1The more you long to see great-grandchildren from us, the sadder you will be to hear that your granddaughter has miscarried, since, in girlish fashion, she did not know she was pregnant, and so neglected certain things that pregnant women must observe and did things that should be avoided. 1She has paid for this mistake with severe lessons, having been brought into the gravest danger. 2So, though you must necessarily take it hard that your old age has been robbed, as it were, of descendants already on the way, you ought equally to give thanks to the gods that they have denied you great-grandchildren for the present in such a way as to save your granddaughter, and that they will give them back, a hope which this very fertility, though tested with too little success, makes more certain for us.
3I now exhort, advise and encourage you with the same thoughts with which I encourage myself. 3For you do not long for great-grandchildren more ardently than I long for children, to whom I think I shall leave, from my side and from yours, an easy road to office, names widely heard, and ancestral portraits not newly made. 3Only let them be born and turn this grief of ours into joy. 3Farewell.