Letter 187: Twice cabbage is death, says the unkind proverb. I, however, though I have called for it often, shall die once. Yes: even though I had never called for it at all!
"Twice cabbage is death," the old proverb goes — not exactly a flattering saying. But I've asked for it many times over, and I'll die only once. Truth is, I'd die anyway, whether I'd asked or not! So don't let the proverb put you off a perfectly good dish — it's been slandered unfairly.
Human translation — New Advent (NPNF / ANF series)
Latin / Greek Original
[Πρός: Ἀντίπατρος Βασιλείῳ]
Δὶς κράμβη θάνατος, ἡ βάσκανός φησι παροιμία. ἐγὼ δὲ πολλάκις αἰτήσας ἅπαξ ἀποθανοῦμαι· πάντως δὲ καὶ μὴ αἰτήσας. εἰ δὲ πάντως, μὴ κατόκνει ἐσθίειν ὄψον ἡδύ, μάτην ὑπὸ τῆς παροιμίας λοιδορηθέν.
Related Letters
Every bishop is a thing out of which it is very hard to get anything. The further you have advanced beyond other people in learning, the more you make me afraid that you will refuse what I ask. I want some rafters.
(Shortly after the events described above, Basil determined to strengthen his own hands by creating a number of new Bishoprics in the disputed Province, to one of which, Sasima, he consecrated Gregory, very much against the will of the latter, who felt that he had been hardly used, and did not attempt to disguise his reluctance. See Gen. Prolegg.
Oh, for the old days in which we were all in all to one another! Now we are sadly separated! You have one another, I have no one like you to replace you.
(Written about the same time, in reply to another letter now lost.) I do not like being joked about Tiberina and its mud and its winters, O my friend, who are so free from mud, and who walk on tiptoe, and trample on the plains. You who have wings and are borne aloft, and fly like the arrows of Abaris, in order that, Cappadocian though you are, y...
Since you do take my jokes kindly, I send you the rest. My prelude is from Homer. Come now and change your theme, And sing of the inner adornment.