I would like, papyrus, that you tell the young love poet,
my friend, Caecilius, that he should come to Verona,
leaving behind the walls of New Como and the shore of Larius:
for I wish that he receives certain cogitations
of a friend of his and mine.
On which account, if he will be wise, he will devour the road,
although a glittering girl might call him back a thousand times as he is leaving,
and, flinging both arms around his neck,
she might beg that he delay,
who now, if true things are announced to me,
perishes through uncontrollable love of him:
for from which time she reads his incomplete "Mistress of Dindymus,"
from that time, flames consume the innermost marrow of the poor girl.
I forgive you, girl more learned than the Sapphic Muse;
for the "Great Mother" of Caecilius is elegantly incomplete.