Letter 8018: My son is out of danger, thank God, but he's suffering from a weakness that borders on illness.
My son is out of danger, thank God, but he's suffering from a weakness that borders on illness. The plan is to travel home by easy stages, breaking the journey into shorter stretches. I, too, have been struck down in sympathy -- probably from the sleepless nights of nursing, whose effects were mild at the time but flared up afterward.
I'm doing my best to suppress the advancing sickness with careful diet and restraint. So with heaven invoked, we're preparing to set out. I'd properly thank your devoted concern for us, but love that is hoped for and tested by experience doesn't need words to confirm it. 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AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Filius meus cum bona dei venia periculo caret, sed defectum virium patitur
prope usque ad aegritudinem. redire consilium est paulatim mansionibus in spatia
minora divisis. ego quoque meorum contagio socius accessi, credo ex vigiliis noctur-
nis, quarum in praesentia exiguus fuit sensus, noxa post cruduit. conprimere tamen
15 nitor diligentia et parsimonia ingruens malum. ergo caelestibus advocatis iter para-
mus ordiri. vestrae in nos diligentiae grates referrem, si se amor speratus et ex mu-
tuo debitus lactari laude pateretur.
LVIIII (LVIII).
AD ROMANVM.
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