LXXV.
At Agrippina, quamquam defessa luctu et corpore aegro, (quamquam defessa luctu et corpore aegro: quamquam, a subordinating conjunction, here used almost adverbially with defessa, the perfect participle of defetiscor, ‘to get tired’; such usage of quamquam and analogous conjunctions became common in imperial times; luctu and corpore aegro are ablatives of agent, without a or ab when the agent is inanimate.) omnium tamen quae ultionem morarentur intolerans ascendit classem cum cineribus Germanici et liberis, miserantibus cunctis quod femina nobilitate princeps, pulcherrimo modo matrimonio inter venerantis gratantisque aspici solita, (femina nobilitate princeps, pulcherrimo modo matrimonio inter venerantis gratantisque aspici solita: ‘a woman pre-eminent for her nobility and until recently (modo) for her splendid marriage, accustomed to command attention amid admirers and well-wishers’; nobilitate and pulcherrimo matrimonio are ablatives of cause.) tunc feralis reliquias sinu ferret, (miserantibus cunctis quod … ferret: abl. abs. followed by causal clause with subjunctive, in that the cause is alleged by persons other than the writer (B. 286, 1.): ‘all pitying her because she was carrying …’) incerta ultionis, anxia sui et infelici fecunditate fortunae totiens obnoxia. (anxia sui et infelici fecunditate fortunae totiens obnoxia: anxious is here with genitive: lit. ‘anxious of herself, being so often exposed to ill-fortune [through her six children] on account of her inopportune fertility’; the gen. sui is reflexive personal pronoun; see note for per memoriam sui in ch. 72.) Pisonem interim apud Coum insulam (apud Coum insulam: the island of Cos off the western coast of Turkey, north of Rhodes) nuntius adsequitur excessisse Germanicum. quo intemperanter accepto caedit victimas, adit templa, neque ipse gaudium moderans (quo intemperanter accepto, …neque ipse gaudium moderans: abl. abs. followed by participial phrase in the nominative: lit. ‘which [news] having being received with immoderate joy, he himself not restraining his elation’; strangely pleonastic diction for a practitioner of word economy like Tacitus) et magis insolescente Plancina, (magis insolescente Plancina: abl. abs.: ‘Plancina being [even] more disrespectful’) quae luctum amissae sororis tum primum laeto cultu mutavit. (luctum …laeto cultu mutavit: ‘exchanged her black garments with joyous ones’)