My hateful birthday’s here, to be spent in sadness,
in the wretched country, and without Cerinthus.
What’s sweeter than the city? Is a villa fit for a girl
or the chilly river that runs through Arretium’s fields?
Peace now, Messalla, from over-zealous care of me:
journeys, dear relative, aren’t always welcome.
Snatched away, I leave my mind and feelings here,
she whom coercion won’t allow to make her own decisions.
—Sulpicia
Sulpicia 2, translated by A. S. Kline
