Letter 350: Your annoyance is over. Let this be the beginning of my letter. Go on mocking and abusing me and mine, whether laughing or in earnest.
Your annoyance is over. Let that be the beginning of my letter. Go ahead -- mock me and my people, whether in jest or in earnest. Why bother talking about frost or snow when you could be enjoying yourself at our expense?
For my part, Libanius, to give you a good laugh, I have written this letter wrapped in a snow-white veil. When you take it in your hand, you will feel how cold it is, and how perfectly it captures the condition of its sender -- imprisoned at home, unable to put his head out of doors.
My house is a tomb until spring arrives and brings us back from death to life, granting us once more, like plants, the simple gift of being alive.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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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!
You, who have included all the art of the ancients in your own mind, are so silent, that you do not even let me get any gain in a letter. I, if the art of Dædalus had only been safe, would have made me Icarus' wings and come to you. But wax cannot be entrusted to the sun, and so, instead of Icarus' wings, I send you words to prove my affection.