Letters to Atticus Passage 1

o vitam miseram maiusque malum tam diu timere quam est illud ipsum quod timetur! Servius, ut antea scripsi, cum venisset Nonis Maiis , postridie ad me mane venit. ne diutius te teneam, nullius consili exitum invenimus. numquam vidi hominem perturbatiorem metu; neque hercule quicquam timebat quod non esset timendum; illum sibi iratum, hunc non amicum; horribilem utriusque victoriam cum propter alterius crudelitatem, alterius audaciam, tum propter utriusque difficultatem pecuniariam; quae erui nusquam nisi ex privatorum bonis posset. atque haec ita multis cum lacrimis loquebatur ut ego mirarer eas tam diuturna miseria non exaruisse. mihi quidem etiam lippitudo haec, propter quam non ipse ad te scribo, sine ulla lacrima est sed saepius odiosa est propter vigilias.

What a wretched life, and what a greater evil it is to fear something for so long than the very thing feared! As I wrote before, Servius arrived on the Nones of May and came to me early the next morning. Not to detain you, we found no outcome for any plan. I have never seen a man more disordered by fear, and by Hercules, he feared nothing that was not truly to be feared: Caesar angry with him, Pompey no friend to him, and the victory of either dreadful, because of the one's cruelty and the other's recklessness, and also because of both men's financial straits, from which funds could nowhere be extracted except from private property. He spoke of these matters with so many tears that I wondered they had not been dried up by such prolonged misery. As for me, even this inflammation of my eyes, which prevents me from writing to you myself, produces no tears, though it is frequently troublesome because it keeps me awake.

Ô vie misérable! Craindre si longtemps un mal est pire que le mal même que l’on craint. Servius, comme je te l’ai écrit auparavant, étant arrivé aux nones de mai, vint me voir le lendemain matin. Pour ne pas te retenir plus longtemps, nous n’avons trouvé d’issue à aucun projet. Jamais je n’ai vu un homme plus bouleversé par la peur. Et, par Hercule, il ne craignait rien qui ne fût effectivement à craindre: celui-là irrité contre lui, celui-ci sans amitié pour lui; la victoire de l’un ou de l’autre épouvantable, à cause de la cruauté de l’un et de l’audace de l’autre, mais aussi des embarras financiers des deux, auxquels on ne pouvait remédier qu’en tirant l’argent des biens des particuliers. Il disait tout cela avec tant de larmes que je m’étonnais qu’une si longue misère ne les eût pas taries. Quant à moi, cette inflammation des yeux, qui m’empêche de t’écrire de ma propre main, ne produit aucune larme; mais elle est souvent pénible à cause de mes veilles.