To Olympius. (356 AD)
You reproach me for my silence — and this when the birds have been stirred to song by spring. Well then, I too raise my voice, since your letter has become my spring.
You will grant me this: to call my fear of removal a winter, and the relief from that fear the grace of spring. I hear through many people that this was accomplished for me, and may every blessing come to all who contributed.
If those who enjoy rivers would rightly be grateful to the springs from which they flow, then all these blessings must be credited to you. For from your judgment, I believe, everything flowed.
So much, then, has been amply fulfilled by you. But to those old troubles you knew afflicted my head, another ailment has been added — bitter and unrelenting — which only your hand could stop, since all others have failed.
I now lie prostrate from my kidneys [kidney disease], looking to one hope alone: your arrival. Or better yet, my dear friend, help me even by letter — make your remedy a written treatise, so that I may be saved and the doctors may learn by what method this affliction should be driven out.
You reproach me for my silence — and this when the birds have been stirred to song by spring. Well then, I too raise my voice, since your letter has become my spring.
You will grant me this: to call my fear of removal a winter, and the relief from that fear the grace of spring. I hear through many people that this was accomplished for me, and may every blessing come to all who contributed.
If those who enjoy rivers would rightly be grateful to the springs from which they flow, then all these blessings must be credited to you. For from your judgment, I believe, everything flowed.
So much, then, has been amply fulfilled by you. But to those old troubles you knew afflicted my head, another ailment has been added — bitter and unrelenting — which only your hand could stop, since all others have failed.
I now lie prostrate from my kidneys [kidney disease], looking to one hope alone: your arrival. Or better yet, my dear friend, help me even by letter — make your remedy a written treatise, so that I may be saved and the doctors may learn by what method this affliction should be driven out.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.