Letter 352: Behold! I have sent you my speech, all streaming with sweat as I am! How should I be otherwise, when sending my speech to one who by his skill in oratory is able to show that the wisdom of Plato and the ability of Demosthenes were belauded in vain?
Here I am, sending you my speech — and I'm dripping with nervous sweat as I do it! How could I not be? I'm sending my work to someone whose mastery of oratory makes the praise heaped on Plato's wisdom and Demosthenes' eloquence [the two supreme standards of Greek prose] look like empty flattery. I feel like a gnat beside an elephant. I'm trembling just thinking about the day you sit down to read it — I'm nearly out of my mind with anxiety!
Human translation - New Advent (NPNF / ANF series)
Latin / Greek Original
[Πρός: Λιβάνιος Βασιλείῳ]
Ἰδοὺ πέπομφα τὸν λόγον, ἱδρῶτι περιρρεόμενος. πῶς γὰρ οὐκ ἔμελλον, ἀνδρὶ τοιούτῳ πέμπων τὸν λόγον, ὃς ἱκανός ἐστι τὴν Πλάτωνος σοφίαν καὶ Δημοσθένους δεινότητα τῇ περὶ τοὺς λόγους εὐμαθείᾳ δεῖξαι θρυλλουμένας μάτην, τὸ δὲ ἐμὸν τοιοῦτον, οἷον κώνωψ ἐλέφαντι παραβαλλόμενος; ὅθεν πέφρικα καὶ τρέμω, τὴν ἡμέραν λογιζόμενος, καθʼ ἣν ἐπισκέψῃ τοὺς λόγους· μικροῦ δὲ καὶ τῶν φρενῶν ἐκπέπτωκα.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from New Advent / NPNF.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg2040/tlg004/tlg2040.tlg004.perseus-grc2.xml
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