§3.12.1tu quidem sedulo argumentaris quid sit sperandum et maxime per senatum idemque caput rogationis proponi scribis qua re in senatu dici nihil liceat.
You indeed argue earnestly what is to be hoped for, and especially through the senate, and you write that a clause of the bill is being proposed by which nothing is allowed to be said in the senate.
itaque siletur.
Therefore there is silence.
hic tu me accusas quod me adflictem, cum ita sim adflictus ut nemo umquam, quod tute intellegis.
Here you accuse me of afflicting myself, although I am so afflicted as no one ever was, as you yourself well know.
spem ostendis secundum comitia.
You point to hope after the elections.
quae ista est eodem tribuno pl. et inimico consule designato? percussisti autem me etiam de oratione prolata.
What is that hope of yours with the same tribune of the plebs and an enemy as consul-elect? Furthermore, you have struck me also concerning the publication of the speech.
§3.12.2cui vulneri ut scribis medere, si quid potes.
Heal this wound, as you write, if you can do anything.
scripsi equidem olim ei iratus, quod ille prior scripserat, sed ita compresseram ut numquam emanaturam putarem.
I indeed once wrote in anger because he had written first, but I had suppressed it in such a way that I thought it would never get out.
quo modo exciderit nescio.
How it escaped I do not know.
sed quia numquam accidit ut cum eo verbo uno concertarem et quia scripta mihi videtur neglegentius quam ceterae, puto posse probari non esse meam.
But because it never happened that I contended with him in a single word, and because it seems to me to be written more carelessly than my other speeches, I think it can be proved not to be mine.
id, si putas me posse sanari, cures velim; sin plane perii, minus laboro.
If you think I can be cured, please look after this; but if I am utterly ruined, I care less.
§3.12.3ego etiam nunc eodem in loco iaceo sine sermone ullo, sine cogitatione ulla.
Even now I lie in the same place without any conversation, without any thought.
scilicet tibi, ut scribis, significaram ut ad me venires; †si donatam ut† intellego te istic prodesse, hic ne verbo quidem levare me posse.
To be sure, as you write, I had signaled to you to come to me; but †...† I understand that you are of use there, and that here you cannot relieve me even by a word.
non queo plura scribere nec est quod scribam; vestra magis exspecto.
I cannot write more, nor is there anything for me to write; I rather expect yours.
data xvi Kal. Sextilis Thessalonicae.
Given on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of August at Thessalonica.