To the same. (~362)
I thought that your office and the press of business would make you no longer as good a letter-writer. But it turns out you manage both — you preserved that gift as well. You have even beaten me, who do nothing but write, in sheer volume.
As for quality, it is equal. All grain and gold seem small to me compared with the beauty of your letters, in which you compel us not to fall silent — lest we seem to have written only for the sake of the money, if the moment we have it we stop writing.
I can tell you are laughing, having got me in your power, and have become free to jest and set prices in wheat and barley. But know this: you will soon be even more my master, and you who admired the present offerings will give something greater. Then you will sit where befits you and listen to me speak, and I will listen to you dissolving the tangles in your cases with flowing speech. And we shall praise each other — you my work out of goodwill, I yours in truth.
I thought that your office and the press of business would make you no longer as good a letter-writer. But it turns out you manage both — you preserved that gift as well. You have even beaten me, who do nothing but write, in sheer volume.
As for quality, it is equal. All grain and gold seem small to me compared with the beauty of your letters, in which you compel us not to fall silent — lest we seem to have written only for the sake of the money, if the moment we have it we stop writing.
I can tell you are laughing, having got me in your power, and have become free to jest and set prices in wheat and barley. But know this: you will soon be even more my master, and you who admired the present offerings will give something greater. Then you will sit where befits you and listen to me speak, and I will listen to you dissolving the tangles in your cases with flowing speech. And we shall praise each other — you my work out of goodwill, I yours in truth.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.