Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio: sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
Or where he says that, pest as she is, he cannot curse a love who is dearer to him than both his eyes:—
Credis me potuisse meæ maledicere vitæ,
Ambobus mihi quæ carior est oculis?
Non potui, nec, si possem, tam perdite amarem.
And he suffered the more, as he had lavished on her the purest affections of his heart. His love for her—such was his own expression—was not simply that which men ordinarily feel for their mistresses, but such as the father feels for his sons and his sons-in-law:—
Dilexi tum te, non tantum ut vulgus amicam,
Sed pater ut gnatos diligit et generos.
But shameless as she is, and it is an impossibility for her to be otherwise, he cannot abandon her. Do what she will he is her slave. His mind, he says, was so straitened by her frailty, so beggared by its own devotion, that, even if she became virtuous, he could not love her with absolute goodwill, and if she stuck at nothing—drained vice to its very dregs—he could not give her up:—