Sulpicia [aut incerta auctrix aut incertus auctor]
period uncertain
Trans RMBullard
Latin (Republican or Late Imperial period )
SVLPICIA
(late 1st century B.C.)
EPISTULAE
I.
Tandem venit amor, qualem texisse pudori
quam nudasse alicui sit mihi fama magis.
[At last, a love affair comes, the type that would give me more fame to have covered, for the sake of modesty, than to have revealed it to somebody.]
Exorata meis illum Cytherea Camenis
adtulit in nostrum deposuitque sinum.
[The Cytherean goddess, prayed for my Camenan poems, carried and dropped down my fellow into my lap.]
Exsolvit promissa Venus:
[Venus has kept her promises completely:]
mea gaudia narret,
dicetur siquis non habuisse sua.
[Let someone report my joy, let someone be said to not experience his own.]
Non ego signatis quicquam mandare tabellis,
ne legat id nemo quam meus ante, velim,
[For my part, I do not wish send anything through the tablets I've signed,]
sed peccasse iuvat, vultus conponere famae
taedet:
[but I'm happy to have erred, and it makes me sad to have to keep a composed face despite the fame:]
cum digno digna fuisse ferar.
[Let me be seed to have been a girl worthy of a worthy fellow.]
II.
Invisus natalis adest, qui rure molesto
et sine Cerintho tristis agendus erit.
[What a hateful birthday that must be spent in the annoying countryside, a sad maiden and without Cerinthus.]
Dulcius urbe quid est?
[What's sweeter than the city?]
an villa sit apta puellae
atque Arrentino frigidus amnis agro?
[or might a countryside be fit for a girl, and also the freezing river in the land of Arrezzo?]
Iam nimium Messalla mei studiose, quiescas,
[Hey Messalla, already too curious about me, may you fall silent,]
heu tempestivae, saeve propinque, viae!
[Woe's me! the roads are stormy, and cruel nearby!]
Hic animum sensusque meos abducta relinquo,
[In this place, I, now left behind, will lose my wit and senses,]
arbitrio quamvis non sinis esse meo.
[so long as you not allow me my discretion.]
III.
Scis iter ex animo sublatum triste puellae?
[Do you know any path hidden from the sad mind of a girl?]
natali Romae iam licet esse suo.
[She can now be in Rome on her birthday.]
Omnibus ille dies nobis natalis agatur,
qui nec opinanti nunc tibi forte venit.
[May everybody have the kind of birthday, the kind that now comes to you even when you truly don't think it will.]
IV.
Gratum est, securus multum quod iam tibi de me
permittis,
[It pleases me to follow the great amount of things you now allow to me,]
subito ne male inepta cadam.
[let me now suddenly not fall, hopelessly inept as I am.]
Sit tibi cura togae potior pressumque quasillo
scortum quam Servi filia Sulpicia:
[Let the care of a whore's toga be preferable to you, and a slut pressed by a *, more than Sulpicia, daughter of Servus.]
Solliciti sunt pro nobis, quibus illa dolori est,
[People are worrying about me, something of which is a cause for grief,]
ne cedam ignoto, maxima causa, toro.
[let me not yield to an unknown bed, even if I have the greatest of all causes.]
V.
Estne tibi, Cerinthe, tuae pia cura puellae,
[O Cerinthus, is the dutiful concern of your girl,]
quod mea nunc vexat corpora fessa calor?
[what is this heat that now vexes my tired body?]
A ego non aliter tristes evincere morbos
optarim, quam te si quoque velle putem.
[Ah! for my part, I might not otherwise wish to beat back depressing illness, than if I think about you too.]
At mihi quid prosit morbos evincere, si tu
nostra potes lento pectore ferre mala?
[But what good might it do me to beat back illness if it is you who can stand to bear my troubles with a slow heart?]
VI.
Ne tibi sim, mea lux, aeque iam fervida cura
[My light of my life, let my blistering worry now not be shared by you]
ac videor paucos ante fuisse dies,
[and I think that it had a few days ago,]
si quicquam tota conmisi stulta iuventa,
[if I lost anything from my entire thoughtless youth,]
cuius me fatear paenituisse magis,
[which I may confess I had grieved over,]
hesterna quam te solum quod nocte reliqui,
[At night I left you what there was in the evening,]
ardorem cupiens dissimulare meum.
[desiring to deceive my own yearning.]
