Yes, I endured insults in Rome, and although the pride of your nation which deems all<hr>
foreign women as barbarians, and all queens as slaves, has prevented me from being your wife,<hr>
the affection I have for you has been so strong that I have never ceased being yours. Yes, Antony, I’ve loved you<hr>
more than my honor, more than my own life. I have believed it righteous to love a man worthy of<hr>
a gods' stature, and that the passion which burned in my soul had such a distinguished cause that it<hr>
could justify my feelings. Thus, disregarding the calamities destined for me, I<hr>
have loved you unwaveringly from the day I promised you.<hr>
        Therefore, judge after this if I could betray you, or to be precise, if I could betray<hr>
myself. It is true that I have fled, but if I fled, it was out of love for you.<hr>
I abandoned victory to save your life, for you are dearer to me than your glory or mine.<hr>
I can see that my words surprise and astound you, but allow me to explain the state of my<br>
soul when during the fight, I saw you covered in blood and fire. The<hr>
death that I saw everywhere made me fear yours. Every enemy's javelin<hr>
seemed to be aimed only at you. And in the way my imagination portrayed the<hr>
situation, I believed that all of Octavian's army wanted to bring down Antony. Once or<hr>
more, I thought I saw you forcibly drawn into enemy ships or falling dead at their<hr>
feet. And although those around me assured me that my eyes were deceiving me and that the<hr>
victory was still uncertain, what could I say in that dread moment? And what a deep hr>
agony I felt! My dear Antony, if you knew the torment of a soul seeing the<hr>
loved one dancing with death at every instant, you would deem it the most horrifying<hr>
torture that one could ever endure. My heart received all blows struck against you,<hr>
I felt captured each time I thought you were, and death itself is nothing as<hr>
harsh as what I felt at that moment. In that desolate state, I found no remedy<hr>
for my pain, and my imagination, increasingly ingenious in persecuting me, after convincing me<hr>
that all enemies wanted your death, then persuaded me that they were trying to<hr>
spare your life to lay claim to your freedom. This first thought gave me some brief hr>
solace, but the image of Octavian's triumph suddenly appearing before me,<hr>
plunged me back into despair. I knew you would not flee from a conqueror, but I<hr>
believed that to avoid this captivity, you would resort to death, and in whatever way that happened,<hr>
I would always find myself in misery. I deliberated over which poison I<hr>
would choose to follow you, and no other options crossed my mind. I contemplated more than<hr>
twenty times throwing myself into the sea to escape the pain. However, as I couldn’t die without<hr>
leaving you, I couldn’t go forward with this plan. But suddenly, considering the deep devotion you’d always expressed for me, I believed that if you saw me leave the battlefield, you’d leave it too, and thus I'd found a means of preserving your life and freedom.<hr>
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