Letter 1039: ...if you press too hard on something delicate, it bruises like a lily.
...if you press too hard on something delicate, it bruises like a lily. I remember reading that "even a stern judge might take offense at devotion expressed by mere looks" — what would he make of your unbroken silence and your complete neglect of the duty of correspondence?
I trust you'll weigh these words seriously. I couldn't in good conscience hide what was troubling me. For just as my heart hangs on you entirely, so I long with all my being for the active warmth of our friendship. Farewell.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
10 durins teras, livet nt lilia. legisse me memini, vnltu saepe laedi pietatem:
quid ille tam serius arbiter snper continuo silentio ac dissimnlato scribendi munere
oensuisset? tecum haec pensius aestimabis, sed mihi religio fuit tegere, qnae dolebant.
nam ut in te animi nsque pendeo, ita opere maximo usuram tuae unanimitatis ex-
pe/o. vale. ^
15 XXXV(XXVini) posta. 369.
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