Your Naso sends you this greeting, Rufinus, who is a wretched man, if he can be his own to anyone.
§1.3.3reddita confusae nuper solacia menti §1.3.4auxilium nostris spemque tulere malis, §1.3.5utque Machaoniis Poeantius artibus heros §1.3.6lenito medicam vulnere sensit opem, §1.3.7sic ego mente iacens et acerbo saucius ictu §1.3.8admonitu coepi fortior esse tuo, §1.3.9et iam deficiens sic ad tua verba revixi, §1.3.10ut solet infuso vena redire mero.
The consolations lately restored to my confused mind have brought help and hope to my misfortunes, and just as the Poeantian hero by Machaonian arts felt the healer's help when his wound was softened, so I, lying low in mind and wounded by a sharp blow, began to be stronger because of your admonition, and I, already failing, revived at your words, as the pulse is wont to return when pure wine is poured in.
Yet your eloquence has not shown such great strength as to make my breast sound by your words.
Although you may take away much from the abyss of my care, that which will remain after it is drained will be no less.
A scar will perhaps be drawn over a long time; raw wounds shrink from hands applied to them.
It is not always in the physician's power that the patient be relieved; sometimes the disease is stronger than the learned art.
§1.3.19cernis ut e molli sanguis pulmone remissus §1.3.20ad Stygias certo limite ducat aquas, §1.3.21afferat ipse licet sacras Epidaurius herbas, §1.3.22sanabit nulla vulnera cordis ope.
You see how blood sent back from the soft lung leads by a certain path to the Stygian waters; though the Epidaurian himself should bring sacred herbs, he will heal the wounds of the heart with no help.
Medicine knows not how to take away the knotty gout, nor does it give aid in dreaded dropsy.
§1.3.25cura quoque interdum nulla medicabilis arte est— §1.3.26aut, ut sit, longa est extenuanda mora.
Care too is sometimes curable by no art— or, that it may be so, must be thinned by long delay.
§1.3.27cum bene firmarunt animum praecepta iacentem, §1.3.28sumptaque sunt nobis pectoris arma tui, §1.3.29rursus amor patriae ratione valentior omni, §1.3.30quod tua fecerunt scripta, retexit opus.
When your precepts have well strengthened my prostrate mind, and the armor of your breast has been taken up by me, again the love of my country, stronger than all reason, unravels the work which your writings have done.
Whether you wish this to be called piety or this effeminacy, I confess that I have a soft heart in my misery.
The wisdom of the Ithacan is not in doubt, yet he prays that he may be able to see the smoke from his native hearth.
By I know not what sweetness the native soil draws all men and does not suffer them to be unmindful of itself.
§1.3.37quid melius Roma? Scythico quid frigore peius?
What is better than Rome? What is worse than Scythian cold?
§1.3.38huc tamen ex illa barbarus urbe fugit,
Yet hither from that city the barbarian flees.
Though it be well with the daughter of Pandion shut in her cage, she strives to return to her own woods.
Bulls seek their accustomed glades, lions their accustomed caves— or does their wildness prevent them from seeking their dens.
Yet you hope that the bites of exile can yield from our breast to your fomentations.
Make it so that you yourselves are not so beloved by me, so that to be deprived of such friends may be a lighter evil.
But, I suppose, for one lacking the land where he was born, it has nevertheless been my lot to be in a civilized place.
I lie abandoned on the sands of the world's end, where the buried earth bears perpetual snows.
This field nurtures no fruit, no sweet grapes; no willows are green on the bank, no oaks on the mountain.
Nor should you praise the sea more than the land; the waters ever swell, deprived of suns by the madness of the winds.
Wheresoever you look, plains lacking a cultivator and vast fields which no one claims lie there.
§1.3.57hostis adest dextra laevaque a parte timendus, §1.3.58vicinoque metu terret utrumque latus, §1.3.59altera Bistonias pars est sensura sarisas, §1.3.60altera Sarmatica spicula missa manu.
An enemy to be feared is present on the right and left, and terrifies either flank with neighboring fear; one part is to feel the Bistonian spears, the other, the arrows sent by a Sarmatian hand.
§1.3.61i nunc et veterum nobis exempla virorum §1.3.62qui forti casum mente tulere refer, §1.3.63et grave magnanimi robur mirare Rutili §1.3.64non usi reditus condicione dati.
Go now and relate the examples of ancient men who bore their fortune with a brave mind, and marvel at the heavy strength of great-hearted Rutilius, who used not the condition of return that was given.
§1.3.65Smyrna virum tenuit, non Pontus et hostica tellus, §1.3.66paene minus nullo Smyrna petenda loco.
Smyrna held the man, not Pontus and a hostile land; Smyrna, a place to be sought almost less than none.
The Cynic of Sinope grieved not to be far from his country, for he chose your dwellings, Attic land.
The son of Neocles, who crushed Persian arms with arms, felt his first exile in an Argolic city.
Aristides, driven from his country, fled to Lacedaemon, between which two it was doubtful which was the first.
§1.3.73caede puer facta Patroclus Opunta reliquit, §1.3.74Thessalicamque adiit hospes Achillis humum.
The boy Patroclus left Opus, having committed a slaughter, and went to the Thessalian land, a guest of Achilles.
The exile from Haemonia departed to the Pyrenean wave, under whose leadership the sacred ship ran through Colchian water.
Cadmus, the son of Agenor, left Sidon's walls, that he might place walls in a better place.
Tydeus came to Adrastus, driven from Calydon, and the land pleasing to Venus received Teucer.
Why should I mention the ancients of the Roman race, among whom Tibur was the farthest land for exiles?
§1.3.83persequar ut cunctos, nulli datus omnibus aevis §1.3.84tam procul a patria est horridiorve locus.
Though I should follow up all, to no one in all ages has a place so far from his country or more wild been given.
§1.3.85quo magis ignoscat sapientia vestra dolenti: §1.3.86quae facit ex dictis, non ita multa, tuis.
Wherefore may your wisdom the more pardon him who grieves, which does not do so many things from your words.
Yet I do not deny that if our wounds can close, they can close by your precepts.
But I fear lest you labor in vain to save me, and lest I, a ruined patient, be not helped by the applied aid.