518She raises herself on her side and, leaning on her left elbow, says, 'Let him see to it: let me confess my mad love. 520Ah me! 520where am I slipping? 520what fire is my mind conceiving?' 521and with trembling hand she sets out the words she has thought out: her right hand holds the stylus, the other holds the empty wax. 523She begins and hesitates, writes and condemns the tablets, writes and erases, changes, blames and approves, and in turn puts down what she has picked up and picks up again what she has put down. 526What she wants she does not know; 526whatever she seems about to do displeases her.
527In her face is boldness mixed with shame. 528'Sister' had been written; she decided to erase 'sister' and carve such words as these on the corrected wax: 'The health that she will not have unless you give it, this she who loves you sends to you: I am ashamed, ah! 531ashamed to tell my name. 532And if you ask what I desire, I would wish my cause could be pleaded without my name, and that I should not be known as Byblis until the hope of my wishes was certain. 535There could indeed have been signs to you of my wounded heart: my colour, my thinness, my face, my eyes often wet, my sighs heaved with no evident cause, my frequent embraces, and kisses which, if you happened to notice, could be felt not to be a sister's: yet I myself, though I had a grave wound in my heart, though there was fiery madness within, did everything (the gods are my witnesses) to become saner at last, and long I fought, unhappy, to escape the violent arms of Cupid, and I endured harder things than you would think a girl could bear.
545Overcome, I am forced to confess and to beg your help with timid prayers. 547You alone can save, you alone destroy the one who loves you: choose which you will do! 548It is not an enemy who begs this, but one who, though most closely joined to you, seeks to be joined more closely and bound to you by a nearer tie. 551Let old men know the laws, and inquire what is allowed and what is right and wrong, and keep the balance of the laws: reckless love befits our years! 554What is allowed we do not yet know, and we believe all things are allowed, and follow the example of the great gods.
556Neither a harsh father nor regard for reputation nor fear will hinder us (if only there be cause for fear!). 558We shall hide sweet thefts under the name of brother and sister: I have freedom to talk with you in secret, and we embrace and join kisses openly; how much is it that is lacking? 561Pity one who confesses her love, and who would not confess it unless utmost passion forced her, and do not deserve to be inscribed as the cause on my tomb!' 564As she wrote such things in vain, the full wax left her hand, and the last line clung to the margin. 566At once she seals her crimes with the impress of her gem, which she wet with tears (moisture had failed her tongue), and, blushing, she called one of her servants, and, coaxing the frightened man, said, 'Take these, most faithful one, to my —' and after a long time added, 'brother.' 571As she gave them, the tablets slipped from her hands and fell.
572She was disturbed by the omen: yet she sent them. 572The servant, finding a suitable time, approaches and hands over the hidden words. 574Stunned with sudden anger, the young grandson of Maeander throws away the tablets he had received when he had read part of them, and barely keeping his hands from the face of the trembling servant, 'While you can, wicked agent of forbidden lust, flee!' 578he said: 'if your fate did not drag my honour down with it, you would have paid me the penalty with your death.' 580He flees in fear and reports Caunus' fierce words to his mistress. 581You turn pale, Byblis, on hearing of the rejection, and your body, besieged by an icy cold, trembles.
583Yet when her mind returned, her madness returned with it, and her tongue barely uttered such words as these, striking the air: 'And rightly! 585for why did I rashly give away the secret of this wound? 586Why did I so quickly commit to hastily written tablets the words that should have been hidden? 588Before, I should have tested his feelings with ambiguous words. 589So that the breeze would not fail to follow me as I went, I should have noted with some part of the sail what it was like, and run on a safe sea, whereas now I have filled my canvas with winds unexplored. 593So I am carried onto the rocks, and capsized, I am overwhelmed by the whole ocean, and my sails have no way back.
595What of the fact that by sure omens I was forbidden to indulge my love, at the time when the wax fell as I bade it be carried, and made my hopes fall too? 598Should not either the day, or my whole purpose, have been changed — but rather the day? 599The god himself was warning me and giving sure signs, had I not been out of my mind. 601And yet I ought to have spoken myself, and not committed myself to wax, and revealed my passion in person (he would have seen my tears, seen the face of one in love!); I could have said more than the tablets held.
605I could have thrown my arms around his unwilling neck, and, if rejected, could have seemed about to die, and embraced his feet and, prostrate, begged for my life. 608I would have done everything; if each of these alone could not bend his hard mind, all together could have. 610Perhaps there is some fault too in the servant I sent: he did not approach well, nor, I think, choose a suitable time, nor seek an hour when his mind was at leisure. 613These things have harmed me. 613For he was not born of a tigress, nor does he carry hard flints or solid iron or adamant in his breast, nor did he drink a lioness's milk.
616He will be conquered! 616I must try him again, and I shall feel no weariness of what I have begun, as long as this breath remains. 618For the first choice, if I could undo what I have done, was not to have begun: the second is to carry by storm what I have begun. 620For even if I now gave up my desires, he cannot fail to remember always what I dared, and, because I gave up, I shall seem to have wished it lightly, or even to have tested him and attacked him with a snare; 624or at least I shall be thought to have been conquered not by this god who presses hardest on my heart and burns it, but by lust.
626In short, I cannot now have committed no wrong. 627I have both written and asked: my purpose is stained; 628even if I add nothing, I cannot be called innocent. 629What remains counts for much towards my wishes, for little towards my guilt.'