Letter 9017: I have received your letter in which you complain how offensive to you a really magnificent banquet was, owing to...
Pliny the Younger→Julius Genitor|c. 107 AD|Pliny the Younger|Human translated
humor
To Genitor.
I have received your letter in which you complain how offensive to you a really magnificent banquet was, owing to the fact that there were buffoons, dancers, and jesters going round from table to table. Ah ! will you never relax that severe frown of yours even a little ? For my own part, I do not provide any such entertainments like those, but I can put up with those who do. Why then do I not provide them myself? For this reason, that if any dancer makes a lewd movement, if a buffoon is impudent, or a jester makes a senseless fool of himself, it does not amuse me a whit, for I see no novelty or fun in it. I am not giving you a high moral reason, but am only telling you my individual taste. Yet think how many people there are who would regard with disfavour, as partly insipid and partly wearisome, the entertainments which charm and attract you and me. When a reader, or a musician, or a comic actor enters the banqueting-room, how many there are who call for their shoes or lie back on their couches just as completely bored as you were, when you endured what you describe as those monstrosities ! Let us then make allowances for what pleases other people, so that we may induce others to make allowances for us ! Farewell.
L To Genitor.
I have received your letter in which you complain how offensive to you a really magnificent banquet was, owing to the fact that there were buffoons, dancers, and jesters going round from table to table. Ah ! will you never relax that severe frown of yours even a little ? For my own part, I do not provide any such entertainments like those, but I can put up with those who do. Why then do I not provide them myself? For this reason, that if any dancer makes a lewd movement, if a buffoon is impudent, or a jester makes a senseless fool of himself, it does not amuse me a whit, for I see no novelty or fun in it. I am not giving you a high moral reason, but am only telling you my individual taste. Yet think how many people there are who would regard with disfavour, as partly insipid and partly wearisome, the entertainments which charm and attract you and me. When a reader, or a musician, or a comic actor enters the banqueting-room, how many there are who call for their shoes or lie back on their couches just as completely bored as you were, when you endured what you describe as those monstrosities ! Let us then make allowances for what pleases other people, so that we may induce others to make allowances for us ! Farewell.
C. PLINIUS GENITORI SUO S.
Recepi litteras tuas quibus quereris taedio tibi fuisse quamvis lautissimam cenam, quia scurrae cinaedi moriones mensis inerrabant. Vis tu remittere aliquid ex rugis? Equidem nihil tale habeo, habentes tamen fero. Cur ergo non habeo? Quia nequaquam me ut inexspectatum festivumve delectat, si quid molle a cinaedo, petulans a scurra, stultum a morione profertur. Non rationem sed stomachum tibi narro. Atque adeo quam multos putas esse, quos ea quibus ego et tu capimur et ducimur, partim ut inepta partim ut molestissima offendant! Quam multi, cum lector aut lyristes aut comoedus inductus est, calceos poscunt aut non minore cum taedio recubant, quam tu ista — sic enim appellas — prodigia perpessus es! Demus igitur alienis oblectationibus veniam, ut nostris impetremus. Vale.
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To Genitor.
I have received your letter in which you complain how offensive to you a really magnificent banquet was, owing to the fact that there were buffoons, dancers, and jesters going round from table to table. Ah ! will you never relax that severe frown of yours even a little ? For my own part, I do not provide any such entertainments like those, but I can put up with those who do. Why then do I not provide them myself? For this reason, that if any dancer makes a lewd movement, if a buffoon is impudent, or a jester makes a senseless fool of himself, it does not amuse me a whit, for I see no novelty or fun in it. I am not giving you a high moral reason, but am only telling you my individual taste. Yet think how many people there are who would regard with disfavour, as partly insipid and partly wearisome, the entertainments which charm and attract you and me. When a reader, or a musician, or a comic actor enters the banqueting-room, how many there are who call for their shoes or lie back on their couches just as completely bored as you were, when you endured what you describe as those monstrosities ! Let us then make allowances for what pleases other people, so that we may induce others to make allowances for us ! Farewell.
Human translation — Attalus.org
Latin / Greek Original
C. PLINIUS GENITORI SUO S.
Recepi litteras tuas quibus quereris taedio tibi fuisse quamvis lautissimam cenam, quia scurrae cinaedi moriones mensis inerrabant. Vis tu remittere aliquid ex rugis? Equidem nihil tale habeo, habentes tamen fero. Cur ergo non habeo? Quia nequaquam me ut inexspectatum festivumve delectat, si quid molle a cinaedo, petulans a scurra, stultum a morione profertur. Non rationem sed stomachum tibi narro. Atque adeo quam multos putas esse, quos ea quibus ego et tu capimur et ducimur, partim ut inepta partim ut molestissima offendant! Quam multi, cum lector aut lyristes aut comoedus inductus est, calceos poscunt aut non minore cum taedio recubant, quam tu ista — sic enim appellas — prodigia perpessus es! Demus igitur alienis oblectationibus veniam, ut nostris impetremus. Vale.