So it is not enough that my devotion to thee should profit me nothing, but thou also must be assailed by reason of the odium which I have incurred.

Verily this is the very crown of my misfortunes, that men's opinions for the most part look not to real merit, but to the event; and only recognise foresight where Fortune has crowned the issue with her approval.

Whereby it comes to pass that reputation is the first of all things to abandon the unfortunate.

I remember with chagrin how perverse is popular report, how various and discordant men's judgments.
This only will I say, that the most crushing of misfortune's burdens is, that as soon as a charge is fastened upon the unhappy, they are believed to have deserved their sufferings.

I, for my part, who have been banished from all life's blessings, stripped of my honours, stained in repute, am punished for well-doing.
'And now methinks I see the villainous dens of the wicked surging with joy and gladness, all the most recklessly unscrupulous threatening a new crop of lying informations, the good prostrate with terror at my danger, every ruffian incited by impunity to new daring and to success by the profits of audacity, the guiltless not only robbed of their peace of mind, but even of all means of defence.