Letters 1 part 1/7

To Caesareius and Eubulus. Pythagoras of Samos — yet they say that not even he honored silence without limit; rather, a fixed time was appointed for them, bringing a change to speech, and they would change accordingly.

Nor indeed, during the time in which they kept silence, was it necessary, surely, that they should know nothing of one another; but while silence held the tongue, the hand ministered to the mind, and through letters they spoke again.

But you, if indeed you emulate Pythagoras, then let there now be an end of your silence:

for time will fittingly dissolve it.

But if you have come bearing something more than this, you are somewhat hard of heart, and know not how to love in return.

And yet the story is that the Alpheus, though a river, and separated from Arethusa by so great a distance, even to this day looks from the Peloponnese toward Sicily, and, borne through the midst of the sea, takes care to remain fair and to keep sweet for the sake of his spring.

And she receives her weary lover and gives herself to him, and then you might behold a strange union of love between river and spring.

But you neither come to us by your letters, nor requite us when we come.

But pray, grant an end to our complaints:

and if not — well, I do not wish to say anything more, lest I depart having caused pain.

To Hieronymus. I supposed that you had long since taken possession of the Nile, and often calling to mind this habitual thought of mine I would say: how blessed are the children of the Egyptians, who long ago had the Nile as purveyor of all that he knows how to bring forth, and now have gained besides your Muse, in no way less honored than the Nile — indeed, in my judgment as critic, perhaps even greater.

For he, flowing over their land, permits it to grow rich; but you, letting loose your tongue upon the souls of the young, guide them toward the wealth of knowledge, in no way less than Pythagoras of old, when he sojourned among them, and Plato after him.

These, then, were my reflections; but you, all the while not being far off, remained unknown to me.

But when the man came who delivered your letter, at first, in astonishment, I took the matter for a deception, and did not trust my own eyes.

But when I had read through what was written and was persuaded that these graces could belong to no one else, I rejoiced — how think you? For I reckoned that this brought nearer the very hope of seeing you again, and I fittingly shared in the joy, if for however brief a time you had made your fatherland an object of envy.

But you seem to me, in jest, to be accusing her.

For that the air overhead is indeed such as you said it to be, and that the water brings to the mind of those who drink it the memory of the sea, and that our bread is haphazardly mixed from barley — this I could not deny:

but even these things have been dramatized by you less than they might have been, out of sparing regard for your fatherland.

But nevertheless, most excellent friend, you ought to feel grateful to her for training your mind toward philosophy, so that you might learn, in due time, to look down upon Egyptian luxury.

Odysseus the wise, dwelling on an island both small and rugged — for what else could it be but Ithaca — was persuaded neither by Calypso nor by a change of nature for the better, to choose anything else in place of Ithaca.

Nor, I think, did any Spartan, calling to mind the manner of life at home, ever find fault with Sparta.

But I know whence you have at last been moved to bring this accusation.

You are disposed to love money, my good friend.

Then, having lost some small gain, you cry "alas, alas!" and repeatedly call upon the Nile and the wealth that comes from it.

This it is, I suppose, that makes you gaunt, as you yourself said, and gives your body a leanness no more comely than Chaerephon's.

I suppose too that you are amorously devoted to your bride, and are attempting, with difficulty, whatever desire is able to accomplish.

But may these things turn out just as is pleasing to Aphrodite and the Loves.

Farewell, and may I soon greet you also as a father of children.

To Pythius. If someone, approaching me though he had not done so before, should think it fit to ask whether I possessed a lyre, and should make discourse about harmony, I should certainly perceive the matter, and would know at once that this man was a musician.

But what do I mean by this? You surely already understand; nonetheless it shall be said.

You seem to me, then, as though the Muses truly dwell within your soul:

then, being possessed by the goddesses, you lead a life devoted to them, and nothing seems admirable to you except books and letters and whatever leads the soul toward the better.

From this you became our guest-friend, having made a beginning of friendship fitting, I think, for yourself.

But would that you had not been disappointed of the hope you placed in me, and that the book you ask for were indeed in my possession.

For thus you would ever have had what you desired, and to me it would have been the greatest thing to seem to have shown you a kindness.

But now I swear — not by the plane tree of Socrates, but by learning itself — that I have not yet obtained possession of it, though I have desired it now for a very long time.

But a little later — though let this be said under the auspices of Hermes and the Muses — it will be brought from Alexandria.

For this is what those charged with the task have written to us from there.

And if this should indeed come to pass, you shall certainly see me come to you unbidden concerning the sharing of it, just as if I myself had wished to receive it.

To Germanus. How greatly good men grieve us, when they give us proof of themselves and then depart from those who have come to know them, I now relate to others, having learned it by experience.

For I knew of you even before I came into conversation with you.

But if you wonder from what source, my teachers were all those who, having had experience of you, admired you.

But when I myself, having met you, came to know you, I acknowledged my gratitude to Fortune; yet again I found fault with her, if, having given me a mere taste — as they say, with the tip of the finger — of so great a thing, she would then take away the pleasure.

And the present did not so much delight me as the expectations of the future grieved me.

For I reasoned that you would soon depart and leave us.

And this indeed has come to pass, and, having happened, it grieves me, and I am at a loss over the matter; but you, even now that you are far away, contend to kindle our longing all the more.

For by your zeal toward me you have prevailed, surpassing even my own expectations.

But would that some god might become gracious to us and bring you back to us again ere long.

To John. If there were indictments for neglect of friends, and someone were to bring me into court, accusing me of this very thing — that I do wrong beyond measure, holding my friend of no account whatsoever — I do not think I could win my case in any other way than by producing you as a witness, you who now, I know not how, have appeared as my accuser:

So contrary to my hopes has your conduct turned out, if some slight matter has made you doubt me.

For I know that even those who are not friends often assail one with letters, when they wish to conceal something, and that friends fall silent, when, content with the mere memory of the absent, they have become occupied with others.

Neither, therefore, is writing a sure sign of goodwill, nor silence of blame, unless the mind confirms each.

Setting these things aside, then, consider rather this: whether nothing of what concerns you is given over to forgetfulness by me; whether I always hold you in discourse and admiration, adorned, as it were, by the very remembrance of you; whether, when I speak the name John, I have not always added to it the epithet "sweet."

Considering these things, you will love one who is silent more than another who speaks, even if the bronze cauldron of Dodona itself resounds upon that other's tongue.

But take care that you do not, thinking to have this as your defense, remain silent:

otherwise, we shall speak to the contrary.

To Zacharias, my brother. Wishing to relate to you the circumstances concerning this most excellent man, I fear lest I should seem to trouble you in vain, addressing my words to one who already knows them.

For you know what manner of man he is: how, having dedicated his whole life to God, he holds all human affairs in aversion, and clings fast to the hope from above; and for this very reason he lies exposed to those who wish to do him wrong, and is well suited to suffer harm.

And you also know this other man — I am ashamed to call him "brother" — how he considers it his one virtue to fulfill every kind of vice, having disregarded his own brother, so long oppressed by hunger, being unwilling to supply from his own household what a right-minded man ought to have provided, even had the occasion called for it.

But now the accusation is not this — that he omitted what befits men of the strictest self-control — but that, having become enamored of what does not belong to him, he has taken these things away, and reviles this man frequently, and has often inflicted blows upon him.

And, holding his own will as law, he has perhaps found fault with nature herself, that she has devised nothing further for him toward wickedness.

In these deeds he has, as it were, set a boundary to his wickedness — or rather, these are but the prelude to the evils yet to come.

For his own mother — a woman already aged, who, precisely when she hoped to reap the fruits of having raised her child, and who, both because of her age and her lineage, enjoyed respect even among those wholly unrelated to her — this woman he frequently reviled, and frequently raised his hands against her who bore him: O Zeus, showing reverence neither for nature, nor for her years, nor for her pitiable grey hair, nor for the tender name of "mother," but violently overturning her, he cast her to the ground, and leapt upon her with his heel, while she cried out, as was to be expected, and called upon her son.

And indeed what might a mother not say, who, after birth-pangs and nurture and those fair hopes, has had to endure such evils at the hands of her own child? At last he even drove her from the house, destitute, stripped bare, deprived of the necessities of life — granting her, perhaps, this one favor alone: that he freed her from having to live with him.

And now he wallows luxuriously in these men's misfortunes, while this aged woman, who once held the foremost place of nobility among us, holds the very hope of her livelihood in her own two hands.

But to this good brother, her suffering came as yet another misfortune added to his own; and though he was himself in want even of his own sustenance, he took her in — she who only increases his poverty — nevertheless paying the debt that nature necessarily demands.

And now they live together, having but one consolation — that they have not suffered still worse; and the mother, being a woman, and having suffered such things, has but this one occupation in life: to remember her own sufferings, to weep at the memory of them, and to display her breast to Justice, recounting all that she has suffered.

Taking these things to heart, then, and believing that I have added nothing to the truth, but have set forth only the chief points of his wickedness, owing to the constraints of this letter, measure your own zeal against that man's malice, and become such a one as God requires of you, and the law of friendship, and the hope of those who suffer wrong.

To Philip, my brother. You have kept silence toward me for a long time, and I am unable to bear the matter.

Consider: it was winter, and we bore it with no small difficulty; the swallows appeared, and not even with them did you speak; and now the cicadas sing, and contrary to our hopes, silence still is ours.

If, then, this is done to cause me grief, I do not know indeed what I have done to occasion it; yet even so, I do not think you could exact a greater penalty than this silence itself.

But if you have changed from your former zeal into indolence, you wrong indeed the law of kinship, and you transgress the ordinance of friendship.

But if it is not unpleasant to say this, perhaps someone might say that you have become an accuser even of yourself.

For in the very matters for which you rebuked us when we were silent, you yourself have been caught doing the same.

And how could it make sense for the one who persuaded another to speak to take up in turn the silence of the one he persuaded? But it is time now to call me a sophist too, and to jest along with the discourse.

This is no matter at all in any case, and whatever you may say, I shall bear it with moderation, if only I shall hear you speaking.

To Diodorus. The report concerning your education has filled our ears with the very words we had been praying to hear.

For one man recounted your zeal in advocacy, another marveled at your vigor in the courts, another your goodwill toward those who approach you—except indeed toward one who happened to have done wrong.

And I know this too, having heard it: that seeing certain men who possess great power but hold nothing of justice in regard, you breathed mightily against them and poured out reproach that won praise.

As I heard these things, with different men relating different reports, I became, as it were, inspired with pleasure, and, exulting greatly in your words, I seemed myself to be praised, and I even acknowledged gratitude to those who brought the news, just as those who hear others praising them are wont to do.

While I was in this state and reflecting thus, the excellent Orion came to me and delivered the letter written to him by you, and rejoiced with me over the friendship, as though he thought it a terrible thing if you, being such a man, should remain unknown to me.

And I, having learned of you after the report also by experience—both what sort of man you are toward those in need, even when they are not present—could not tell you how much I marveled, and I called him blessed for having enjoyed the good fortune of your zeal.

And when he also asked to obtain a letter from me, letters that by the remembrance of friendship might rouse your eagerness still further, I called him simple-minded.

—to have need of those who were already urging him toward it.

But nevertheless I could not persuade him.

For he seemed to say something just too: 'What sort of man would he become, being such a man on his own account, if he obtained a letter from you?' May you, then, become yourself such as you were before; and may I in turn be praised for the friendship; and may the young man not fail of the hope he has placed in us; but let those who seem able to do great things know that it is only fitting that they should yield to what is just.

To Jerome. I supposed that my sister's marriage was escaping notice, and that it was not known even to all who dwell near the house—let alone to you, whom I supposed still to be sitting by the Nile.

But it seems nothing that pertains to luxury escapes you; rather, the very moment a thing is done, the savor of what is being accomplished strikes you from afar, and perhaps you even surpass the Homeric Zeus, who loves the libation and the fat-smoke wreathing about in smoke.

It is the Nile that has made you thus, and the fortunate men who dwell along it, after whom, now dwelling in Elusa, you have an even keener sense—should smoke rise anywhere from the earth.

As for your boy, I very nearly set out to treat him ill, because he did not let you write your letter at length.

But when he brought forward the gifts from you, he changed the scene, and somehow, I know not how, dissolved my anger.

But it will not be long before I repay you for these things.

For either a little daughter has been born to you, or one will be born.

To Philip, brother. The season that grieved us on account of your silence has indeed reached its end and has ceased; and I, though wishing to take great heart in the hope of a letter from you, come to myself again and take up the memory of what has passed.

For as far as depends on you being silent, the whole year is winter to us.

Rather, you make the actual winter even more longed-for by us, inasmuch as in that season it brings some consolation to attribute the silence to the necessity of the weather, whereas in summer nothing is left for us but to weep, because with you there is no thought at all for those who love you.

For when necessity is absent, yet you are silent still, this presents to us the impression that we are being despised.

But O all you Loves, bring this man to the trial of our own sufferings, that he may at last perceive how terrible a thing it is to be a lover who is overlooked.

To Zacharias. Dissolve for us, along with the winter, your silence.

For if it were possible to hear you speaking continually, not even winter would grieve us so much.

But indeed, let loose upon us your spring in its full stream.

For this surpasses, in my judgment, even the pleasure that comes from spring—though in spring the light is new, though in spring the swallows fill our ears with their song, seeming to me to hymn the season, and the roses, emerging from the bud, offer a sight both intermediate and blended in hue, and call to memory ancient tales: how Adonis was fair, and Aphrodite sought him, and she who bore the Loves was taught, I know not how, herself to love; and, failing of her beloved, she struck her foot, and it brought forth the rose.

But to us, who are in love, compared to your voice these things are reckoned small.

To Zacharias. Behold, once again an occasion demands of you your inclination toward those in need, and it is I again who furnish the occasion; so that, I know well, you will acknowledge gratitude on two counts—both because you have found the means to do good, and because this has come to you through me.

For you truly rejoice more in doing good than others do in receiving it, and you would even call the one who gave you the occasion a benefactor.

Therefore I pride myself thus, as one who will give you a favour rather than receive one.

But what is the matter? I know well that you ask this with a smile.

A certain Alexander here among us carries on trade in timber, and from this he makes his living.

As is natural for such men, he has made a certain partner in the business—Euthymius is his name—so that the one might send the goods deemed fit, while the other, remaining in place, might receive them; and in this way they carry on their trade.

This man, then, dwells among you in the land of the Rhodians—O Zeus!—and yet he says he is being treated unjustly.

And the one doing him wrong you might call, in the tongue of the Romans, a concussor.

For he legislates what is not customary, and contrives an occasion for a newer kind of profit, as though it were not you who govern Rhodes.

But these things happen, as is likely, without your knowledge.

Let it, then, cease once you learn of it, so that I may be grateful to you, and he, having obtained justice, may be grateful to me, relating how he was being wronged and it has ceased.

It seemed good to him—thinking it a dreadful thing that the marvel of his wisdom should be confined to Attica alone—and so he journeyed to the Egyptians, although they boasted of being wiser than all others, and he journeyed also to Croesus, who exulted in his wealth as though it were happiness.

For it seemed to Solon a greater luxury to revel in wisdom than the Pactolus flowing with gold.

—as much land as that man traversed.

And those who saw him marveled, and when he departed, they longed again for Solon.

But the Athenians, among whom he had laid the foundation of his learning, prayed, perhaps, even to Athena herself to restore the lawgiver again to the city.

And if it is also for these reasons that he contrives his sojourn abroad, wishing to learn how far the Athenians have come in their love for him, I should not, I think, be surprised.

Yet if the Athenians wept for the absence of a single man, though they were fortunate, as is likely, in possessing other wise men besides, what should become of us, who are deprived of the whole sum of our treasure? And she of whom one might formerly have hesitated to say whether it were fitting to call her Attica or Italy, now falls silent all at once, and has been stripped of her distinguishing marks; and she seems to suffer the very same fate as Cithaeron, when, having received the god in his fullness, upon his sudden departure it stands desolate, and Dionysus is nowhere to be found.

Wherefore I shall cry out against Apollo, who summoned to himself our treasure, overlooking what was ours.

And I think that the Muses share his joy in this good fortune.

And you, no doubt, are filled full with the old myths as well, reckoning, right beside Daphne herself, the god's passion, Daphne's chastity and her kindness, and a plant that consoles a lover.

And among you alone, of all things seen, does the visible scene grant its testimony to the tale.

And if dense cypresses too have been let grow, in honor of Apollo's beloved, and water in abundance, and cicadas sing, and a path lies softened round about with grass, and trees rising one above another, and houses hidden in their midst by the height of these, and a temperate breeze, and a mingled fragrance, and shade shutting out the sun's distress—it is for you either to announce this as swiftly as possible or to describe it in a letter.

Yet I should wish to see you here with us, once you have come, so that, besides other things, I might also hear about those who give oracles.

For this too, I think, Daphne has granted to you.

To Palladius. The virtue of those who possess great power is, I think, the greatest consolation to those who are wronged.

For when power comes together with a will that honors justice, what prevents what seems right to the laws from coming to fulfillment? But what does my preamble intend? Isidore the scholasticus, who was long ago my friend while he lived, but now survives only in memory—what sort of man he was in his life, and how in every respect he offered himself to be admired, you yourself could relate to others.

But now, having departed from among men, he has left his household bereft of a champion.

For she who was once a mother is now, on the threshold of old age, childless and a mother no longer, while his wife bears the yoke of widowhood.

And what need is there to speak of the children? For these are girls, still of tender age, and now making trial of the lot of orphanhood.

To put it briefly, they lie exposed to all who wish to do them wrong, unless you—on whom their hopes are fixed—prevent it.

For so-and-so is by nature wicked, and having found himself with impunity, and seeing their helplessness, has shown himself even more wicked.

For dwelling near their house, and having conceived the envy that comes of being a neighbor, he has formed a single design: to render the dwelling useless to them.

Wherefore he did not tolerate it when those building were lawfully restrained, and, holding as nonsense the agreements made between the two parties in writing, he declares himself to have more authority than the laws and than what he himself had agreed to.

But, taking up the judgment of a judge who hates base deeds, become to the girls a father, to the mother a son, and likewise to the wife a husband and companion in equal measure, and to us such a man as our previous experience has often shown you to be.

And let him know well that it is not possible to be bereft of a champion, so long as the laws are preserved, and men who honor justice.

To Nephalius. I was delighted upon receiving your letter, but wishing to bring it into effect, I did not have at hand the means to serve my eagerness.

But the cause I would never call chance—especially in writing to you—but assuredly the providence of God, steering our affairs as it wills.

I seemed to have recovered the Muses; I was possessed with delight and did not know what I might become, just as the Delphians, when, as though Apollo had come from the Hyperboreans, they who before were silent suddenly become filled with the god.

Such indeed was I, marveling at everything: the beauty of the words, their harmony with one another, the loveliness that shone through them all, and, greatest of all, your character, from which the letter proceeded to us.

And may many blessings come to you, who have given us so great a festival.

But, as the saying goes, one swallow does not make a spring.

Yet how well the first swallow already sufficed for the need of spring! And if you should add a second and a third, and then many more, neither the famous Croesus nor the gold-flowing Pactolus would be anything beside us.

I saw your children with delight, and, as though through an image, was carried back to you.

Hence I prayed to see even more of them, and, if I may speak boldly, better than their father.

But for one who is praying it is easy to say whatever he wishes, and to imitate Hector.

As for our companion Dorotheus, imagine that I myself am present and am bringing him before you, and that I say nothing else but this: fulfill for him the hopes which he himself conceived in recounting your qualities.

And if he hopes to gain something more on my account, it would be for you to see that he is not disappointed in his expectation.

The young man's character together with his zeal will commend him to you; and if it were possible for these to be made evident at the very sight of him, there would perhaps be no need at all of our letter.

As it is, though you honor him at first for my sake, afterward, I think, you will admire him for his own.

I think too that you will look with kindly eyes upon our companion Anastasius, who also claims kinship with our family.

For what need is there to say more to a man who has long been a friend, and who now is no less resolved to show good will? To Philip, his Brother. Again a letter from us—and again you are among the silent.

And indeed I fear you may judge this to be some foolish chatter of ours.

For, being yourself utterly silent, you seem to think that whoever speaks at all, in whatever way, is a chatterer.

But if you, though absent, overlook your friends, then silence is all that is left to everyone who is away.

Therefore become again your former self, and speak to us.

For good men, when they fail to do what is fitting, become an example set before those who wish to do wrong.

But I would wish you to bear the mark of a man who, whatever should happen, never disregards what is fitting.

As for the business written to you, show yourselves so zealous in it, as men accomplishing it for their own sakes.

For I hesitate to say that I wish even greater eagerness to come from you.

For in return for very many favors, we repay this single one to him who is in need of the service.

To Zacharias, his Brother. As it seems, my excellent friend, you will never cease your jests at my expense.

And may you indeed never cease them, by all the gods!

For, as I hear them spoken, I smile upon the letter, and in my mind I come to you, and I seem to be speaking with you and to be hearing you speak.

So, if you care for the charm found in your letters—and surely you do care—keep aiming so, and you will seem to grant me a greater favor than if you had made me Croesus.

Call me again a sophist, and say that I am in love with applause; add too an arched brow and pretension, and whatever else pleases you.

Often, too, having called me a sophist, you were content to leave it there, as though to say this were the same as calling me a boaster.

For my part, I would not deny my own art.

But if it is peculiar to this art to incite to boastfulness, then you too, it seems, have more than your share of the art, so that I fear how much of it you partake in.

But out of the respect I owe you, I will hold my peace.

Perhaps you wonder that I, being a sophist and already beholding the spring, when I ought to have made a display with my speech, instead passed it by in silence.

And perhaps you look in my letter for flowers and swallows and the sea's gentle transformation, and for the beautiful Adonis and that Aphrodite marvelously in love, and, because you do not hear of the rose, you wonder again at the charm bestowed upon it.

But I would say nothing of the sort, especially to you, lest, laughing once more, you should call me tasteless and a sophist.

To Epiphanius. You are, it seems, a formidable man at moving whomever you wish to speech or to silence, and you seem to me to do something very like a man who, having a lyre and having learned to use it, now weaves a melody, and now abstains from the strokes of the strings.

For if something else besides these should be judged better, he at once turns to that, and neither he himself nor the lyre would utter anything musical.

And when you fall silent toward us, having turned to newer things, at once downcast and silent are we who were once dearest friends, but now, perhaps, merely friends.

But I know whence this comes about.

The laws have compelled you to prepare yourself, to arch your brow with solemnity; then, having assumed the pride of a lawgiver, and now supposing that you already govern the affairs of the Romans by your vote, you have been so far exalted above us.

But since at last some thought and memory of our old familiarity has stolen in upon you—would that this had happened long ago!—nevertheless, having heard your tongue, together with the swallows, uttering something sweet, I rise up in spirit, and it seems to me that the sun shines upon me more brightly, and now truly it is spring for me.

But be, from now on, kindly disposed toward us, and come no more to forgetfulness of our old affections.

To Strategius and Ilasius. Once again, it seems, fish come to you from your vineyards, and your fields furnish what belongs to the sea; you have it in your power at once to harvest both land and sea, and now to gather grapes, now again fish.

And the sea seems to imitate your own character.

For you yourselves give generously and eagerly, and the sea too wishes to serve your generosity.

But the sea by us makes us just like landsmen, except that it supplies its waves and furnishes the threat that comes from it, without any fish.

To Sosianus. If a man is a lover of money, he would gladly say nothing else, nor gladly hear others say anything else, but of this.

And if you should come bringing gold as well and offer it, you hold the first place in his esteem.

But he whose business lies in arms, once he has gotten a fine shield, is filled with great pride, and, carrying his possession about hither and thither, is filled all the more with the spirit of Ares.

But to a good man, what could one do that would please him more than to bring before him men of like character? Wherefore, knowing you to be, and to wish to be, such a man, it seemed to me unfitting that you should remain unacquainted with Diodorus the advocate; so I bring and present him to you, and you to him, believing that I shall be doing a favor to you both, if you come to know one another by experience.

And each of you will surely praise me for the sort of service I know how to procure for my friends.

To John. Let the most learned Diodorus be for us the release from our mutual silence, both demanding that you write and delivering to you what comes from us.

For he is my friend, and even before seeing you he happened already to be an admirer of yours.

For the accounts from us, recounting what concerns you, produced the love in him even before the sight of you.

For the man is a lover of what is noble, and he takes pains to seek out the good, as though fearing lest anyone of such character should escape his notice.