MONTAIGNE
Nec fas esse ulla me voluptate bic frui
Decrevi, tantisper dum ille abest meus particeps.
(Indulgence in a pleasure were not right,
I judge, so long as my partaker’s gone)
I was already so trained and habituated to being his second everywhere, that I feel myself no more than a half.
Illam mee si partem anime tulit
Maturior vis, quid moror altera?
Nec carus aque, nec superstes
Integer. Ille dies utramque
Dusit ruinam—
(If death has prematurely snatched away
One half my soul, why should the other stay?
The part remaining of my soul
Is not so dear and not so whole.
One day did ruin both—)
In every action and thought I miss him; as he would also have me: for just as he surpassed me by an infinite distance in every other capacity and virtue, so did he in the duties of friendship.
Quis desiderio sit pudor, aut modus
Tam cari capitis?
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