Letter 133: Attic figs and fine shoes lose to raisins, salt sparrows, and Procopius's comic appetite.

I have received your fine figs, better, I think, than the Attic ones on account of which they say the great war was set in motion, when the king marched, laying land upon sea and cutting a mountain into the sea. I have also received the shoes, and very fine ones. Still, "the dog-rose and anemones cannot compare with roses." A long raisin, tempering its natural sweetness with measured astringency: what Attic figs, what cakes - toward which you always stretch out your tongue - are better than that? I have sent salt sparrows too, consolation for a gluttonous stomach. Are my gifts not far better? Every judge of dainties, I think, would say so. Perhaps you will point to the sandals still to come. I am gaping for them; but when you send them... I do not want to say what sort of things I will try to joke.

Διοδώρωι Δέδεγμαί σου τὰς καλὰς ἰσχάδας καὶ κρείττους, οἶμαι, τῶν Ἀττικῶν, δι' ἅς φασιν ὁ μέγας κεκίνητο πόλεμος, ὅτε βασιλεὺς ἐπῄει γῆν ἐπεμβάλλων θαλάττῃ καὶ διατέμνων ὄρος εἰς θάλατταν· δέδεγμαι δὲ καὶ ὑποδήματα καὶ λίαν καλά. πλὴν "ἀλλ' οὐ συμβλήτ' ἐστὶ κυνόσβατος οὐδ' ἀνεμῶναι πρὸς ῥόδα"· ἀσταφὶς γὰρ μακρὰ καὶ συμμέτρῳ στύψει τὴν ἔμφυτον παραμυθου μένη γλυκύτητα ποίων μὲν ἰσχάδων Ἀττικῶν ποίων δὲ πλακούντων, ἐφ' οὓς ἀεὶ τὴν γλῶτταν προτείνεις, οὐ κρείττων καθέστηκε; πέπομφα δὲ καὶ στρουθοὺς ἐξ ἅλμης, ἀδηφάγου γαστρὸς παραμύθιον. ἆρ' οὐ κρείττω πολλῷ τὰ ἡμέτερα; πᾶς ἄν τις, οἶμαι, τένθης φήσειε δικαστής. πλὴν ἴσως τὰς μελλούσας βλαύτας ἐρεῖς. ἐγὼ δὲ κέχηνα μὲν πρὸς αὐτάς· ἐπειδὰν δὲ πέμψῃς ... ἀλλ' οὐ βούλομαι λέγειν οἷα δὴ καὶ σκώπτειν πειράσομαι.