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Miserably seeking to leave, I now walked faster, sometimes stopping, saying something in the ear to my slave, while sweat seemed to drip all the way down to the ankles. "Oh you, Bolanus, lucky of your hotheadness," I said quietly, while he chatters about whatever, praised the neighbourhoods and the city. When I replied nothing to him, he says, "you want to leave, to depart: for a while I see this; but you do nothing: I will hold all the way; I will follow from here to where there is now a journey for you."

"There is no need to lead you around ={todo}how does circumagi te work??=: I want to visit a certain person who is not known to you; he lies far across the Tiber near the gardens of Caesar."

"I have nothing that I need to do and I am not lazy: I will follow you all the way."

I droop my ears, like a bad-tempered donkey, when its back ={todo}goes under a too-heavy load.= He begins: "If I know myself well, you will value neither Viscum nor Varium as a friend of more value; for who can write more verses or more quickly than me? who can move their limbs more elegantly? Even Hermogenes envies this: I sing."

Here was a spot of interruption.

"Is there a mother for you, relatives, for whom your wellbeing is needed?"

"There is no one for me. I have buried them all."

"They are lucky. Now I remain. Finish it; for sadly fate is decided for me, which a prophetic Sabellian woman sang with me being a boy, with an urn shaken: "Neither dreadful poisons nor enemy sword will take away this one, nor sadness of the body or cough or slow gout: a yapper consumes him at any time: if he is wise, he should avoid talkative people, and as soon as his age will have increased.""

[We] had arrived at the Vestian Way, with the forth part of the day having now passed, and by chance he ought to appear [in court], having been bound over by bail, if he had not done this, he will lose his case.

"If you love me," he says, "be present a here for a little."

"I will perish, if only I am strong to stand or I know civil law; and I hurry, for which reason you know."

"I am doubtful, what I should do," he says, "should I leave you or the matter?"

"Me, please."

"I will not do it," he [says], and begins to leave.

I follow, as it is hard to dispute with a conqueror.

"How is Maecenas with you?"

He pursues for this reason.

"[Maecenas is] of few men and of a very sensible mind. No one uses good fortune more skilfully. You will have a great helper, who is able to bring good favours, if you are willing to hand over this man: I will die, if you had not removed all."

"We live in that place not in the manner which you believe; any house is not more pure than this [house], nor more foreign to these evils. It's not any detriment to me," I say, "because the richer or more learned is here; there is his own place for any one person."

"You tell a large thing, hardly credible."

"Yet it holds like this."

"You inflame [me], by which means I will desire to be very close to him even more."

"You should only wish it: which [is] your virtue, you will conquer: and he is one who is able to be conquered and for this reason he has difficult first entrances."

"I will not fail myself: I will bribe the slaves with money; if I will have been excluded today, I will not stop; I will seek the right time, I will run to meet [him] in the crossroads, I will lead [him] away. Life gives nothing to mortals without great labour."