Cicero

• quod ad me scribis de sorore tua, testis erit tibi ipsa quantae mihi curae fuerit ut Quintus fratris animus in eam esset is qui esse deberet.

  As to what you write to me about your sister, she herself will be a witness to you about how much of a care it has been for me that the attitude of my brother Quintus towards her was what it ought to be.
• quem cum esse offensiorem arbitrarer, eas litteras ad eum misi quibus et placarem ut fratrem et monerem ut minorem et obiurgarem ut errantem.


  Since I thought it was rather embittered, I sent this letter to him by which I might not only calm him down as a brother, but also advise him as someone younger, and chide him when doing wrong.
• Itaque ex iis quae postea saepe ab eo ad me scripta sunt confido esse ita omnia ut et oporteat et velimus.


  And so from those things which had been sent often by you to me afterwards, I trust that everything is just both as it ought be and as we wish.
• postridie ex Arpinati profecti sumus . . . prandimus in Arcano (nosti hunc fundum).


  On the next day we set out from Arpinum... We had lunch in Arcanum (you know this farm).
• quo ut venimus, humanissime Quintus, 'Pomponia,' inquit, 'tu invita mulieres, ego vero accivero pueros'; nihil potuit, mihi quidem ut visum est, dulcius idque cum verbis tum etiam animo ac vultu.


  When we arrived there, Quintus said very civily, 'Pomponia, you invite the women to lunch, I will summon the boy in the meantime'; Nothing could of been, as it seemed to me nothing could be sweeter his words and even his manner and expression.
• at illa audientibus nobis 'ego ipsa sum' inquit, 'hic hospita'; id autem ex eo, ut opinor, quod antecesserat Statius ut pandium nobis videret.


  But she said,with us listening 'I myself am a stranger here'; however this attiude, in my opinion, arose from the fact that Statius had gone in before her to see to the meal for us.
• tum Quintus, 'en,' inquit mihi, 'haec ego patior cotidie.' dices 'quid quaeso istuc erat?' magnu; idque me ipsum commoverat; sic absurd et aspere verbis vultusque responserat.


  Then Quintus said to me, 'See! This is what I suffer every day.' You might say, 'What was that thing to you?' A great deal and that had moved me as well; she replied so irrationally and so harshly had in her words and expression.
• dissimuilavi dolens. discubuimus omnes praetor illam, cui tamen Quintus de mensa misit; illa reiecit. quid multa?


  I hid my distress, although I deplored her behaviour. We all reclined at the (for lunch) except for her, to whom Quintus however sent something from the table; she rejected it. What more can I say?
• nihil meo frater lenius, nihil asperius tua sorore mihi visum est . . . ego unde Aquinum.

  Nothing was seen by me more gentle than my brother and nothing more harsh than your sister... From there I went to Aquinum.
• Quintus in Arcano remansit et in Aquinum ad me postridie mane venit mihique narravit nec secum illam dormire voluisse et cum discessura esset fuisse eius modi qualem ego vidissem.


  Quintus remained in Arcanum and came early on the next day to me at Aquinum and told me that she had not wanted to sleep with him and that when she was about to depart, she had shown the same behaviour as I myself had seen.