Captivi: The Captives (990-1000)

What do you say?

Why, this very Tyndarus is your son, according, indeed, to the proofs that he mentions. For, a boy himself together with me from boyhood was he brought up, virtuously and modestly, even to manhood.

I am both unhappy and happy, if you are telling the truth. Unhappy for this reason, because, if he is my son, I have badly treated him.

Alas! why have I done both more and less than was his due. That I have ill treated him I am grieved; would that it only could be undone. But see, he’s coming here, in a guise not according to his deserts.

I have seen many of the torments which take place at Acheron[*] often represented in paintings[*]; but most certainly there is no Acheron equal

to where I have been in the stone-quarries. There, in fine, is the place where real lassitude must be undergone by the body in laboriousness. For when I came there, just as either jackdaws, or ducks, or quails, are given to Patrician children[*], for them to play with, so in like fashion, when I arrived, a crow was given[*] me with which to amuse myself.