Apology to a Noble Friend and Plea for a Milder Exile

O you who, though noble by the names of your ancestors, surpass your lineage by the nobility of your character, in whose mind is the image of your father's sincerity, so that that sincerity of yours does not lack its own strength, in whose talent is the eloquence of your native tongue, than which there was none greater in the Forum of Latium— though I least wished it, with signs placed instead of your name you have been designated: may you yourself forgive your own praises. I have sinned in nothing; your well-known virtues betray you: if you appear as what you are, my fault is dissolved. Yet I do not think that this service rendered to you by my poem could harm under so just an Emperor. The father of the country himself—for what is more civil than he?— tolerates being read often in my poem, nor can he forbid it, because Caesar is public, and our part is also from the common good. Jupiter offers his divine power to the talents of poets, and allows himself to be celebrated by any mouth; your cause is safe by the example of two heavenly gods, of whom this one is looked upon, and that one is believed to be a god. Though I ought not to have, yet I shall bear this charge: my letter was not under your control. Nor is our speaking with you a new injustice on our part, with whom I often spoke when I was unharmed. That you may fear the less lest I, your friend, be a charge against you, the author can bear the ill-will, if there is any. For your father was always honored by me from my earliest years— surely do not deny this— and he approved of my talent (you can remember this) even more than I was worthy of in my own judgment; and he spoke of my verses with that mouth in which there was a great part of nobility. Therefore, it is not to you now, because that house received me, but formerly to your father that a deception was made. Yet no deception was made, believe me: but in all my deeds, if you take away the last, my life is to be defended. Even this fault by which I ruined myself, you will deny to be a crime, if the origin of so great an evil is known to you. Either fear or error harmed me, first error harmed. Ah! allow me not to remember my fate; and let me not break open by handling again wounds not yet closed: quiet itself will scarcely benefit them. Therefore, as we pay penalties justly, so all crime and design was absent from my mistake; and the god perceives this; for which reason neither is my light taken away, nor does another possess my stripped wealth. Perhaps this exile itself, if only I live, he will one day end, when with time his anger has become gentler. Now I pray that he may command me to depart hence to another place, if my vows do not lack modest shame. I wish for a milder and a slightly nearer exile, and a place that is further from a cruel enemy; and how great is the clemency in Augustus, if anyone from him should ask this for me, perhaps he would grant it. The cold shores of the Euxine Sea hold me: it was called Axenus by the ancients. For neither are the seas tossed by moderate winds, nor does a hospitable ship enter peaceful harbors. Around are tribes that seek plunder with blood; nor is the land feared less than the treacherous water. Those whom you hear rejoice in human blood lie almost under the axis of the same constellation; nor is the place far from us, where the Tauric altar of the quivered goddess is sprinkled with dreadful slaughter. Formerly, as they record, these realms of Thoas were not envied by the wicked, nor to be desired by the good. Here, in place of a substituted hind, the Pelopeian virgin performed the sacred rites of her goddess, of whatever kind they were. After Orestes, doubtful whether pious or criminal, driven by his own Furies, had come there himself, and his companion, the pattern of true love, the Phocian, who were two in bodies but one in minds, immediately bound they are led to the sad altar, which stood bloody before the double doors. Yet neither did his own death terrify this one, nor his own death terrify that one; one was sad for the other's death. And already the priestess had stood with drawn sword, and the barbarian fillet had encircled the Greek hair, when by the exchange of speech she recognized her brother, and to him instead of death Iphigenia gave embraces, and joyful, she transferred the image of the goddess who hated cruel rites from those places to better ones. Therefore this region, almost the last of the great world, which men and gods have fled, is near to me; and from my land, deadly rites are close at hand, if only the barbarian land is Naso's own. Oh, would that the winds by which Orestes was carried away would also bring back my sails, when the god has been appeased!