1What a sad and bitter fate has befallen the Helvidian sisters! 1Both died in childbirth, each after giving birth to a daughter. 2I am afflicted with grief, and yet I do not grieve beyond measure: so mournful does it seem to me that childbearing has carried off such virtuous girls in the first flower of youth. 2I am distressed at the lot of the infants, who were bereft of their parents at once, even as they were born, distressed for their excellent husbands, distressed too on my own account. 3For I love their father, though he is dead, with unwavering constancy, as my speech and my books bear witness; 3of his three children only one now survives, who, left alone, props up and supports a house that a little while ago rested on several pillars.
4Yet my grief will be greatly soothed and find rest if fortune preserves this one at least safe and sound, and equal to that father and that grandfather of his. 4For his safety and his character I am all the more anxious because he has become the only one. 5You know how tender my heart is in affection, you know my fears; 5so you will have less reason to wonder that I fear most for the one of whom I hope most. 5Farewell.