consulti medici dixerunt eundem esse languorem. desperantibus reliquis promisit unus se alterum sanaturum, si alterius vitalia inspexisset.

Twins, who had both a mother and a father, began to fall ill. the physicians, when consulted, said that the languor was the same. with the rest despairing, one promised that he would cure the other, if he were to inspect the other’s vitals.

permittente patre execuit infantem et vitalia inspexit. sanato uno accusatur pater ab uxore malae tractationis.

with the father permitting, he cut open the infant and inspected the vital organs. with one healed, the father is accused by his wife of maltreatment.

[1] Quamvis, iudices, plurimum infelicissimae matris adversis miserationis abstulerit, quod ex duobus liberis pari desperatione languentibus alter evasit, et plerisque maximum dolorem prima fronte tractantibus videatur aviditas gaudiorum, ut modo ad totius orbitatis redacta patientiam iam non sit unius salute contenta, non possumus tamen affectibus vestris non hanc primam tristissimae calamitatis allegare mensuram, quae ex ipsa quoque solacii sui condicione descendit: minus misera quereretur de marito, si sanari nec ille potuisset, pro quo est frater occisus: nunc infelix par non est dolori, nunc non invenit ulla solacia, ex quo sibi videtur filium perdidisse victurum. super impatientiam tristissimae orbitatis increscit, quod intellegit illum non sine sanitate fuisse languorem, nec persuaderi miserae potest perituro laborasse fato, in quo inventum est, quod sanaret alium. captet licet crudelissimus senex parricidii immanitatem metu maiore protegere, non invenio, unde colligi possit utrumque fuisse moriturum; ex duobus aegris non periit nisi qui occisus est.

[1] Although, judges, the adversities have taken away very much of pity for the most unfortunate mother, because out of two children languishing with equal desperation one escaped; and to most, handling the matter at first face, the avidity of joys may seem the greatest grief—that, reduced now to total bereavement, her patience is now not content with the safety of one—nevertheless we cannot but allege to your feelings this prime measure of a most sorrowful calamity, which also descends from the very condition of its solace: she would complain less miserably of her husband, if not even that one, for whose sake the brother was slain, could have been healed; now the unhappy woman is not equal to her pain, now she finds no solaces, since it seems to her that she has lost a son who would have lived. Over and above the impatience of most sorrowful bereavement there increases the fact that she understands that that sickness was not without soundness, nor can the wretched woman be persuaded that he labored under a fate that was going to perish, in which there was found that which healed the other. Though the most cruel old man may strive to protect the enormity of parricide by a greater fear, I do not find whence it can be gathered that both were going to die; of the two sick, none perished except the one who was slain.

[2] Ante omnia igitur illud a vobis infelicissima mater petit, ne maximi sceleris ideo decrescat invidia, quia pati videtur et reus ex orbitate tantundem. non perdidit filium, quisquis occidit. explicat a dolore patrem, quod sibi videtur fecisse rem maximam et in locum iuvenis amissi substituit de vanitate solacium.

[2] Before all things, therefore, that most unhappy mother asks of you this: that the odium of the greatest crime not for that reason be lessened, because the accused too seems to suffer just as much from bereavement. He has not lost a son, whoever has killed. The father frees himself from grief, because he seems to himself to have done a very great deed, and in place of the youth lost he substitutes a solace from vanity.

alia est, alia condicio matris, quae medico non credidit, apud quam saevissimae condicionis immanitas fidem non potuit impetrare temptandi. pro utroque timuit, pro utroque speravit. facinus est eum maioris pietatis videri, qui de morte filii potuit alterius vel certa salute transigere.

Different is, different the condition of the mother who did not believe the physician, in whose case the monstrosity of the most savage condition could not obtain credence for attempting a trial. For both she feared, for both she hoped. It is an outrage that he seem of greater piety, who could make terms about the death of his son for the certain safety of the other.

sic debetis odisse patrem, tamquam duos occiderit, cuius non interfuit, uter occideretur.

thus you ought to hate the father, as though he had killed two, to whom it was of no interest which of the two would be killed.

Est tamen, sanctissimi iudices, quod de crudelissimo parricida queri possit non sola mater: adiecit humanis calamitatibus ipsam sanitatem et morborum languorisque violentiam medicinae concessit. filium occidit, si ipsi creditis, fortasse moriturum, et hominem, cuius caritas debuerat ipsa desperatione crevisse, in hoc solum impendit, ut tantundem superesset incerti. non exonerat, iudices, immanitatem saevissimi patris, quod ha<n>c ratione<m> credidit: de languente filio rem inauditam, rem facere crudelem unam rationem habet, si ipse sanetur.

There is, however, most holy judges, something about the most cruel parricide of which not the mother alone can complain: he added to human calamities health itself, and granted to medicine the violence of diseases and of languor. He killed a son who, if you believe him, was perhaps going to die, and upon the man whose charity ought to have grown by the very desperation he expended only this, that just as much uncertainty should remain. It does not exonerate, judges, the immanity of a most savage father that he trusted to this rationale: as to a languishing son, to do a thing unheard-of, a cruel thing, has one rationale—if he himself be healed.

[3] O tristior indigniorque semper mensura calamitatum, magna felicitas! huncine fecit exitum illa modo civitate tota conspicua mater, ille indiscretus ab utroque latere comitatus, ille gaudentium dulcis error oculorum? quid mihi mortem nuntiatis unius?

[3] O great felicity, ever the sadder and more unworthy measure of calamities! Did that mother, only just now conspicuous to the whole city, make this the end for him—that one indiscriminately accompanied on both sides, that sweet error of the eyes of those rejoicing? Why do you announce to me the death of a single one?

perdidit misera geminos.

the wretched woman has lost her twins.

Passi sunt enim languorem miserrimi iuvenes sine dubio pariter unaque, non fraternitate, non animae corporumque consortio, sed condicione fragilitatis humanae, qua sic extranei quoque duo languere potuissent, non negaverim terribilem, gravem, et parentibus utique metuendum, de cuius tamen adhuc, ut parcissime dixerim, remedio quaereretur. quid refert, an medici consenserint utrumque periturum, cum eundem dixerint esse languorem? manifestum est de duobus non dixisse verum, quos de altero constat esse mentitos.

For the most wretched youths suffered the illness, without doubt equally and together, not by fraternity, not by the consortium of soul and bodies, but by the condition of human fragility, by which likewise two strangers could have languished thus—I would not deny it terrible, grave, and assuredly to be feared by parents—yet, to speak most sparingly, a remedy for which was still being sought. What does it matter whether the physicians agreed that both would perish, since they said the illness was the same? It is manifest that they did not speak the truth about the two, seeing that it is established that they lied about the other.

iam tamen, iudices, de tam perdita pronuntiatione non querimur, quod aegros, quos sibi videbantur explicare non posse, parentibus crediderunt; innocentior est simplicitas desperare, si remedia non noveris, et hanc ignorantiae malo probitatem, ut languorem, quem nescias, tantum neges posse sanari. maximi tamen virorum et quibus <g>ratissima solvendo non sit humanitas, si sciebant hoc genus curationis et illud non indicare voluerunt.

now, however, judges, we do not complain about so lost a pronouncement, that they entrusted to the parents the sick whom they seemed to themselves not to be able to extricate; more innocent is the simplicity to despair, if you do not know the remedies, and I count as probity, born of the evil of ignorance, this: that you only deny that a languor (malady) which you do not know can be cured. yet very great is the blame of the men—and for whom <g>most welcome would be humanity in discharging a debt—if they knew this kind of curation and were unwilling to indicate it.

[4] vultis, ut illos mentitos breviter probem? desperaverunt de languore, cuius remedium, si patri creditis, alius invenit.

[4] Do you wish that I briefly prove those men to have lied? They despaired of the illness, whose remedy, if you believe the father, another found.

Sive enim, iudices, vanissimus nescientium vidit hanc patris in periculo liberorum rigidam nimiamque patientiam et hominem in filiorum languore sollicitum de remedio generis humani, sive captavit ex hoc velut quandam artis imaginem imitari, quod sanare non poterat, et ignorantiae pudorem tegere magno temptavit incerto, sive, ut aliud videretur dixisse quam reliqui, verba desperationis incredibili vanitate variavit magnaque miseros parentes ambage suspendens tutissimum putavit promittere, quod deberet nemo experiri: causas quidem se dixit ignorare morborum, sed salutem spopondit unius, si licuisset alterum occidere, lacerare, perspicere. en, cui pietas patris, cui credere sollicitudo debuerit: dixit se scire remedium, quod nesciebat!

Whether, judges, the most vain of the ignorant saw in the father, in the peril of his children, a rigid and excessive patience, and a man, in the languor of his sons, solicitous about the remedy of the human race; or whether he tried to capture from this, as it were, a certain image of art, to imitate what he could not heal, and attempted to cover the shame of his ignorance with a great uncertainty; or whether, so that he might seem to have said something other than the rest, he varied words of desperation with unbelievable vanity, and, holding the wretched parents in suspense by a great circumlocution, judged it safest to promise what no one ought to put to the test: he said indeed that he was ignorant of the causes of the diseases, but he pledged the health of the one, if it were permitted to kill, lacerate, and inspect the other. Lo, the man to whom a father’s pietas, to whom his solicitude ought to have given credence: he said that he knew the remedy which he did not know!

Vultis intellegere, iudices, nihil inpatientia caritatis fecisse patrem? non retulit ad matrem. adacta est a morte filii vel sanitate discedere.

Do you wish to understand, judges, that the father did nothing out of an impatience of charity? he did not report it to the mother. she was driven to withdraw, away from the son’s death or his health.

non propinquos consuluit, non amicos, sed sua tantum persuasione medicique contentus, quod nocentius est, quam si ipse occidisset, alterutrum potuit eligere. dicat nunc parricida, quid fecerit illud, quod etiam de <tam> similibus, tam paribus aegris in alterum desperatio illa praevaluit. si medici non interfuit, utrum occideret, constabit vivere utrumque potuisse; si interfuit, constabit non eundem fuisse languorem.

He consulted neither kinsmen nor friends, but, content with his own persuasion and the physician’s—which is more culpable than if he himself had killed—he was able to choose the one or the other. Let the parricide now say what that achieved: that even with <tam> similar, so equal patients, that desperation prevailed against the other. If it was no concern of the physician which one he killed, it will be established that both could have lived; if it did matter, it will be established that the languor was not the same.

Qualis fuerit illa curatio, quid passus sit iuvenis in morte, qua medicus parabatur, omnium adfectibus, omnium cogitationibus liquere crediderim, ideoque parcimus auribus matris.

What sort that cure was, what the young man suffered at his death, at which the medic was being made ready, I would believe to be clear to the affections of all, to the cogitations of all; and therefore we spare the mother’s ears.

[5] breviter tamen longae crudelitatis explicanda saevitia est: ex omnibus, quae pertulit, levissimum fuit, quod occisus est.

[5] briefly, however, the savagery of a long cruelty is to be explicated: of all the things that he endured, the very lightest was that he was slain.

Non est, quod veniam tristissimae curationis paret, quod videtur in alio fratre explicata promissio: an alterum medicus sanaverit, fortuna viderit; quod negari non potest, alterum medicus occidit. erumpit hoc loco mulier infelix et tota libertate proclamat: 'redde mihi,' inquit. 'marite, filium, quem tibi pariter medicoque commisi, <recipe quem mihi credidisti>. hic est ille vester insanabilis, ille moriturus, hic, quem permiseras medico, si maluisset, occidere.

There is no reason that he should procure pardon for the most sorrowful curation, because the promise seems to have been fulfilled in the other brother: whether the medic healed the one, let Fortune see to that; what cannot be denied is that the medic killed the other. At this point the unhappy woman bursts out and with complete freedom proclaims: ‘Give me back,’ she says, ‘husband, the son whom I entrusted to you and equally to the medic, <take back the one whom you entrusted to me>. This is that incurable one of yours, that one doomed to die, this one whom you had permitted the medic, if he had preferred, to kill.’

vides, quid profecerint anxia vota pietatis, sollicitae preces. dum iam frigidi pectoris calorem superpositis revocamus uberibus, dum frigentia membra continuis osculis et spiritu trepidae matris animamus, dum labentes oculi ad nostras exclamationes nostrosque planctus admissa paulatim luce laxantur, dum multa mentior, multa promitto et fratrem dico sanatum, respexit ad vitam, convaluit, evasit. non tamen iacto pietatem, non arrogo mihi prosperae curationis eventum.

You see what anxious vows of piety, what solicitous prayers, have accomplished. While now we recall the warmth to the cold chest by breasts laid atop, while we animate the frigid limbs with continual kisses and with the breath of the trembling mother, while the slipping eyes, at our exclamations and our beatings of the breast, with the light gradually admitted, are loosened, while I tell many falsehoods, promise many things, and declare the brother healed—he looked back to life, he convalesced, he escaped. Yet I do not vaunt my piety; I do not arrogate to myself the outcome of the prosperous cure.

quid hunc sanaverit, vis scire breviter? quod potuit utrumque sanare.'

'Do you wish to know briefly what cured this one? That which could have cured both.'

[6] Pudeat vos, o iura legesque, quod miserrimi sexus dolorem his clusistis angustiis. ita maritum, quod occisus est filius, malae tractationis uxor accusat? perdiderunt legis huius auctoritatem, quae ad illam uxorias querelas, matrimoniorum solent deferre delicias; ego illam datam miseris tantum matribus puto.

[6] Be ashamed, O rights and laws, that you have shut the sorrow of the most wretched sex within these straits. Is it thus that, because the son has been slain, the wife accuses the husband of maltreatment? Those who are wont to refer to that law uxorial complaints—the indulgences of marriages—have ruined the authority of this law; I, for my part, think that it was given only to wretched mothers.

potest autem ab iniquo coniuge explicare divortium, et contra maritales tuetur iniurias, ut nolis praestare patientiam. illis succurrit, quas nefas est abire, discedere, quas in pessimi coniugii durum perpetuumque complexum communium pignorum nexus artavit, quae malos maritos pariter et patres nec relinquere nec ferre sufficiunt. facinus est ideo evadere maritum, quia damnaretur, si de illo minore dolore quereretur.

but she can unfold a divorce from an iniquitous consort, and she protects against marital injuries, so that you need not be willing to furnish patience. it succors those whom it is impious to go away from, to depart—those whom the nexus of common pledges has constricted into the hard and perpetual embrace of a most-wretched marriage, who are not sufficient either to leave or to bear bad husbands and fathers alike. is it a crime, then, to evade a husband, because she would be condemned if she complained of him for a lesser pain?

itaque impudenter facit, quod pro detracto ~matrona cultu negatoque comitatu, fastiditis noctibus pulsataque facie filium complorat occisum? sileo adhuc illa, per quae parricidii crevit immanitas; occisum filium obicio, puta luxuriosum, perditum, nocentem, fingite hoc patrem ira, indignatione fecisse. quantum facinus sit filium occidere, nemo magis fatetur, quam qui vult videri se illud fecisse pro filio.

therefore does she act shamelessly, because, for matronal adornment stripped away and retinue denied, with nights spurned and with her face beaten, she bewails her son slain? I am still silent about those things through which the monstrosity of parricide grew; I bring forward the slain son—suppose him luxurious, profligate, guilty—imagine that the father did this from anger, from indignation. How great a crime it is to kill a son, no one more confesses than he who wishes to seem to have done it for the son’s sake.

Ecquid, iudices, vel ex hoc totus animus mariti, tota tristissimae coniugis calamitas perspici potest, quod se negat matri communium liberorum debere rationem? placet ergo, mortales, ut de hominibus, in quos plus ex harum sanguine, ex harum transit anima, non habeant partem nisi tantum doloris? solos ergo communicabit misera planctus, et ab omnibus consiliis, quibus ordinatur iuventa, vita disponitur, extranea vilitate seposita circa maerores tantum lacrimarumque consortium orbitate iungetur?

Can, judges, even from this, the whole disposition of the husband and the entire calamity of the most sorrowful wife be perceived, that he denies that he owes an accounting to the mother of their common children? Does it please, then, mortals, that, regarding the human beings into whom more of their blood, more of their soul passes, they should have no share save only of pain? Will the wretched woman, then, share only lamentations, and from all counsels by which youth is ordered and life is disposed be shut out, set aside with alien vileness, and be joined, in the destitution of bereavement, only around griefs and a consortium of tears?

[7] si mehercules fas est aestimare, utri plus parenti debeatur ex liberis, non improbe totam potestatem sibi vindicabit adfectus, qui decem mensibus ante vestram incipit diligere notitiam, et, cum vos patres gaudium primum faciat oculorum, ante sunt conscientia matres. facinus est ideo tantum illis minus licere, quia minus facere sufficiunt. vos estis, qui crescentes adhuc in peregrinationes, qui iam adultos in castra magnorum parentum vanitate dimittitis.

[7] if, by Hercules, it is right to estimate to which parent more is owed by the children, not unjustly will affection claim for itself the whole authority, which begins to love ten months before your recognition; and, while you fathers furnish the first joy of the eyes, mothers are beforehand by conscience. it is a crime that for this reason only less is permitted to them, because they suffice less to act. you are the ones who send them, still growing, into peregrinations, who, when already adult, dispatch them into the camps, by the vanity of great parents.

erubescitis desideriis tamquam infirmitate, et, unde velocissimus transitus est in rigorem, liberos vultis amare patientia. quam multa ideo tantum de filiis, quia licet! et frequentius potestatis vestrae iactatione tamquam aliquo gravitatis genere delinquitis.

You blush at desires as though at infirmity, and you want to love your children with patience—whence the swiftest passage is into rigor. How many things you do concerning your children for this reason alone, because it is permitted! and more often you commit a fault by a vaunting of your power, as if it were some kind of gravity.

non habet orbitas vestra lacrimas; super ardentes rogos tenetis inconcussam rigidamque faciem, itis obviam consolationibus, et, quod omnem modum feritatis excedit, captatis in magna calamitate laudari. quicquam ergo erit, quod de communibus pignoribus non pari mente, pari [im]patientia, vel, si necessitas postulet, pari rigore faciatis? mali tantum patris interest, ut matri minus liceat.

Your bereavement has no tears; over blazing pyres you hold an unshaken and rigid face, you go to meet consolations, and—what exceeds every measure of ferocity—you angle, in a great calamity, to be praised. Will there be anything, then, which, concerning the common pledges, your children, you will not do with equal mind, equal [im]patience, or, if necessity should demand it, equal rigor? It is only the concern of a bad father that the mother be permitted less.

Sane cedat vobis circa regendas communium pignorum mentes sexus infirmior; vos mores, vos vitae genus, vos matrimonia ceterosque actus vestra persuasione firmetis; numquid arrogans consortium, numquid impotens societas est liberos communes esse languentes? si quis immo pudor est, cede nunc tota potestate matri, illius si in aegri toro proximus locus, haec adhibeat fomenta, porrigat cibos. si quid impatientia, si quid flagrantium viscerum poscit infirmitas, mater neget, mater indulgeat.

Surely let the weaker sex yield to you in regard to governing the minds of the common pledges (children); you, by your persuasion, do you fortify morals, the mode of life, marriages, and the other acts; is it in any way an arrogant consortium, is it a powerless society, that the common children should be languishing? Nay rather, if there is any modesty at all, yield now all authority to the mother—if the closest place at the sick one’s couch is hers, let her apply fomentations, let her proffer food. If the infirmity demands anything of impatience, anything of the burning viscera, let the mother deny, let the mother indulge.

illas, quas immodicus ardor discutit, vestes haec super fatigatos reponat artus, illas iactatas toto lectulo manus sedulo contineat affectu.

those garments which immoderate ardor shakes off, let her replace these upon the fatigued limbs; let her hands, with sedulous affection, keep in place those flung across the whole little couch.

[8] frustra captas videri velut timore matnae caritatis ab omni curae ratione sepositus. cum circa curationes liberorum non consentiunt parentes, curationis est culpa, non matris.

[8] It seems a contrivance in vain, as though, from fear of maternal charity, one were set aside from every rationale of care. When parents do not agree concerning the treatments of the children, the fault is that of the treatment, not of the mother.

Quid, quod filium occidit innocentem, cui nihil obicere, nihil poterat irasci? filium, si ipsi creditis, pro fratre mori paratum, cuius suprema ferre non poterat? novum, iudices, et incognitum rebus humanis audite facinus: iam parricidium pietas, caritas et impatientia orbitatis admittit!

What of this—that she killed an innocent son, against whom he could bring no charge, at whom he could be angry for nothing? A son, if you believe him, ready to die for his brother, whose last rites he could not bear to perform? Hear, judges, a novel crime, unknown to human affairs: now parricide is admitted by piety, by charity, and by the impatience of bereavement!

malo odium, querelas, execrationes, quam ut quis liberos affectu, quo servantur, occidat. quid refert, an per hoc alterius filii anima redimatur? si parricidium fas est ullas accipere causas, filius propter se tantum debet occidi.

I prefer odium, complaints, execrations, rather than that anyone should kill his children by the very affection by which they are preserved. What does it matter whether by this the soul of the other son is redeemed? If it is right for parricide to receive any causes, a son ought to be killed on account of himself alone.

Adicite, iudices, immanitati, quod occidit aegrum. omnibus equidem mortalibus maiorem crediderim de languore venire reverentiam, et illorum quoque, quos inter supplicia pereuntis avido spectamus assensu, iuxta valetudines tamen morborumque violentiam quodam innocentiae favore miseremur. in carceribus et in illa profunda nocte poenarum religiosius ille anheli pectoris pallor inspicitur; non sic confundunt obvios gravibus catenis colla stridentia et diutino squalore concreta facies ut ille, quem ad singulos conatus gressusque labentem vix trahit impellitque longus ordo vinctorum, et inter tot destinatos totque perituros omnium tamen in se retorquet oculos unus aeger.

Add, judges, to the inhumanity this: that he killed a sick man. For my part I would believe that among all mortals a greater reverence arises on account of languor, and even for those whom we watch with eager assent perishing amid punishments, nevertheless according to their valetudines and the violence of diseases we pity them with a certain favor of innocence. In prisons, and in that deep night of penalties, that pallor of a gasping breast is gazed upon more religiously; not so do necks creaking with heavy chains and faces congealed by long squalor confound those they meet as does that man whom, slipping at each attempt and step, the long file of the shackled can scarcely drag and shove; and among so many destined and so many about to perish, nevertheless one sick man twists all eyes back upon himself.

[9] quid ais? tu illum, quem nunc nefas est castigare, reprehendere, cuius auribus parcere debuerunt saeviora verba, quem, si quid negares, videreris occidere, ferro, vulneribus aggrederis? non potest hinc tibi venire defensio, ut hoc sis pro alterius salute commentus.

[9] What do you say? You—do you attack with iron, with wounds—the man whom now it is impious to chastise, to reprehend, whose ears the more savage words ought to have spared, whom, if you denied him anything, you would seem to be killing? No defense can come to you from this, namely that you contrived this for another’s safety.

inter duos liberos pari desperatione languentes da bonum patrem: non praeponderabit alterutrum, non eliget, sed, ut incertum orbitatis evadat, ipse morietur.

Set a good father between two children languishing with equal desperation: he will not let either preponderate, he will not choose, but, in order that he may escape the uncertainty of orphanhood, he himself will die.

Temptat hoc loco, iudices, crudelissimus senex excusationem temeritatis suae de medicorum trahere consensu: 'desperaverant,' inquit, 'de duobus.' sepono paulisper immanitatem patris, qui credidit, et de arrogantissimae persuasionis hominibus queri [de] totius generis humani nomine volo. quam multas artes, misera mortalium sollicitudo, fecisti! fato vivimus, languemus, convalescimus, morimur.

He attempts in this place, judges, the cruelest old man, to draw an excuse for his temerity from the consensus of the physicians: 'they had despaired,' he says, 'of the two.' I set aside for a little while the immanity of the father, who believed, and I wish to complain, in the name of the whole human race, about the men of the most arrogant persuasion [about]. How many arts, wretched solicitude of mortals, have you fashioned! By fate we live, we languish, we convalesce, we die.

medicina, quid praestas, nisi ut iuxta te nemo desperet? dicturum me putas: 'non credo renuntiantibus, non accedo, cum deserunt relinquuntque languentes'? ego vero medicis non credo sperantibus. aspicite maiorem partem generis humani et, si me interroges, illam robustiorem, illam adhuc in prima rerum naturae veritate viventem: nullos artis huius novit antistites, nec minus tamen bellorum vulneribus morborumque medetur incursibus; non disputationum vanitate sollerti, sed experimentis et, invicem per similes dissimilesque casus observatione ducente, tradita ratione succurrit.

medicine, what do you provide, except that beside you no one should despair? do you think I am going to say: 'I do not believe those reporting back, I do not approach when they abandon and leave the ailing?' I for my part do not believe doctors when they are hoping. look at the greater part of the human race and, if you ask me, that more robust part, that still living in the primal truth of nature: it knows no priests of this art, and yet it heals no less the wounds of wars and the assaults of diseases; not by the vanity of clever disputations, but by experiments and, in turn through similar and dissimilar cases, with observation leading, it brings aid by a handed-down method.

non medicina sanat, sed quicquid videtur sanasse medicina est.

It is not medicine that heals, but whatever seems to have healed is medicine.

[10] quo vultis animo feram, quod ars, quantum dicitis, inventa pro vita, si dis placet, auctoritatem famamque captat, ut longe ventura suprema prospiciat, ut adesse fata denuntiet, quae nec timentur, et maxima scientiae pars esse coepit sanare non posse? quisquamne ab homine, qui adhuc loquitur, spirat, intellegit, sic recedit, quemadmodum relinquitur exanime corpus, et ibi finem vitae putabit, ubicumque scientiae substiterit infirmitas? si fragilitatem mortalitatis incertosque velimus aestimare casus, tantundem periculi habet omnis aeger.

[10] With what mindset do you wish me to bear that the art, as much as you say, invented on behalf of life—if it please the gods—snatches at authority and fame, so that it may foresee far off the final things to come, so that it may declare the fates to be at hand, which are not even feared, and that the greatest part of its science has come to be to be unable to heal? Will anyone pass away from being a man who still speaks, breathes, understands, in the same way as a lifeless body is left, and think the end of life is there wherever the weakness of science has come to a halt? If we wish to assess the fragility of mortality and the uncertain chances, every sick person has just as much danger.

iniquissimum est desperationes vocari, quotiens remedium medicina non invenit, et angustias sive artis seu mentis humanae ad invidiam referre fatorum. nihil magis interesse omnium puto, quam ut spes pro homine tam longa quam vita sit. unde putatis inventos tardos funerum apparatus, unde, quod exequias planctibus, clangore magnoque semper inquietamus ululatu, quam quod facinus videretur credere tam facile vel morti?

It is most iniquitous that “desperations” be invoked whenever medicine does not find a remedy, and that the straits either of the art or of the human mind be referred to the envy of the Fates. I think nothing concerns all more than that hope for a human should be as long as life. Whence do you think the slow apparatus of funerals was devised—whence that we always disquiet the obsequies with plaints, with clangor and with great ululation—if not because it would seem a crime to entrust oneself so readily even to Death?

vidimus igitur frequenter ad vitam post conclamata suprema redeuntis. plerique convaluerunt neglegentiae bono, quosdam explicuit quicquid alios fortassis occideret, hos indulgentiae temeritas, illos adiuvit desperationis audacia.

We have therefore frequently seen people return to life after the last rites had been cried out. Many recovered by the benefit of negligence; some were extricated by the very thing which perhaps would have killed others; these were helped by the temerity of indulgence, those by the audacity of desperation.

[11] detur fortassis huic arti perspicere morbos, profutura meditari, sed unde sciret, quantum inter viscera latentesque pectoris sinus unicuique animae natura concesserit, quam proprietatem spiritus, quam corpus acceperit? non tam variae mortalibus formae, nec in vultibus nostris sedet tanta diversitas, quanta latet in ipsis dissimulitudo vitalibus. inenarrabile, indeprehensibile est, quicquid nos elementorum varia compago formavit, et, prout in nos plura seu rariora de terrenis seminibus caelestibusque coierunt, ita vel duramur tacita ratione vel solvimur.

[11] Let it perhaps be granted to this art to see through diseases, to meditate things that will be of profit; but whence would it know how much nature has conceded to each soul among the entrails and the hidden folds of the breast, what property of spirit, what body each has received? The forms are not so various among mortals, nor does so great a diversity sit in our faces, as great as the dissimilarity that lies hidden in the vital parts themselves. Ineffable, inapprehensible is that whereby the varied compages of the elements has fashioned us; and, just as more numerous or rarer things from earthly and heavenly seeds have come together in us, so we are either tempered by a silent reason or dissolved.

an desperantibus credi debuerit, vos aestimabitis; qui negarunt aegros posse sanari, nec in hoc probaverunt, qui evasit, nec in illo, quem non languor occidit.

whether the despairing ought to have been believed, you will judge; those who denied that the sick could be healed were proved right neither in this one, who escaped, nor in that one, whom not the languor slew.

Iustas mehercule haberet mulier causas querelarum, si nova incognitaque ratione vel utrumque servasses, numquam ex magno venit affectu incredibilia vel profutura temptasse, et in re, quae plus de incerto habet, temeritas experimenti solam probat desperationis audaciam. quid refert, cuius sit condicionis aeger, quantum adhuc spei, quantum videatur habere de vita? sacrosancti sint parentum metus.

By Hercules, the woman would have just causes for complaints, if by a new and unknown method you had saved one or even both; it never comes from great affection to have attempted the unbelievable or even things likely to be beneficial, and in a matter which has more of the uncertain, the rashness of an experiment proves only the boldness of desperation. What does it matter what condition the sick person is in, how much hope remains, how much he seems to have of life? Let the fears of parents be sacrosanct.

dii non sinant, ut ex liberis vilior incipiat esse periturus. medici desperaverunt; quid istud ad patrem? spera tu, iube sperare matrem, tuis potius affectibus, tuis crede votis.

May the gods not allow that, among the children, the one about to perish begin to be of viler worth. The physicians have despaired; what is that to the father? Do you hope; bid the mother hope; trust rather your own affections, believe your vows.

et hoc de parricidii facilitate est circa filiorum languorem ad desperantes potius accedere. fidem habes hominibus, quos mentiri alius affirmat, contra quos iterum credis uni? ~praesertim si me~ hercule de tua feritate sentirem, si in quacumque filii curatione non adhiberes propinquos, non interrogares amicos, non respiceres ad matris animum; non hanc primam impatientiam, non hunc consulis timorem?

And this too pertains to the facility toward parricide: that, concerning the languor of sons, you rather side with those who despair. You put faith in men whom another affirms to be lying; against whom in turn you believe a single man? ~especially if me~ by Hercules, if I were to perceive a ferocity in you, if in whatever treatment of your son you were not to employ your kinsfolk, not to question your friends, not to look to the mother’s mind; is not this your first impatience, is not this the fear of the consul?

de nullo filio minus debet soli sibi permittere pater, quam qui videtur utique moriturus.

Concerning no son ought a father to allow less to himself alone than the one who seems certainly about to die.

[12] 'Fratres,' inquit, 'et gemini erant, ideoque credibile est illis eundem fuisse languorem.' rogo, quis in ullo mortalium ferat ignorantiam pariter et adfirmationem? quisquis nescit, quod genus languoris sit, non potest scire, an idem sit. nihil, iudices, in rebus humanis voluit esse rerum natura tam simile, quod non aliqua proprietate secerneret.

[12] 'Brothers,' he said, 'and they were twins, and therefore it is credible that they had the same illness.' I ask, who among any mortals would tolerate ignorance together with affirmation? Whoever does not know what kind of illness it is cannot know whether it is the same. Nothing, judges, in human affairs has the nature of things willed to be so similar that it would not be distinguished by some property.

quid refert, an ex isdem prima illa duorum corporum animorumque conpago seminibus oriatur? sibi quisque firmatur, sibi quisque componitur, et duo pluresve fratres nascuntur fato singulorum. hanc ipsam indifferentiam, quam mirantur occursus, stupent civitatis oculi, parentum tamen agnitio dinoscit, separat notitia nutricum, et fallentibus notis est rursus, quod faciat ipsa similitudo dissimile.

What does it matter whether that first compages of the two bodies and souls originates from the same seeds? Each one is made firm for himself, each one is composed for himself, and two or more brothers are born by the fate of each individual. This very indifference which passers-by marvel at in their encounters, the eyes of the city are astonished by; yet the recognition of the parents distinguishes, the knowledge of the nurses separates, and even when the marks deceive, there is again something by which the very similarity makes for dissimilarity.

in plerisque, quamvis sit indiscreta facies, invenitur tamen alius oris sonus, habitus, incessus, seu, ut ipsa consentiant, diversa mens, contrarii mores et vitae genera rixantia. quid, quod non eandem esse naturam geminorum probat etiam fortuna dissimilis? hunc pressit paupertate perpetua, illum insperatis opibus excoluit, illius per titulos, honores, illius per ignobiles obscurasque sordes totam duxit aetatem.

in very many cases, although the face be indiscrete, yet there is found a different sound of the mouth (voice), bearing, gait; or else—so that the persons themselves cohere—a diverse mind, contrary morals and modes of life wrangling. What of the fact that a dissimilar Fortune also proves that the nature of twins is not the same? this one perpetual poverty has pressed down; that one unforeseen opulence has cultivated; this man has carried his whole span of life through titles and honors, that man through ignoble, obscure squalor.

simile est quicquid accipiunt ex homine gemini, dissimile quicquid ex fato. nec enim tam pariter in lucem de maternis exiluere visceribus, ut illos eadem origo signaverit:

Similar is whatever the twins receive from the human, dissimilar whatever from fate. For they did not leap forth into the light from the maternal womb so equally that the same origin marked them:

[13] quantum putas interfuisse temporis, dum primum uteri pondus egeritur, dum parumper exonerata vitalia altero rursus homine laxantur? breve fortassis exiguumque videatur inmortalibus oculis, sed si terrena mente perspicere velis orbis huius vastitatem, scies multum esse, quod inter duas transcurrat animas. volvitur super nos haec caeli siderumque compago, et praecipiti per proclive decursu ~totius diei noctisque brevitate emensus orientis occidentisque cursus~ diversi siderum in primo statim ortu rotato se rursus axe consequitur.

[13] How much time do you think intervened, while the first weight of the womb is expelled, while the vitals, for a little while disburdened, are loosened again for another human being? Brief and slight, perhaps, it may seem to immortal eyes; but if you wish with an earthly mind to perceive the vastness of this orb, you will know that it is much which runs between two souls. This structure of heaven and of the stars is rolled above us, and by a headlong course down a declivity, ~having measured out in the brevity of a whole day and night the courses of the east and of the west~ at the very first rising of the various stars, with the axis whirled, it overtakes itself again.

hoc tu parum credis esse spatium, quod diversis pariter rebus impletur? quantum inter illa transcurrentis horae momenta nascitur, perit! igitur quando umquam peregrinati sunt una, militavere pariter?

Do you think this span is too little, which is at once filled by different things? Whatever is born within those moments of the transcurrent hour perishes! Therefore when ever have they peregrinated together, have they served together in the army?

quid non diducti separatique fecerunt? quando illos languor, quando suprema iunxerunt? et quandoque sit necesse est <aeger> alter ex geminis: quod pariter languerunt, non sic accidit quomodo fratribus, sed quomodo duobus.

What did they not do, drawn apart and separated? When did languor, when did the last things, join them? And whenever it must be that one of the twins be <sick>: that they were ill together did not so happen as it happens to brothers, but as it happens to two men.

non eodem fato languere geminos quemadmodum vultis brevius probem, quam quod nec uterque occisus est nec uterque sanatus?

Shall I, as you wish, more briefly prove that twins do not languish under the same fate, than by this: that neither were both slain nor were both healed?

Sed fingamus hoc esse verum, quod desperaverunt medici; relinque nobis, pater, innocentiam calamitatis. salva solacia sint de liberis, quos tibi videris non perdidisse nisi fato. quis ex parentibus nescit in hanc se mortalitatis procreare legem?

But let us feign this to be true, what the physicians have despaired of; leave to us, father, the innocence of the calamity. Let the consolations remain intact concerning the children, whom you seem to yourself not to have lost except by fate. Who among parents does not know that he procreates under this law of mortality?

sed indigni exitus supra orbitatem sunt. Ideo magis flemus illos, quos bella rapuerunt, hausit incendium, naufragia merserunt. fortius feras inter adsidentium manus, inter suorum officia labentes, cum se invicem oscula, cum se satiavere sermones, cum data suprema mandata sunt, et se scit pietas omnia fecisse pro vita.

but unworthy exits are beyond bereavement. Therefore we weep the more for those whom wars have rapt away, a conflagration has gulped down, shipwrecks have submerged. You would bear it more stoutly when they are slipping away amid the hands of those sitting by, amid the offices of their own, when kisses have been exchanged mutually, when conversations have sated themselves, when the final mandates have been given, and piety knows itself to have done everything for life.

igitur verum dixerim: illos mori credimus, hos perire.

Therefore I would say the truth: we believe those to die, these to perish.

[14] Non invenio, quemadmodum excusationem pater de consensu possit accipere medicorum. hoc est, quod omnem comparationem feritatis excedit: filium pater propter hominem occidit, quem non putavit posse sanari. quod tu monstri portentique genus es? habes parricidii patientiam, non habes orbitatis; ita demum potes filii mortem, si facinus adieceris!

[14] I do not find how the father can accept an excusation on the basis of the consent of the physicians. This is what exceeds every comparation of ferocity: a father killed his son on account of a man whom he did not think could be healed. What kind of monster and portent are you? You have the patience for parricide; you do not have it for bereavement; thus only can you bear your son’s death, if you add a crime!

tu occidis, quia desperavere medici? quererer mehercules, si reliquisses, si quid de continuatione curae sollicitudo laxasset. nihil ergo plus facies quam illi, qui nunc plures circumeunt fortassis aegros, quos detrahit, quos avocat alia curatio?

You kill because the physicians have despaired? I would complain, by Hercules, if you had left him, if anxiety had relaxed anything of the continuation of care. So you will do nothing more than those who now perhaps make the rounds of more patients, whom another treatment draws off, whom another care calls away?

filios saltem committe vel matri; de fortuna queratur, diis faciat invidiam. mulieri, quae ferre non potest, quod videris desperasse, numquam ex hoc rationem reddas, quod occideris.

at least entrust the children even to their mother; let her complain about Fortune, let her cast envy upon the gods. to the woman who cannot bear that you seemed to have despaired, you will never on this account have to render an account for having killed.

Quis hanc, iudices, inpudentiam ferat? temptat pater, ut et huic rei credatis, quod desperaverunt omnes et quod speravit unus. nostrae quidem querelae sufficit non convenisse medicis, et cum inventus sit, qui contra sensum desperantium genus aliquod sanitatis adferret, fas erat, iudices, ut adhuc inveniretur alius, qui laetiora, utiliora promitteret.

Who would bear this impudence, judges? The father tries to have you believe, even in this matter, that which all have despaired of and which one has hoped. For our complaint it suffices that the physicians were not in agreement, and when there was found someone who, against the sense of those despairing, would bring some kind of health, it was right, judges, that yet another be found who would promise more cheering, more advantageous things.

hoc nunc me queri putatis, quod in re, de qua credere nec omnibus debuisset, accessit uni? non interest, an supersit remedium, quod temptare non debeas, et ubi tantundem periculi sp[er]es quantum desperatio habet, melior exitus est, qui facit miseros innocentes. quid invidiam prioribus medicis paramus?

Do you think that I now complain of this, that in a matter in which it ought not to have been believed by all, credence accrued to one? it makes no difference whether there remains a remedy which you ought not to try; and where you expect just as much danger as despair carries, the better outcome is that which makes the miserable innocent. why are we preparing envy against the prior physicians?

nemo magis desperat, quam qui se negat nosse languorem.

No one despairs more than he who denies that he knows the ailment.

[15] Quid ais, pater? ita tecum quisquam sic audet agere de duobus filiis tamquam de duobus ~~ervis? tu ex geminis alterum occidendum dabis?~~

[15] What do you say, father? Does anyone thus dare to deal with you about two sons as if about two slaves? Will you, from the twins, hand one over to be killed?

non ferrem, si separare expositurus auderes, si contentus esses educaturus alterutrum, non ferrem a piratis captum filium alterius vicaria servitute redimentem. tu de orbitate facies vices, et casum singulorum per utrumque diffundes? parricidium vocarem, si promittente medico, quod sanaret unum, posses eligere periturum.

I would not endure it, if you should dare to expose them to separation; if you were content to rear one or the other, I would not endure a son captured by pirates redeeming another man’s son by a vicarious servitude. Will you make alternations of orphanhood, and diffuse the mischance of each through both? I would call it parricide, if, with the physician promising that he would heal one, you could choose the one to perish.

paene crudelius est geminos dividere quam perdere. en scientia, cui debeat credi! negat se scire causas languoris, deinde promittit quicquid licere non deberet nec intelligentibus: 'occidam,' inquit, 'deinde sanabo.' memineris, pater, in hac condicione prius esse, ut occidas.

it is almost more cruel to divide twins than to lose them. behold the science to which credence ought to be given! he denies that he knows the causes of the languor, then he promises whatever ought not to be permitted even to those who understand: 'i will kill,' he says, 'then i will heal.' remember, father, that in this condition killing comes first.

non est tanta pietas servare filium, quantum facinus occidere. tu nunc hoc putas profundae artis esse secretum? verba tantum desperationis involvit, et homo cautissimae vanitatis captat illam novissimam circumire veritatem.

it is not so great a piety to preserve a son as it is a crime to kill. Do you now think this to be the secret of a profound art? He wraps only words of desperation, and the man of most cautious vanity tries to circumvent that very last truth.

vides, quanta promissum suum experimentumque caligine medicus involverit: numquam constabit, an fuerit languore moriturus aeger, qui aliter occiditur. 'non novi,' inquit, 'languoris genus.' post hanc vocem mehercule non deberes committere aegros, etiamsi vellet experiri potionis haustus, ciborum fomentorumque novitates. 'nescio,' inquit, 'sed, si permiseris alterius aperire vitalia, pectus effringere, remedium fortassis inveniam.' iam excusatus es, medice, matri: sperasti, ne tibi crederetur.

you see how much the physician has shrouded his promise and experiment in caliginous gloom: it will never be established whether the patient was going to die from languor, he who is killed in another way. 'I do not know,' he says, 'the kind of languor.' After this utterance, by Hercules, you ought not to entrust patients to him, even if he should wish to try draughts of a potion, novelties of foods and fomentations. 'I do not know,' he says, 'but, if you permit me to open the vital parts of another, to break open the chest, perhaps I shall find a remedy.' You are already excused, physician, before the mother: you hoped that you would not be believed.

[16] Differo paulisper, quod de fratribus, quod de geminis, quod pater hoc facit non consentiente matre; publico potius mortalitatis contendo nomine non debere genus istud curationis admitti. peractum est velut de genere humano, si nobis pro salute aegri opus est morte hominis alterius, et paene ratio sanitatis intercidit, si consumit medicina tantundem. ego quemquam dicentem feram: 'ut inveniam valetudinis causas, date mihi corpus aliud, alia vitalia; occidam, deinde salutaria quaeram, profutura meditabor'? ita non facilius est nosse languorem?

[16] I postpone for a little while the points about the brothers, about the twins, about the father’s doing this without the mother’s consent; rather, on public grounds, in view of our mortality, I contend that this kind of curation ought not to be admitted. It is as though it were all over with the human race, if for us the health of a patient requires the death of another human being, and the rationale of health almost perishes, if medicine consumes just as much. Am I to endure anyone saying: 'in order that I may discover the causes of health, give me another body, other vitals; I will kill, then I will seek salutary things, I will meditate what will be of use'? Is it not easier thus to know the disease?

quae haec est inpudentia crudelissimae vilitatis? aegrum placuit occidere, ut inveniretur, cur non debuisset occidi!

What is this impudence of most cruel vileness? It was agreed to kill the sick man, so that it might be discovered why he ought not to have been killed!

Nullum, sanctissimi iudices, natura morborum genus solis visceribus abscondit, et quicquid causas valetudinis de vitalibus trahit, in corpus emanat. inde pallor, inde macies, quod ad interiorem dolorem superposita consentiunt. non invenio, cur hominem vulneribus exquiras, cum remedia quoque vitalibus per corpus immittas, et in latentes meatus <per> haec, quibus tegimur, medicina descendat.

Nature, most holy judges, hides no kind of disease solely in the viscera, and whatever draws the causes of the state of health from the vital parts emanates into the body. Thence pallor, thence emaciation, since the overlying parts consent to the interior pain. I do not find why you should seek a man out by wounds, since you also send remedies into the vital parts through the body, and into the latent meatus medicine descends through <per> those things with which we are covered.

cur ergo non eadem ratione languor admittit intellectum, qua sanitatem? prodit abditos profundosque morbos aut citatior clausi sanguinis cursus aut crebrior anhelitus laborantis animae. crede de his ante omnia sensibus, oculis tuis, et ipsos, de quibus agitur, modo singulos, modo pariter interroga, cui potissimum parti grave tacitae pestis pondus insederit, unde prorumpat in gemitus conscius dolor.

Why then does languor not admit understanding by the same reasoning as health? Either a more hurried course of enclosed blood, or a more frequent panting of the laboring breath, betrays hidden and deep diseases. Trust, before all, the senses about these things—your eyes—and question those very persons who are the subject of concern, now singly, now together, to which part especially the heavy weight of the silent pestilence has settled, and from where the conscious pain bursts forth into groans.

medicus, qui per haec non potest invenire languorem, non invenit nec remedium.

the medic who cannot, through these means, find the ailment, finds not even the remedy.

[17] Quid? si aliquid sanato medicina potest praestare rationis, sufficit, quod, aliquando iam facta exanimis hominis inspectione, ad totius intellectum naturae medicina profecit. quid adlaturus huic aegroto es, quod non tot saeculorum, tot languentium experimenta deprehenderint?

[17] What then? If medicine can furnish anything of reason to the healed, it suffices that, once an inspection of a lifeless man has already at some time been made, medicine has advanced to the understanding of nature as a whole. What are you going to bring to this sick man that the experiments of so many ages, of so many languishing persons, have not apprehended?

vis tu potius hac audacia, qua secreta languoris exquiris, remedia temptare? brevior via sanitatis humanae, propior nostrae salutis utilitas est. si viscerum nimius ardor stricta circa se membra duravit, adhibe remedia laxantia.

Would you rather, with this audacity with which you search out the secrets of the ailment, attempt remedies? It is a shorter way to human health, a nearer utility for our salvation. If an excessive burning of the viscera has hardened the limbs tightened around it, apply laxative remedies.

si fluitat nimis aeger humoribus, praesto sint, per quae pressis clusisque venis in novas vires corpus arescat. si parum prodest abstinentia, rursus ciborum qualitate foveatur. si spiritus receptis premitur alimentis, ad puriores meatus ieiunio fameque tenuetur.

if the sick man fluctuates excessively with humors, let there be at hand those things through which, the veins compressed and closed, the body may desiccate into new vigor. if abstinence profits too little, let him in turn be cherished by the quality of foods. if the breath is pressed after aliments have been received, let it be kept to purer meatus by fasting and hunger.

contigit tibi magna experimentorum materia, medice: aegri duo et languor idem. non est opus, ut expectes, quando se per unius hominis patientiam explicet profuturorum magna diversitas; potes experiri pariter eadem, consentanea, diversa, pugnantia. nulla ratio est vulnerum, sanguinis, supremorum.

A great material for experiments has fallen to you, physician: two sick men and the same languor. There is no need for you to wait until the great diversity of future benefits unfolds itself through the patience of one man; you can try at once the same things, consonant things, different things, conflicting things. There is no reckoning of wounds, of blood, of last things.

quemadmodum sanari debeat alius aeger, scire non possis nisi ex homine sanato.

In what manner another patient ought to be cured you cannot know, save from a man who has been cured.

Quid, quod, etiam ut idem sit valetudinis genus, necesse est tamen duorum corporum diversitate varietur? numquam in alienis visceribus invenias totum, quod de altero quaeras, et alius languor est, <si> alius aeger. cur maximum nefas alterius filii salute defendis?

What of this—that, even granted the same genus of health, nevertheless by the diversity of two bodies it must be varied? Never in another’s viscera will you find in full what you seek from someone else, and there is a different languor, if there is a different patient. Why do you defend the greatest impiety on the plea of the safety of another man’s son?

homo, in quo sola quaeritur causa languoris, propter medicum occiditur. adice, quod nec deprehendi ex sanato potest ullius causa languoris:

a man, in whom alone the cause of the languor is sought, is killed on account of the physician. Add that neither can the cause of anyone’s languor be apprehended from one who has been healed:

[18] quicquid nos in vitia morborum a naturali sanitate commutat, facit aut nimii sanguinis pondus exaestuans aut superfluens calor aut ultra naturalem modum humor exundans aut spiritus per tacitos meatus non solita laxitate discurrens. quid horum, si vitalia ferro vulneribusque resecentur, salvum potest esse languentibus, cum compressi spiritus laborem protinus ille reserati pectoris meatus emittat, sanguis isdem pariter deprehendatur egrediaturque vulneribus? an fas putatis, ut suam servent viscera nudata faciem, ut nihil perdat ex priore natura illud pectoris vitaeque secretum, cum admisit oculos?

[18] Whatever alters us from natural health into the vices of diseases is brought about either by the seething weight of excessive blood, or by superfluous heat, or by humor overflowing beyond the natural measure, or by the breath coursing through silent meatus with an unwonted laxity. Which of these, if the vitals are resected by iron and by wounds, can remain safe for the languishing, when the channel of the unbarred chest forthwith emits the labor of the compressed breath, and the blood likewise is apprehended and goes out through the same wounds? Or do you deem it right that the bared viscera preserve their own appearance, that that secret of the chest and of life lose nothing from its prior nature, when it has admitted eyes?

plurimum in nobis etiam timore mutatur. quantum aufert sollicitudo, gaudium, dolor et aliquis subitus adfectus! quotiens, dum ad curationem praeparatur aeger, dum componitur ad sua remedia corpus, medentium manus anima destituit!

Very much in us is altered even by fear. How much do solicitude, joy, pain, and some sudden affect take away! How often, while the patient is being prepared for cure, while the body is composed for its remedies, the soul deserts at the physicians’ hands!

iam vero ad singulos ictus et longissimas vulnerum moras quantum ex toto homine convertitur clamore, gemitu! necesse est omnis perire, quibus continetur vita, causas, quotiens ipsa vita consumitur, et cum homine, qui propter intellectum languoris occiditur, ipse quoque paulatim languor emoritur. Differ saltem, pater, hanc crudelitatem; quicquid ex filio facis, facies ex cadavere.

And indeed, at each single blow and at the very long lingerings of wounds, how much of the whole man is converted into clamor and groaning! It is necessary that all the causes by which life is contained perish, whenever life itself is consumed; and together with the man—who is slain on account of the recognition of his languor—the languor itself likewise little by little dies out. Defer at least, father, this cruelty; whatever you do upon the son, you will do upon a cadaver.

si potest deprehendi languor, dum occidit, facilius, cum occiderit.

if the illness can be apprehended while it is killing, more easily when it has killed.

Interrogare mehercules hoc loco libet, utrumne periturum pater an medicus elegerit. negavit sua interesse, quem occideret. hoc, si et alter perisset, probaverat utrumque fuisse periturum; cum convaluerit, probat utrumque victurum.

I would, by Hercules, like to ask at this point, whether the father or the physician chose that he should perish. he denied that it was to his interest whom he killed. this—if the other also had perished—would have proved that both had been going to perish; when he has recovered, he proves that both will live.

ad saevissimam curationem potuit aegrum facilius mehercules explicare, si esset unici pater. sufficit ergo comparare, decernere? non iterum ille tibi pretiosior, ille melior incipiet esse victuro?

to the most savage cure he could, by Hercules, more easily have induced the sick man, if he were the father of an only son. Is it enough, then, to compare, to decide? Will not this one again begin to be more precious to you, that one better, to the one who is going to live?

[19] ubi est patientia, qua vix dimittitur cadaver in rogos, qua corpus exanime detinetur amplexu? dii immortales, quam saeva, quam crudelis est ipsa cunctatio! dum deliberas, dum unumquemque detrectas, parricidium in utroque consumis.

[19] where is the impatience, by which the cadaver is scarcely dismissed to the pyres, by which the lifeless body is held fast in an embrace? Immortal gods, how savage, how cruel is hesitation itself! While you deliberate, while you refuse each one, you commit parricide against both.

duorum vilitate fit, ut ex fratribus possit alteruter occidi. numquam, iudices, res tam horribilis inauditaeque feritatis admissa est: filium pater propter eum occidit, quem etiam ipsum poterat occidere!

By the vileness of two, it comes about that either one of the brothers can be killed. Never, judges, has a deed so horrible and of unheard-of ferocity been committed: a father killed his son on account of the one whom he could himself also kill!

Transfert, iudices, reus in medicum electionis invidiam: 'ille,' inquit, 'aestimavit, ille decrevit,' ergo manifestum est non parem fuisse languorem: ex duobus aegris plus habuit spei, propter quem debuit alter occidi. recede paulisper, mulier infelix; filii tui nobis referenda curatio est. felices aegri, qui languore moriuntur, qui supremos anhelitus inter suorum amplexus, inter suorum adloquia posuerunt!

The defendant, judges, transfers onto the physician the odium of the choice: 'that man,' he says, 'assessed, that man decided,' therefore it is manifest the illness was not equal: of the two patients, the one for whose sake the other ought to have been killed had more hope. Step aside for a little while, unhappy woman; the treatment of your son must be reported by us. Happy the sick who die of illness, who have laid down their last breaths in the embraces of their own, amid the addresses of their own!

ut erat iuvenis primo ipso comparationis incerto, mox electione cruciatus, abacta est a perituro prima mater, et modo sedula ministeria servorum repente mutata sunt in mortis officia. detrahuntur trementibus velamenta membris, et ut grassaturas manus totum corpus admitteret, nudatur miserabilis ac deflenda macies. toto deinde tenditur toro, et ad inmobilem rigidamque patientiam per omnia lectuli spatia duraturus exponitur.

as he was a young man, at the very first uncertainty of the comparison, soon tortured by the choice, the mother, first, was driven away from the one about to perish, and the just-now assiduous services of the servants were suddenly changed into the offices of death. The coverings are pulled from his trembling limbs, and, that the hands about to make an assault might have access to the whole body, his pitiable and to-be-lamented leanness is laid bare. Then he is stretched across the whole couch, and he is set out to endure an immobile and rigid patience through all the spaces of the little bed.

accipit carnifex ille telum, non quo dextera statim totum vulnus inprimeret, sed quod leviter paulatimque discindens animam in confinio mortis ac vitae librato dolore suspenderet. haec exhortatio, hoc fuit perituri iuvenis adloquium: 'fortiter dura, patienter admitte; sanabitur frater. non est, quod exanimeris metu, dolore deficias.

That carnifex receives the blade, not one with which the right hand would at once imprint the whole wound, but one which, lightly and little by little cutting, would suspend the soul on the confines of death and life with pain weighed out. This was the exhortation, this the allocution of the youth about to perish: 'Endure bravely, admit it patiently; the brother will be healed. There is no cause that you be exanimated with fear, that you fail from pain.'

cave viscera exclamatione ne lasses, anhelitu gemituque concutias, ne remedium pereat alienum.'

beware not to weary your viscera by exclamation, nor to shake them with panting and groaning, lest another’s remedy perish.'

Passus est miser discurrentem per omnia reserati pectoris improbum vagae artis errorem.

The wretched man endured the shameless error of a vagrant art, running everywhere through the unbarred breast.

[20] contentum fuisse medicum toto homine discentem primo putatis aspectu? egesta saepe vitalia, pertractata, diducta sunt; fecerunt manus plura quam ferrum. stat iuxta medicum pater apertis visceribus inhians; stillantem animae sedem cruentis manibus agitantem ne festinet, hortatur, iubet altius diligentiusque scrutari, interrogat, dubitat, contendit, adfirmat et accipit de filii morte rationem.

[20] Do you suppose the physician, learning the whole man, was content at the first sight? The vital parts were often brought out, handled, drawn apart; the hands did more than the iron. The father stands beside the physician, gaping at the opened viscera; as he, with bloody hands, agitates the dripping seat of the soul, he urges him not to hasten, bids him to search deeper and more diligently, he questions, he doubts, he contends, he affirms, and he receives a reasoned account of his son’s death.

at mulier infelix clusis advoluta foribus cruentumque secretum toto corpore effringens velut super busta tumulosque clamabat: 'audi, miserrime iuvenis, si quis adhuc tibi superest sensus, exaudi: non permisit hoc mater, crede orbitati meae, crede lacrimis; nec frater hac vellet ratione sanari.' inter haec reficiebatur miser haustibus, detinebatur adloquiis, conprimebatur residuus cruor, cludebantur aperta vitalia. nemo umquam tam nova pertulit commenta saevitiae: tamquam sanaretur, occisus est. ite nunc et quaerite, an potuerit medico sanante vivere, qui tamdiu vixit, dum occiditur.

but the unhappy woman, having rolled to the closed doors and, with her whole body, breaking open the bloody seclusion, cried out as if over pyres and barrows: 'hear, most wretched young man, if any sense still remains to you, hearken: your mother did not permit this—believe my bereavement, believe my tears; nor would a brother wish to be healed by this method.' meanwhile the wretch was being refreshed with draughts, was detained by addresses, the residual gore was being compressed, the opened vital parts were being closed. no one ever endured such new contrivances of savagery: as though he were being healed, he was slain. go now and inquire whether he could have lived, with the physician healing, he who lived so long even while he is being killed.

[21] Vos tunc putatis illius tantum languoris medicum quaesisse causas? quaesivit quicquid nesciebat, et usus occasione rarissima in omnem voluit proficere novitatem. dii inmortales, quantum infelix iuvenis animae, quantum sanguinis, quantum habuit ex vita, qui pertulit ordinem longissimae curationis!

[21] Do you then think that the physician sought only the causes of that sickness? He sought whatever he did not know, and, using a most rare opportunity, he wished to advance into every novelty. Immortal gods, how much of soul the unhappy youth had, how much blood, how much he had of life, who endured the sequence of a very long treatment!

vix aegro misero licuit mori, vix a cruciatibus suis anima dimissa est. inventum putatis esse languorem? inventum est illum potuisse sanari.

Scarcely was it permitted the wretched sick man to die; scarcely was his soul dismissed from his torments. Do you suppose the illness was the thing discovered? It was discovered that he could have been cured.

agedum commento tuo, senex, superbus exulta; habes quod liberis, quod parentibus, quod inputare saeculo possis: fecisti medicum parricida meliorem.

come then, by your contrivance, old man, exult proudly; you have what you can present to your children, to your parents, what you can impute to the age: you have made the doctor a better parricide.

Libet mehercules intueri par illud: aegrum videtis hominem, qualem non salutares medentium manus, non ars inventa pro vita, sed diri ferarum rabidique morsus et animalium fames satiata destituit; hinc alium, in novas vires recensque robur reddito vigore surgentem. vultis scire, iudices, unde venerit tanta diversitas? illum pater curavit, hunc mater.

By Hercules, it pleases me to gaze on that pair: you see a sick man, such as not the salutary hands of the healers, not the art invented for life, but the dire bites of wild beasts and rabid bites and the sated hunger of animals have left abandoned; and here another, rising into new strength and fresh robustness, vigor being restored. Do you wish to know, judges, whence such diversity has come? That one the father cared for, this one the mother.

'quantum,' inquit, 'misera pertuli laborem, dum tam magnam foveo tristitiam! non fuit mihi rixa cum morbis nec cum repugnantis valetudinis rigore contentio. totus in lacrimas maeroremque resolutus oderat lucem: respuebat cibos, fastidiebat haustus et vitam parricidii pudore fugiebat.

'How much,' she says, 'wretched, I have endured labor, while I fostered so great a sadness! There was no quarrel for me with diseases nor contention with the rigor of a repugnant state of health. Entirely dissolved into tears and grief, he hated the light: he would spit out foods, scorned draughts, and fled life out of the shame of parricide.

in omni proclamatione gemituque frater, ille diebus ac noctibus cogitationes, ille torquebat oculos.' de quibus tu aegris, inpotentissima medicina, mentita es? non fuit, non fuit solo languore periturus, quem non potuit nec mors fratris occidere.

in every proclamation and groan—the brother; he in his cogitations by days and nights; he was tormenting his eyes.' about which, to the sick, you, most impotent Medicine, have lied? he was not, he was not going to perish by languor alone—he whom not even the death of his brother could kill.

'Quid igitur,' inquit miserrima feminarum, 'saevissime senex, ex hac recordatione tristissimae orbitatis ad hos vultus faciemque converteris?'

'What then,' says the most wretched of women, 'most savage old man, from this recollection of most grievous bereavement do you turn toward these looks and this face?'

[22] sine dubio filius est et post gravissimas denuntiationes redditus vitae, sed ignoscat natura, pietas: non est solacium matri unus ex geminis. felicior ille dolor est, quo transigi saltem cum oculis potest; renovatur, accenditur, et in his vultibus illum cotidie putat videre pereuntem. sed et ipse gaudio redditae vitae laetitiaque non fruitur, nec se credere potest caritate praelatum, quem medicus elegit.

[22] without doubt the son exists and, after most grave denunciations, has been restored to life, but let nature, let piety, forgive: one out of twins is not a solace to a mother. Happier is that grief, with which at least one can come to terms with the eyes; is renewed, is kindled, and in these features she thinks she sees him perishing every day. But he himself too does not enjoy the joy of a life restored and gladness, nor can he believe himself preferred in charity, he whom the physician chose.

sentit infelix, cuius orbitatis unicus sit, quibus lacrimis perfundantur oscula, quam magnis profundisque suspiriis concutiantur amplexus. misera verecundia sanitatis ingratae: pretium sibi videtur fratris occisi.

He, unhappy, feels—of whose bereavement he is the sole one—with what tears the kisses are drenched, with how great and deep sighs the embraces are shaken. A wretched bashfulness of ungrateful health: he seems to himself the price of his slain brother.

Convertitur hoc loco, iudices, mulier infelix et velut ad quandam praesentiam amissi iuvenis 'sive,' inquit, 'tandem securitate mortis explicitus in aliquo <angulo> sedis aeternae pudore requiescis, sive exclusus ac vagus et inter fabulosa supplicia metuendus adhuc laceratione per stupentes horrentesque manes umbra discurris, audi miserrimae matris iniquissimam conplorationem. non quidem licuit mihi in illud conditorium cubiculum tuae mortis inrumpere nec supra carrissima membra prostratae meis vulnera tua tegere visceribus. quod solum tamen potui, corpus, quod medicus, quod reliquerat pater, hoc sinu misera collegi ac vacuum pectus frigidis abiectisque visceribus rursus implevi, sparsos artus amplexibus iunxi, membra diducta conposui et de tristi terribilique facie tandem aegri cadaver imitata sum.

At this point, judges, the unhappy woman turns, and as if to a certain presence of the lost youth: “Whether,” she says, “at last, released by the security of death, you rest with modesty in some of the eternal seat, or shut out and wandering, and, amid fabulous punishments, to be feared, you still, as a shade, run about torn with laceration through the stupefied and horror-stricken spirits, hear the most unjust wailing of a most wretched mother. It was not permitted me, indeed, to burst into that sepulchral chamber of your death, nor, prostrate above your dearest limbs, to cover your wounds with my own viscera. Yet what alone I could do—the body which the medic, which your father had left behind—into this bosom I, wretched, gathered, and I refilled the empty breast with the cold and cast-out viscera; I joined the scattered limbs with embraces, I set in order the sundered members, and from the sad and terrible face at last I fashioned the likeness of the ailing cadaver.”

hoc est tamen, quod de tristissima orbitate praecipue ferre non possum: propter fratrem videris occisus, nec tamen umquam constare poterit, an tu sanaveris fratrem.'

This is, however, what from the most sorrowful bereavement I especially cannot bear: because of your brother you seem to have been slain, and yet it will never be able to be established whether you have healed your brother.'