O holy patron and priest of learned men, what are you doing, you who have always been a friend to my genius?
§3.14.3ecquid, ut incolumem quondam celebrare solebas, §3.14.4nunc quoque, ne videar totus abesse, caves?
Do you, just as you used to celebrate me when I was unharmed, take care now too, lest I seem to be entirely absent?
Do you receive my poems at all, with the sole exception of the 'Art', the Art which harmed its own creator?
§3.14.7immo ita fac, quaeso, vatum studiose novorum, §3.14.8quaque potes, retine corpus in urbe meum.
Nay, do so, I pray, patron of modern poets, and as far as you are able, keep my body in the city.
Exile was decreed for me, exile was not decreed for my little books, which did not deserve the punishment of their master.
Often a father lives in exile as a fugitive on foreign shores, yet the children of the exile are permitted to remain in the city.
§3.14.13Palladis exemplo de me sine matre creata §3.14.14carmina sunt; stirps haec progeniesque mea est.
By Pallas's example, my poems were created from me without a mother; this is my stock and my offspring.
§3.14.15hanc tibi commendo, quae quo magis orba parente est, §3.14.16hoc tibi tutori sarcina maior erit.
This I commend to you; the more she is deprived of her parent, the greater a burden she will be to you, her guardian.
I have three children who have shared my ruin: see to it that the rest of the flock is openly your care.
§3.14.19sunt quoque mutatae, ter quinque volumina, formae, §3.14.20carmina de domini funere rapta sui.
There are also the 'Changed Forms', fifteen volumes, poems snatched from the funeral of their own master.
§3.14.21illud opus potuit, si non prius ipse perissem, §3.14.22certius a summa nomen habere manu: §3.14.23nunc incorrectum populi pervenit in ora, §3.14.24in populi quicquam si tamen ore mei est.
That work, if I myself had not perished first, could have gained a more certain name from the finishing touch; now, uncorrected, it has come into the mouths of the people, if indeed anything of mine is in the mouth of my people.
§3.14.25hoc quoque nescio quid nostris appone libellis, §3.14.26diverso missum quod tibi ab orbe venit.
Add this something-or-other too to my little books, which comes sent to you from a different side of the world.
§3.14.27quod quicumque leget, si quis leget aestimet ante, §3.14.28compositum quo sit tempore quoque loco.
And whoever reads this, if anyone reads it, let him first consider at what time and in what place it was composed.
§3.14.29aequus erit scriptis, quorum cognoverit esse §3.14.30exilium tempus barbariamque locum: §3.14.31inque tot adversis carmen mirabitur ullum §3.14.32ducere me tristi sustinuisse manu.
He will be fair to the writings, when he knows that their time was exile, and their place was barbarism; and he will wonder that amid so many adversities I endured to draw out any poem with a sad hand.
Misfortunes have broken my talent, whose spring even before was barren and whose vein was small.
But whatever it was, with no one to cultivate it, it has retreated, and has perished, dried up by long disuse.
Here is no abundance of books, by which I might be inspired and nourished; instead of books, bows and weapons clash.
§3.14.39nullus in hac terra, recitem si carmina, cuius §3.14.40intellecturis auribus utar, adest; §3.14.41non quo secedam locus est.
No one is present in this land, if I should recite poems, whose understanding ears I might employ; there is no place to which I may withdraw.
custodia muri §3.14.42summovet infestos clausaque porta Getas.
The guarding of the wall keeps away the hostile Getae, and the closed gate.
§3.14.43saepe aliquod quaero verbum nomenque locumque, §3.14.44nec quisquam est a quo certior esse queam.
Often I seek some word, name, or place, and there is no one from whom I can be made more certain.
To me, often attempting to say something—shameful to confess!— words fail me, and I have unlearned how to speak.
I am surrounded almost entirely by Thracian and Scythian tongues, and I seem to be able to write in Getic measures.
Believe me, I fear lest Pontic words be mixed in with Latin, and in my writings you might read Pontic words.