1I am eager to obey your instructions; 1but there is such a shortage of boars that Minerva and Diana, who you say should be worshipped together, cannot be brought together. 2So I must serve Minerva alone, though gently, as befits retirement and summer. 2On the road, to be sure, I spun out some lighter pieces, fit to be deleted at once, with the kind of chatter with which conversations are strung together in a carriage. 2To these I added a few at the villa, when I did not feel like doing anything else. 2So my poems are resting, which you think are most conveniently completed among woods and groves. 3I have revised a short speech or two; 3though that kind of work is unlovely and unpleasant, and more like the toils than the pleasures of the country.
3Farewell.