Letter 347: 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.
Every bishop is practically impossible to get anything out of. And the further you've surpassed everyone else in learning, the more I worry you'll refuse what I'm asking.
I need some rafters. Any other rhetorician would have called them "stakes" or "poles" — not because that's actually what he needed, but just to show off his precious vocabulary. I'm asking for rafters because I need rafters.
If you don't send them, I'll be spending the winter outdoors.
Human translation — New Advent (NPNF / ANF series)
Latin / Greek Original
[Πρός: Λιβάνιος Βασιλείῳ]
Πᾶς μὲν ἐπίσκοπος πρᾶγμα δυσγρίπιστον, σὺ δὲ ὅσῳ τοὺς ἄλλους παρελήλυθας λογιότητι, τοσούτῳ καὶ φόβον μοι παρέχεις, μή πως ἔξαρνος στῇς πρὸς τὴν αἴτησιν. κἀπειδὴ στρωτήρων δέομαι. κάμακας δʼ ἂν ἢ χάρακας ἄλλος εἶπε σοφιστής, οὐ χρῄζων, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ῥηματίοις ἐγκαλλωπιζόμενος, ἢ τῆς χρείας γινόμενος· ἔγωγε, εἰ μὴ σὺ παράσχοις, ὕπαιθρος διαχειμάσω.
Related Letters
Will you not give over, Basil, packing this sacred haunt of the Muses with Cappadocians, and these redolent of the frost and snow and all Cappadocia's good things? They have almost made me a Cappadocian too, always chanting their I salute you. I must endure, since it is Basil who commands.
(In answer to Ep. XIV., of Basil, about 361.) You may mock and pull to pieces my affairs, whether in jest or in earnest. This is a matter of no consequence; only laugh, and take your fill of culture, and enjoy my friendship.
The proverb says You are not proclaiming war, and, let me add, out of the comedy, O messenger of golden words. Come then; prove this in act, and hasten to me. You will come as friend to friend.
(Written about the same time, in a more serious vein.) What I wrote before about our stay in Pontus was in joke, not in earnest; what I write now is very much in earnest. O that one would place me as in the month of those former days, Job 29:2 in which I luxuriated with you in hard living; since voluntary pain is more valuable than involuntary d...
(The reply to Basil's somewhat angry answer to the last.) This was a case which any wiser man would have foreseen; but I who am very simple and foolish did not fear it in writing to you. My letter grieved you; but in my opinion neither rightly nor justly, but quite unreasonably. And while you did not acknowledge that you were hurt, neither did y...