Humanitext Reader

Cicero · Letters to Friends §16.15.1-16.15.2

Report on Tiro's Health and Sending Aegypta to Assist

Passage 404 of 413 · Latin

Summary

Cicero receives a report on Tiro's health from Aegypta and, despite hearing that the fever has gone, expresses anxiety over Tiro's inability to write, mentioning that he is sending Aegypta and a cook to assist him.

§16.15.1Aegypta ad me venit pr. Idus Apr.
Aegypta came to me on the day before the Ides of April.
is etsi mihi nuntiavit te plane febri carere et belle habere, tamen, quod negavit te potuisse ad me scribere, curam mi attulit, et eo magis, quod Hermia, quem eodem die venire oportuerat, non venerat.
Although he reported to me that you were entirely free from fever and doing well, yet, because he said that you had been unable to write to me, he brought me anxiety, and all the more so, because Hermia, who ought to have come on the same day, had not arrived.
incredibili sum sollicitudine de tua valetudine; qua si me liberaris, ego te omni cura liberabo.
I am in incredible anxiety about your health; if you free me from this, I will free you from all care.
plura scriberem, si iam putarem libenter te legere posse.
I would write more, if I thought you were now able to read with pleasure.
ingenium tuum, quod ego maximi facio, confer ad te mihi tibique conservandum; cura te etiam atque etiam diligenter.
Apply your intellect, which I value most highly, to preserving yourself for me and for yourself; take care of yourself again and again diligently.
vale.
Farewell.
§16.15.2scripta iam epistula Hermia venit.
The letter having already been written, Hermia arrived.
accepi tuam epistulam vacillantibus litterulis, nec mirum tam gravi morbo.
I received your letter with shaky handwriting, and no wonder in so severe an illness.
ego ad te Aegyptam misi, quod nec inhumanus est et te visus est mihi diligere, ut is tecum esset, et cum eo cocum, quo uterere.
I have sent Aegypta to you, because he is not without culture and seemed to me to love you, so that he might be with you, and with him a cook, for you to make use of.
vale.
Farewell.

Notes

  1. 16.15.1liberaris — A syncopated form of the future perfect active second-person singular liberaveris. In the conditional clause with si, the future perfect is used to express a condition completed prior to the future tense liberabo in the main clause.
  2. 16.15.1conservandum — A gerundive construction governed by the preposition ad, agreeing with the accusative object te. The words mihi tibique are dative of benefit, meaning 'for me and for yourself'.
  3. 16.15.2uterere — An alternative form of utereris, the second-person singular imperfect subjunctive of the deponent verb utor. Accompanied by the relative pronoun in the ablative, quo (with cocum as its antecedent), it forms a relative clause of purpose.

Cite this passage

Cicero, Letters to Friends §16.15.1-16.15.2. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0474.phi056.humanitext-lat1:16.15.1-16.15.2

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