Cicero to Atticus, written from Arcanum, the country place of his brother Quintus, on the day after the Nones of April 49 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr.\ in Arcano Quinti fratris postr.\ Non.\ Apr.\ a.\ 705 (49)). Cephalio has brought Atticus’s letter on the Nones, and Cicero — who had been bound for Minturnae and meant to press on from there — has halted instead at his brother’s estate. He wants “something more certain” before he moves, and to be in “a more out-of-the-way spot” while business that does not require him goes forward.

The Greek tag [Greek: lalageusa] — “chattering” — evokes the swallow whose return marks the season for action, a tag familiar from Pindaric and later Greek lyric; the spring is here, the spirit burns, but “there is nothing — not what, not where.” The single sentence catches the whole disposition of these April letters: the time has come and there is still no plan, no destination. Section 2 hands the business over to fortune (“the matters are past unravelling”), and turns at the close to a domestic complaint: Dionysius, the tutor who had quarrelled with him and gone over to others, is now reported by Tullia to be on his way — and Cicero does not want him as a witness to such trouble, nor does he want Atticus to fall out with the man on his account.