DLXXXVI (F V, 15)
TO L. LUCCEIUS (AT ROME)
ASTURA (MAY)
YOUR perfect affection manifests itself in
every sentence of the last letter which I received
from you: not that it was anything new to me, but
all the same it was grateful to my feelings and
all that I could desire. I should have called it
"delightful," had not that word been lost to me
for ever: and not for that one reason which you
imagine, and in regard to which you chide me
severely, though in the gentlest and most
affectionate terms, but because what ought to have
been the remedies for that sorrow are all gone.
Well then! Am I to seek comfort with my friends?
How many of them are there? You know—for
they were common to us both. Some of them have
fallen, others I know not how have grown callous.
With you indeed I might have gone on living, and
there is nothing I should have liked better.
Long-standing affection, habit, community of
tastes—what tie, I ask, is there lacking
to our union? Is it possible then for us to be
together? Well, by Hercules, I know not what
prevents it: but, at any rate, we have not been so
hitherto, though we were neighbours at Tusculum
and Puteoli, to say nothing of Rome; where, as the
forum is a common meeting-place, nearness of
residence does not matter. But by some misfortune
our age has fallen upon circumstances, which, just
when we ought to be at the very height of
prosperity, make us ashamed even of being alive.
For what had I to fly to when deprived of
everything that could afford me distinction or
console my feelings at home or in public life?
Literature, I suppose. Well, I devote myself to
that without ceasing. But in some
indefinable way literature itself seems to shut me
out from harbour and refuge, and as it were to
reproach me for continuing a life in which there
is nothing but extension of utter wretchedness. In
these circumstances, do you wonder at my keeping
away from the city, in which my own house has no
pleasure to offer me, while the state of affairs,
the men, the forum, and the senate-house are all
utterly repulsive to me? Accordingly, what I seek
from literature, on which I spend my whole time,
is not a lasting cure but a brief oblivion of
pain. But if you and I had done what on account of
our daily fears it never occurred to us to do, we
should have been always together, and neither
would your weak health have annoyed me, nor my
sorrow you. Let us aim at securing this as far as
it may be possible: for what could suit both of us
better? I will see you therefore at an early day.
ASTURA (MAY)