Parentalia IX. — Attusia Lucana Sabina, my Wife

Thus far my dirge, fulfilling its sacred task, has sung in loving strains of those who, though dear, were mourned but in the course of nature. Now my grief and anguish and a wound that cannot bear a touch — the death of my wife snatched away untimely, must be told by me. High was her ancestry and noble in her birth from a line of senators, but yet Sabina was ennobled more by her good life. In youth I wept for you, robbed of my hopes in early years, and through these six and thirty years, unwedded, I have mourned, and mourn you still. Age has crept over me, but yet I cannot lull my pain; for ever it keeps raw and well-nigh new to me. Others receive of time a balm to soothe their grief: these wounds become but heavier with length of days. I tear my grey hairs mocked by my widowed life, and the more I live in loneliness, the more I live in heaviness. That my house is still and silent, and that my bed is cold, that I share not my ills with any, my good with any — these things feed my wound. I grieve, if one man has a worthy wife; and yet again I grieve if another has a bad: for pattern, you are ever present with me. Howe'er it be, you come to torture me: if one be bad, because you were not like her; or if one be good, because you were like her. I mourn not for useless wealth or unsubstantial joys, but because in your youth you were torn from me, your youthful lord. Cheerful, modest, staid, famed for high birth as famed for beauty, you were the grief and glory of Ausonius your spouse. For ere you could complete your eight and twentieth December, you deserted our two children, the pledges of our love. They by God's mercy, and as you ever prayed, flourish amid an abundance of such goods as you desired for them. And still I pray that they may prosper, and that at last my dust may bring the news to your ashes that they are living yet.