Letter 342: All who are attached to the rose, as might be expected in the case of lovers of the beautiful, are not displeased even at the thorns from out of which the flower blows. I have even heard it said about roses by some one, perhaps in jest, or, it may be, even in earnest, that nature has furnished the bloom with those delicate thorns, like stings of...
Everyone attached to the rose -- as you would expect from lovers of beauty -- does not mind the thorns from which the flower grows. I have even heard someone say about roses (perhaps in jest, or perhaps in earnest) that nature provided those delicate thorns, like stings of love, to excite those who pluck them to more intense desire through these cunningly placed pricks.
Why do I bring the rose into my letter? You do not need to be told, when you remember your own. Your letter had the bloom of the rose and opened all of springtime to me through its fair words. But it was armed with certain pointed criticisms and charges against me. Even the thorn of your words is sweet to me, though, for it only kindles a greater longing for your friendship.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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I am really ashamed of sending you the Cappadocians one by one. I should prefer to induce all our youths to devote themselves to letters and learning, and to avail themselves of your instruction in their training. But it is impracticable to get hold of them all at once, while they choose what suits themselves.
I have read your speech, and have immensely admired it. O muses; O learning; O Athens; what do you not give to those who love you! What fruits do not they gather who spend even a short time with you!
If γριπίζειν is the same thing as to gain, and this is the meaning of the phrase which your sophistic ingenuity has got from the depths of Plato, consider, my dear sir, who is the more hard to be got from, I who am thus impaled by your epistolary skill, or the tribe of Sophists, whose craft is to make money out of their words. What bishop ever ...
Lo and behold, yet another Cappadocian has come to you; a son of my own! Yet my present position makes all men my sons. On this ground he may be regarded as a brother of the former one, and worthy of the same attention alike from me his father, and from you his instructor — if really it is possible for these young men, who come from me, to obtai...