Elegies 3.15 (Group 1)
Did you know—the girl's soul has been unburdened—her sad
journey's been called off? Now she can spend her birthday in Rome.
Let's all celebrate her birthday together.
This is your chance—perhaps you weren't expecting it.
Elegies 3.16 (Group 2)
How wonderful—now you let yourself mistreat me,
unconcerned that suddenly I'll fall into something foolish.
Go ahead, tend to your toga-wearing whore crushed beneath
her wool basket—instead of the daughter of Servius, Sulpicia:
Others are concerned for me—to them, the greatest sorrow
would be my vanishing into some unsung lover's bed.
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Elegies 3.17 (Group 3)
Are you, Cerinthus, piously concerned for your girl
now that a fever torments my ailing body?
I wouldn't even want to overcome that awful illness,
unless I thought you wanted that too.
What good would it do me to overcome an illness, if you
endure my suffering with absolute indifference?
Elegies 3.18 (Group 4)
May I cease, my light, to be such a burning concern
as I seem to have been a few days ago to you—
if ever I've done anything in my short life
more foolishly and with more regrets—I confess it—
than leaving you alone last night
eager to conceal my passion.
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