No woman can say truly that she has been loved as much as you, Lesbia, have been loved by me: no trust in any pact has ever been found so great as was that on my part in the love of you.

What is he doing, Gellius, who has an itch with mother and sister and stays up all night with tunics cast aside? What is he doing, who does not allow his uncle to be a husband? Do you know the weight of crime he undertakes? He undertakes, O Gellius, so much as neither furthest Tethys nor Oceanus, father of nymphs, can cleanse: for there is no crime which can go further, not even if with lowered head he swallowed himself.

Gellius is thin: why not? He who lives with so good a mother, so healthy and so beauteous a sister, and who has such a good uncle, and a world-full of girl cousins, why would he cease to be skinny? who if he touched nothing but what is not lawful to touch—you will find ample reason why he is skinny.

Let there be born a Magus from the unspeakable coupling of Gellius and his mother, and let him learn the Persian art of divination. For if Persia's impious religion is true, a pleasing Magus ought to be begotten from a mother and son, so that, when the chant has been learned, he may worship gods while melting the fat innards in the sacred flame.