Bread and cheese, baked eggs,
fish in spicy sauces; I pondered jumping
into the Walbrook, but where would I go?
Dad would as soon as kill me, I could
not involve the girls, for Felix would hunt
me down and make them pay, and to leave
the city wall was to risk unknown horrors.
Was my punishment to come?
A husband could do what he liked
and many an errant wife ended up
in an unmarked grave outside the city walls.
I did not scream, though, hammering
on the door for forgiveness,
but accepted what was due.
I had relished a death so sweet that nothing
would ever match it again;
nascentes morimur, from the moment
of being born, we die, after all.
I had lived my life.