Letter 684: As if I didn't notice you wanted to undermine the praise sung by everyone about me and Olympius — that we think...

To Polychronius. (361/62) Ah, you did not escape my notice in your wish to refute the praise which is sung by everyone both about me and about Olympius. For it is said that we think the same things, that we say the same things, and that we are separated in our bodies alone. You, then, having grown jealous quite simply - so that I may not say maliciously - undermine the encomium by writing your letter, since, whereas concerning us no one is afraid that it [the praise] should not come to be, you write as though it had already come to be. But you have not hunted down anything great in this; rather, I have caught you out conversing with us as though with children. For nowhere granting us to take courage about what is to come, you walk round and round, having hung over us the stone of Tantalus. In order, then, that we may not be Tantaluses, free our head from the stone, either by taking it [the burden] up already, or by declaring that you will not take it up at all - since for me to give it back is a light thing - I would be speaking to one who knows it - but a thing worthy of the noose, if I were to be counted among those who have plundered what belongs to the cities.

Πολυχρονίῳ. (361/62) ὤ με ἔλαθες ἐλέγξαι βουληθεὶς τὸν ἔπαινον, ὃς κατ’ ἐμοῦ τε καὶ Ὀλυμπίου παρὰ πάντων ᾄδεται. λέγεται γὰρ ὡς ταὐτὰ μὲν φρονοῦμεν, ταὐτὰ δὲ φθεγγόμεθα, σώμασι δὲ κεχω- ρίσμεθα μόνον. σὺ τοίνυν ζηλοτυπήσας μάλα ἀφελῶς, ἴνα μὴ κακούργως εἴπω, διορύττεις ἐπιστέλλων τὸ ἐγκώμιον, εἰ περὶ μὲν ἡμῶν μηδεὶς μὴ γένηται δέδοικεν, σὺ ὡς γεγενη- μένου γράφεις ἀλλὰ τοῦτο μὶν οὐ μέγα τεθήρευκας, ἐγὼ δέ σε πεφώρακα καθάπερ παισὶ διαλιγόμινον ἡμὶν. οὐδαμοῦ γὰρ δοὺς θαρρῆσαι περὶ τοῦ μέλλοντος κύκλῳ βαδίζεις ἐπι- κρεμάσας ἡμῖν τὸν Ταντάλου πέτρον. ἱν οὖν μὴ ὦμεν Τάνταλοι, τὴν κεφαλὴν ἀπάλλαξον τοῦ λίθου ἢ ἤδη λαβὼν ἢ μηδὲ λήψεσθαι φήσας ὡς ἐμοὶ τὸ μὲν ἀποδοῦναι κοῦφον — εἰδότι δ’ ἂν λέγοιμι —, βρόχου δὲ ἄξιον, εἰ ἐν τοῖς ἡρπακόσι τὰ τῶν πόλεων ἀριθμοίμην