Letter 7011: Ad Iovinum inlustrem ac patricium et rectorem provinciae
To Jovinus, Illustrious Patrician and Governor
How many prose letters I have sent you! And I drink no cup from your fountain in return: you once watered me more richly with a flowing stream, but now no draft is given from Castalian [the sacred spring of the Muses on Parnassus] waters.
If a lesser concern for your love had held me, it would already have been permissible to embrace your neck with a hand of estrangement. But now I take the less because I love the more — and since I desire more, I groan at my prayers denied.
You who have poured yourself into my heart with your whole heart — why, I ask, do our eyes not have a light in common? At least I carry what is permitted, dear friend: I offer this greeting. But let a page come back that can restore me.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
XI
Ad Iovinum inlustrem ac patricium et rectorem provinciae
Prosaico quotiens direxi scripta relatu!
nullaque de vestro pocula fonte bibo:
quem prius inrigua recrearas ditior unda,
nec modo Castaliis redditur haustus aquis.
si me cura minor vestri tenuisset amoris,
iam fuerat licitum stringere colla manu,
nunc magis inde minus capio, quia diligo maius,
et cum plus cupiam, vota negata gemam.
qui sibi transfudit mea pectora pectore toto,
cur, rogo, non pariter lumina lumen habent?
vel quod, amice, licet scriptis fero, care, salutem:
sed mihi qua relever pagina reddat opem.
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