Letter 7022: You've redeemed two offenses against friendship in a single letter, with wit as your payment: you'd been away too...
You've redeemed two offenses against friendship in a single letter, with wit as your payment: you'd been away too long, and you'd written nothing. What Colchian or Thessalian sorcerer [regions famous for magic] could have charmed away such grievances?
So in return for the balm of your letter, you'll get your pardon. I'll allow you to tend to your friend's wedding celebrations with a clear mind and to make the town of Tibur -- which recently carried the wedding torches for you -- a city shared between Juno and Hercules [Tibur's patron deities, associated with marriage and festivity].
You'll come back to your Caelian house after the reception, I hope. But if you still insist on lingering through the summer days in your orchards, then once again you'll have to sweeten my indignation with the honey of your letters. 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AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Duo pariter commissa in amicitiam redemisti epistulae tuae salibus : diu afueras,
nihil scripseras. quis Colchus aut Thessalus cantu aut manu has offensiones levasset?
ergo ob epistulae delenimentum veniae pretium feres. sino, ut amici tui nuptiale fe- 20
stum curae vacuus exerceas et urbem Tiburtem, quae nuper tibi faces praetulit, com-
munem lunoni et Herculi facias. reverteris, ut spero, post repotia in Caelium larem ;
vel si adhuc iuvat aestivos dies in pomariis tuis ducere, iterum tibi indignatio mea
litterarum tuarum melle placanda est. vale.
XX ante a. 398. 25
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