38:1
Jam quidem per pueros meos litteras dedi, quions scire vos facerem quantum fratri Imeterio apud me commendatio vestra profecerit. Tamen non dubitans cum inter initia pontificatus sui, senioris germani, sicut dignum est, officia curaturum; has etiam per ipsum libenter adjeci, quibus opusculi mei jam diu quaesitum prædonem in manus meas venisse plus gaudeo. Et quia libellum ipsum, quanlum mihi indicaverat, vobis reportati, spero ut qualecunque est opusculum ipsum, nec vacanter editum, nec omnimodis emendatum, viro sublimi ac piissimo, si dignamini, fratri nostro Apollinari publicare atque excusare dignemini.
我確實已藉我的僕人們寄去書信，好讓你們知道你們的舉薦在我這裡對弟兄伊墨特里烏何等有益。然而，我毫不懷疑他在其牧職伊始，必如所當地留意其兄長的事務，故我也樂於藉他附上這些信；在信中，我尤為欣喜的是：我那久尋不獲的小作品的「劫掠者」終於落入我手。又因我正照他向我所指示的，把那小冊子本身回報給你們，我盼望——它既是這樣一部既非徒然出版、也絕非全然校訂完善的小作——你們若肯屈尊，便在那位崇高而至虔之人、我們的弟兄阿波利納里面前，惠然為之發表並代為解說。
Already indeed I have given letters by my servants, whereby I might let you know how far your commendation has profited brother Imeterius with me. Yet, not doubting that at the beginning of his pontificate he will, as is fitting, attend to the offices of his elder brother, I have gladly added these also through him, in which I rejoice the more that the long-sought plunderer of my little work has come into my hands. And because I am reporting to you the little book itself, as far as he had indicated to me, I hope that, such as it is, that little work—neither published to no purpose nor by any means corrected—you may deign, if you condescend, to publish and to excuse before that sublime and most pious man, our brother Apollinaris.
38:2
Cui impinm fuerat non hæc a me primum jure caritatis offerri, si non rursus fuisset absurdum, me domni Sidonii filio, inter fa cundiæ paternae delicias, meis temporibus nausiaturum, offerre etiam de præsumptione fastidium. Quocirca volnmen per vos temperatius ingerendum, si supradictus frater vel infantibus legi debere censuerit, possum per quaecunque magnificentiæ suæ scripta cognoscere. Si autem post flumina fontium paternorum, ut potius reor, paupertatem venæ tenuissimo rore manantis abjecerit, sine verecundia mea suaque impietate, sufficiet me reprehensionis suæ censuram hinc tantummodo intellexisse, si taceat
按愛心之權，若不先把這些呈給他，本是不虔敬的；只是反過來說也屬荒謬：我竟在自己這時代，向那位主上西多尼烏之子——他身處其父雄辯的珍饈之中，勢必要作嘔了——反倒把出於冒昧的鄙陋之作奉上。因此，這卷冊若藉你們較為含蓄地遞交於他——倘若前述那弟兄判定它連對嬰孩也值得誦讀——我便能藉他崇高的任何書信而得知。但倘若在他父親那泉源的江河之後，正如我所更傾向認為的，他把這股只以至稀薄之露滴淌的貧弱泉脈棄置一旁，那麼——既無我的羞愧，也無他的不虔——僅憑他的緘默這一點，我就足以領會他斥責的評判了。
To whom it would have been impious not to have first offered these things by the right of charity, were it not on the other hand absurd that I, to the son of lord Sidonius, amid the delights of his father's eloquence, should in my own times, when he must needs be nauseated, offer moreover a disdain born of presumption. Wherefore, the volume being more moderately pressed upon him through you—if the aforesaid brother should judge that it ought to be read even to infants—I can learn through whatsoever writings of his magnificence. But if, after the rivers of his father's fountains, as I rather think, he shall have cast away the poverty of a vein trickling with the thinnest dew, then without shame of mine and impiety of his, it will suffice me to have understood the censure of his reproof from this alone, if he keeps silence.