Section 38 Flashcards
Huic tristi ac directo seni responderet Caelius se nulla cupiditate inductum de via decessisse.
To this gloomy and blunt old man Caelius would reply that he had not departed from the [right] path induced by any desire.
Quid signi? Nulli sumptus, nulla iactura, nulla versura. At fuit fama.
What proof [is there]? [There were] no extravangances, no outlays, no exchanging of credit. But there was a rumour.
Quotus quisque istam effugere potest in tam maledica civitate?
How few can escape that [rumour] in such a slanderous city?
Vicinum eius mulieris miraris male audisse, cuius frater germanus sermones iniquorum effugere non potuit?
Are you surprised that the neighbour of that woman had a bad reputation, whose full brother could not escape the talk/ (gossipy remarks) of unjust people?
Leni vero et clementi patre, cuius modi ille est: ‘Fores ecfregit, restituentur; discidit Vestem, resarcietur,’
But in the case of a gentle and forgiving father, he is of this type: ‘he broke the doors, they will be repaired; he tore his clothing, it will be patched up again,’
Caeli causa est expeditissima. Quid enim esset in quo se non facile defenderet?
The case of Caelius is very straightforward. For what [matter] could there be in which he could not easily defend himself?
Nihil iam in istam mulierem dico; sed, si esset aliqua dissimilis istius, quae se omnibus pervulgaret,
I am now saying nothing against that woman; but if there were some woman unlike her, who opened herself up to everyone,
quae haberet palam decretum semper aliquem, cuius in hortos, domum, Baias iure suo libidines omnium commearent,
who always had someone openly designated [i.e. a current lover], into whose gardens, house [and] place at Baiae, the lusts of everyone come and go on their own authority,
quae etiam aleret adulescentes et parsimoniam patrum suis sumptibus sustineret;
who even fed the young men and made up for the stinginess of their fathers at her own expense;
si vidua libere, proterva petulanter, dives effuse, libidinosa meretricio more viveret, adulterum ego putarem, si quid hanc paulo liberius salutasset?
if a widow were living freely, shameless woman were living recklessly, a rich one lavishly, and a lustful one lived in the manner of a prostitute, would I consider a man an adulterer, if he greeted her a little too freely?
