"Natheless, you are to know that I used no cunning practice or deceit to
sully in any degree the fair fame of your house in the person of
Sophronia; and, albeit I took her privily to wife, I came not as a
ravisher to despoil her of her virginity, nor in any hostile sort was I
minded to make her mine on dishonourable terms, and spurn your alliance;
but, being fervently enamoured of her bewitching beauty and her noble
qualities, I wist well that, should I make suit for her with those
formalities which you, perchance, will say were due, then, for the great
love you bear her, and for fear lest I should take her away with me to
Rome, I might not hope to have her. Accordingly I made use of the secret
practice which is now manifest to you, and brought Gisippus to consent in
my interest to that whereto he was averse; and thereafter, ardently
though I loved her, I sought not to commingle with her as a lover, but as
a husband, nor closed with her, until, as she herself by her true witness
may assure you, I had with apt words and with the ring made her my lawful
wife, asking her if she would have me to husband, whereto she answered,
yes. Wherein if she seem to have been tricked, 'tis not I that am to
blame, but she, for that she asked me not who I was.
"This, then, is the great wrong, sin, crime, whereof for love and
friendship's sake Gisippus and I are guilty, that Sophronia is privily
become the wife of Titus Quintius: 'tis for this that you harass him with
your menaces and hostile machinations.
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