Latin Texts & Translations

DCLXV (F VII, 25)

TO M. FADIUS GALLUS (AT ROME) TUSCULUM (AUGUST)

You lament having torn up the letter: don't vex yourself, it is all safe. You can get it from my house whenever you please. For the warning you give me I am much obliged, and I beg you will always act thus. For you seem to fear that, unless I keep on good terms with him, I may laugh "a real Sardinian laugh." ^[Note] But look out for yourself. Hands off: our master is coming sooner than we thought. I fear we Catonian blockheads may find ourselves on the block. ^[Note] My dear Gallus, don't imagine that anything could be better than that part of your letter which begins: "Everything else is slipping away." This in your ear in confidence: keep it to yourself: don't tell even your freed-man Apelles. Besides us two no one talks in that tone.

Whether it is well or ill to do so, that is my look-out: but whatever it is, it is our speciality. Work on then, and don't stir a nail's breadth, as they say, from the pen; for it is the creator of eloquence: ^[Note] and for my part I now devote a considerable part of the night to it also.