Tantumne te Vasatium civitas non caespiti imposita sed pulveri, tantum Syrticus ager ac vagum solum et volatiles ventis altercantibus harenae sibi possident, ut te magnis flagitatum precibus, parvis separatum spatiis, multis exspectatum diebus attrahere Burdigalam non potestates, non amicitiae, non opimata vivariis ostrea queant? an temporibus hibernis viarum te dubia suspendunt et, quia solet Bigerricus turbo mobilium aggerum indicia confundere, quoddam vereris in itinere terreno pedestre naufragium? .
Does the town of Bazas, built not on solid ground but on dust, Bazas with its Syrtes-like territory and shifting soil and its sands flying this way and that with the quarrelling winds, does Bazas hold you so firmly that neither the powers-that-be, nor friendships, nor oysters fattened in fishponds can lure you to Bordeaux, although you have been besought with earnest entreaties, and are only a short distance away, and your coming has been awaited for many days? Are you kept in two minds by the risks of the roads in the winter season, fearing a sort of landlubbers shipwreck on an overland journey because the whirlwind of Bigorre is wont to obliterate the traces of the unstable roads?
final_alignments\Sidonius_Letters_Book8.json