Marcus Tullius Cicero→Unknown|c. -49 AD|Cicero|AI-assisted
As to your distress that the letter was torn up, do not worry -- it is safe. You shall have it from my house whenever you like. As to your warning, I am very grateful, and I ask you always to do the same. For you seem to fear that unless we have that fellow, we shall laugh a Sardonic laugh. But hey, hands off the picture! The master is here sooner than we expected. I fear he may send the Catonian critics to the underworld. My dear Gallus, do not think there is anything better than that part of your letter from the words: "the rest are slipping away." Hear this in secret, keep it to yourself, do not tell even your freedman Apella. Besides the two of us, no one speaks in that manner. Whether well or badly, I shall see; but whatever it is, it is our own. Press on, then, and do not deviate a nail's breadth, as they say, from the pen. For that is the craftsman of speech. And indeed I am already taking some of the night as well.
XXV. Scr. in Tusculano (ineunte m. Octobri?) a.u.c. 709. M. CICERO S. D. M. FADIO GALLO.
Quod epistulam conscissam doles, noli laborare, salva est: domo petes, cum libebit. Quod autem me mones, valde gratum est, idque ut semper facias rogo; videris enim mihi vereri, nisi istum habuerimus, rideamus g°lvta sardnion. Sed heus tu, manum de tabula; magister adest citius, quam putaramus; vereor, ne in catonium Catoninos. Mi Galle, cave putes quidquam melius quam epistulae tuae partem ab eo loco: "cetera labuntur." Secreto hoc audi, tecum habeto, ne Apellae quidem, liberto tuo, dixeris: praeter duo nos loquitur isto modo nemo; bene malene, videro, sed, quidquid est, nostrum est. Urge igitur nec transversum unguem, quod aiunt, a stilo; is enim est dicendi opifex; atque equidem aliquantum iam etiam noctis assumo.
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As to your distress that the letter was torn up, do not worry -- it is safe. You shall have it from my house whenever you like. As to your warning, I am very grateful, and I ask you always to do the same. For you seem to fear that unless we have that fellow, we shall laugh a Sardonic laugh. But hey, hands off the picture! The master is here sooner than we expected. I fear he may send the Catonian critics to the underworld. My dear Gallus, do not think there is anything better than that part of your letter from the words: "the rest are slipping away." Hear this in secret, keep it to yourself, do not tell even your freedman Apella. Besides the two of us, no one speaks in that manner. Whether well or badly, I shall see; but whatever it is, it is our own. Press on, then, and do not deviate a nail's breadth, as they say, from the pen. For that is the craftsman of speech. And indeed I am already taking some of the night as well.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
XXV. Scr. in Tusculano (ineunte m. Octobri?) a.u.c. 709. M. CICERO S. D. M. FADIO GALLO.
Quod epistulam conscissam doles, noli laborare, salva est: domo petes, cum libebit. Quod autem me mones, valde gratum est, idque ut semper facias rogo; videris enim mihi vereri, nisi istum habuerimus, rideamus g°lvta sardnion. Sed heus tu, manum de tabula; magister adest citius, quam putaramus; vereor, ne in catonium Catoninos. Mi Galle, cave putes quidquam melius quam epistulae tuae partem ab eo loco: "cetera labuntur." Secreto hoc audi, tecum habeto, ne Apellae quidem, liberto tuo, dixeris: praeter duo nos loquitur isto modo nemo; bene malene, videro, sed, quidquid est, nostrum est. Urge igitur nec transversum unguem, quod aiunt, a stilo; is enim est dicendi opifex; atque equidem aliquantum iam etiam noctis assumo.