Letter 379: I was right to do both things: to write and to stop writing.

To Modestus. (358/59 AD) I was right to do both things: to write and to stop writing. The writing came from my desire to receive a letter; the stopping came from my reluctance, having received none, to try again. But now that I have at last received one, you will plainly see an archer, and the letters will fly thick and fast. You ask to learn how I am, but you seem to be asking for grief. From that time until this day my head has been unable to find peace. And to this was added a greater affliction: the inability to visit you — which, for anyone who can, is better than any medicine. Know this well: even if I were healthier than Croton [the proverbially healthy athlete], being separated from you I would count myself among the sick. As for Daphne, beloved of Apollo — I do not mean the nymph, but the place into which the maiden was transformed — I thought it beautiful before, and now I think it more beautiful still, knowing that you too find it so. Yet I have no share in the place, for I am a prisoner of my profession. What governing is to you, teaching is to me.

Μοδέστῳ. (358/59) Ἑκάτερον εἰκότως ἐποίουν· ἔγραφόν τε καὶ τοῦ γρά- φειν ἀφιστάμην· τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἦν ἐπιθυμοῦντος γράμματα λα- βεῖν, τὸ δὲ τῷ μὴ λαβεῖν ὀκνοῦντος αὖθις ἐπιχειρεῖν. νῦν οὖν ἐπειδή μοι τὸ λαβεῖν ἤνυσται, τοξότην ἐναργῶς ὄψει καὶ πυκνὰς ἀφιέντα τὰς ἐπιστολάς. βουλόμενος δὲ μαθεῖν ἐν οἷς ὢν τυγχάνω λύπης ἔοικας ἐπιθυμεῖν· ἀπὸ γὰρ ἐκείνων τῶν χρόνων εἰς τήνδε τὴν ἡμέραν ἡ κεφαλή μοι τυχεῖν εἰρή- νης οὐ δεδύνηται. προσῆν δὲ τούτῳ μεῖζον κακόν. τὸ μηδὲ παρὰ σὲ φοιτᾶν ἔχειν, ὃ τῷ γε ἔχοντι παντὸς ἄμεινον φαρ- μάκου· ὡς εὖ ἴσθι, κἂν ὑγιέστερος ὦ Κρότωνος, σοῦ γε ἀφεστηκὼς ἐν τοῖς ἀρρωστοῦσιν ἐμαυτὸν τίθημι. Δάφνην δὲ τὴν Ἀπόλλωνι φίλην — οὐ τὴν νύμφην λέγω νῦν, ἀλλ’ οἷ μετέβαλεν ἡ κόρη — καὶ πρόσθεν καλὴν ἡγούμενος ἔτι καλλίω νομίζω καὶ σοὶ δοκοῦσαν καλήν. οὐ μὴν ἔγωγε μετέχω τοῦ χωρίου δεσμώτης ὑπὸ τῆς τέχνης γεγονώς· ὃ γὰρ σοὶ τὸ ἄρ- χειν, ἐμοὶ τὸ διδάσκειν.