Letter 6070: It's true that a person can't have everything he wishes for at once.
It is true that a man cannot obtain all his wishes alike just as friendship would have them. How much more splendidly would I have spent my birthday, had you been present! But this at least Fortune, if entreated, will grant me hereafter, through many advances of the years to come. Meanwhile, my lady daughter, I rejoice greatly to have been honored with the rich memorial of your wool-working; for in it both your love toward your father and your matronly industry have shone forth together. Thus the women of old are said to have ordered their lives. And them indeed an age barren of luxuries compelled to bend their minds to the distaff and the loom, because in the absence of allurements one lives according to the times; but as for you, not even nearby Baiae can draw away your care for sober work. You take leave of those who skim the pools, and sitting or walking among the wool-tasks and weaving-baskets of the young women, you judge these alone to be the delights befitting your sex. Deservedly, then, do I love you and judge you worthy of your husband, since equally for us the praise and the pleasure are, from his accomplishment a thing acquired, from your uprightness a thing inborn. Farewell.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Verum est nequire hominem cuncta pariter voto amica sortiri. quanto luculen-
tius natalem mihi diem, si adfuissetis, egissem! quod in reliquum saltem numerosis
annorum processibus Fors orata praestabit. interea, domina filia, honoratum me opimo 25
lanificii tui monumento satis gaudeo; una quippe et amor in parentem tuum et in-
2 dnstria matronalis inclaruit. sic priscae feminae vitam coluisse traduntur. et illas
quidem deliciarum sterile saeculum colo et telis animum iubebat intendere, quia in-
lecebra cessante temporum vivitur: tibi vero etiam Baiae adpositae curam so-
brii operis detrahere non possunt. renuntias stagna verrentibus et residens ant ob- 30
ambulans inter pensa et foragines puellarum has solas arbitraris sexus tui esse deli-
cias. merito igitur te amo dignamque viro tuo iudico, quando aeque nobis laus et
voluptas ex illius perfectione adventicia, ex tua probitate genuina est. vale.
1 fort, expeto
a ■
uo/'///e metuitas rem P, s add. 2 m,, u 3 m. post] //st P 12 adsentienti P 1 m, 15 co-
herceatur P
suppU : tempomm antiquonim more facile uiuitur vel simiU fuid 33 et tua P 2 m.
LXVIU (LXVim).
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern symmachus retranslated v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/details/qaureliisymmach00seecgoog
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