85:1
Nisi dolendum amici casum animo concussus gemerein, multa profecto exaggerarem, quod vos in lectulo, mendacis podagræ metu, medico vegetante de arte consueta, plus quam poeticae pedibus innitentes, montium sCandendorum magis moveat, cura, quam versuum. Mœstus vero has et cum festinatione dictavi, revocatus videlicet ad sepulturam communis filii Quondam Protendi: si tamen vel hoc ipsum patri aliquid consolationis impendat. Vobis porro si cordi est facta de nobis ex asse jactura, ab incursibus furmidandis Rhodano limitante muneri tenete adhuc dum redeo, et Ceratium nostrum, de meo habentem aliqua, de vestro nonnulla, qui a me scholasticum, a vobis asserit bellicosum:
Were I not, stricken in spirit, groaning over my friend's misfortune, I should surely heap up many words, complaining that you—lying abed for fear of a feigned gout, while your physician quickens you in his accustomed art—are moved, propping yourselves up on feet more than poetic, more by concern for climbing mountains than for verses. But it is in sorrow, and in haste, that I have dictated these lines, being recalled, as you know, to the burial of our common son, once Protendus—if perhaps even this itself may afford some consolation to a father. Moreover, if the total loss suffered on our account is dear to your heart, keep still, until I return, this gift kept safe from dreadful raids by the Rhône as a boundary, together with our Ceratius, who has something of mine and not a little of yours, and who declares himself made a scholar by me and a man of war by you:
若非我心中震動，為友人的不幸而哀嘆呻吟，我必定會累疊許多言辭，抱怨你們躺臥病榻、懼怕那假裝的痛風，而醫者卻以慣常的醫術使你振作起來；你們倚靠著比詩人之腳更甚的雙足，心思與其說被詩句所牽動，不如說被攀登群山之念所打動。然而我是懷著憂傷、匆忙地口授這幾行，正如你所知，我被召回去埋葬我們共同的兒子——昔日的普羅滕都斯——但願這件事本身也能為一位父親帶來些許安慰。此外，倘若我們所遭受的全部損失在你心中珍貴，就請在我歸來之前，將這份以隆河為界、免受可怕侵襲的禮物保守妥當，連同我們的凱拉提烏斯——他有些屬我、也有不少屬你，他自稱由我造就為學者、由你造就為戰士：
85:2
sumens de matris sapientia quod libenter barbaros fugit, de virtute paterna quod litteris terga non praebuit.
taking from his mother's wisdom that he gladly flees the barbarians, and from his father's valour that he did not turn his back on letters.
他從母親的智慧領受了樂於躲避蠻族之心，從父親的勇武領受了不背棄學問之志。