You have indeed set forth so great a cause of grief that the reply owed by epistolary duty was cut short, and, a wound being inflicted by the harshest of tidings, it compelled me to serve tears more than letters. Yet, fearing the fault of silence, I have stolen at least a few words, as best I could, from my sighs. The times therefore prove to whom the mark of dread is more rightly ascribed, and whom, entrusted to enclosures, foresight marks out as the more trembling. Thus, having disdained the cages of the city, amid perils near at hand I laid bare the constancy of my heart in open places, and long since I have reached the level expanses of open country, that I might show the boldness of valour by the freedom of my dwelling. But you, when the rumour was heard, flew together to the ramparts of the city as though against a rival about to come:
and those whom in days of peace the countryside continually held, they now do not draw forth from the hiding-places of the dead. Indeed, as the city demanded you then, so now the abandoned estate seeks you, established within the walls.