Letter 1031: You ask what I'm up to.
You ask what I'm up to. I'm waiting day by day for letters — the kind your present position now promises and your affection has always delivered. I'm pleased with how things stand: my enemy has been left with no ground to stand on, and meanwhile I can promise a well-deserved fortune for you, whose success I always wish for.
So since events have taken this turn and anxieties have given way to relief, let me enjoy the fruit of your much-desired letter — one that lifts my spirits and shows that, after such a long friendship, you genuinely long for my company. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
Related Letters
I have exchanged the leisure of home for a pleasant journey abroad, traveling at the command of our lord Valentinian.
1. I have read, and read with pleasure, the letter which you have sent by Strategius the presbyter. How should I not so read it, written as it is by a wise man, and dictated by a heart which has learned to observe the universal love taught by the commandment of the Lord?
I am filled with distress at seeing evil on the high road to success, while you, my reverend friends, are faint and failing under continuous calamity. But when again I bethink me of the mighty hand of God, and reflect that He knows how to raise up them that are broken down, to love the just, to crush the proud and to put down the mighty from the...
I have written to you before about your need for a bishop.
Among the consolations Obodianus found while nursing his injured shoulder in your city, he counted his time with you...