Voyage into the Unknown

Quidquid agit Rufus, nihil est nisi Naevia Rufo. Si gaudet, si flet, si tacet, hanc loquitur. Cenat, propinat, poscit, negat, innuit: una est Naevia; si non sit Naevia, mutus erit. scriberet hesterna patri cum luce salutem, “Naevia lux” inquit “Naevia lumen, have”. Haec legit et ridet demisso Naevia voltu. Naevia non una est: quid, vir inepte, furis? Whatever Rufus is doing, Naevia is to Rufus his all in all. If glad, if tearful, if mute, of her he speaks. He dines, drinks healths, asks, denies, or nods: Naevia is everything; be there no Naevia, he will be dumb. When yesterday he was writing a greeting to his father, “Naevia, light of my eyes”, he wrote, “Naevia, my sunbeam, I salute thee”. Naevia reads these lines with face down-dropt, and laughs. There is more than one Naevia; Why, you silly husband, do you rage?

Martial, Epigrams, Book 1, LXVIII
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker

Alejandro Cartagena, Discuartizados #32, 2019. Photo courtesy of Kopeikin, Los Angeles.