Letter 611
Libanius→Παλλαδίῳ|libanius
To Palladius. (361 AD)
So you weren't actually longing for the speeches — you just wanted to be seen longing for them. You couldn't bring yourself to leave a single servant here for even one day. But I'm sending them anyway, to someone who has no need of them. Because it's obvious: the next time we met, you'd have been pretending to desire them all over again and reproaching me.
Παλλαδίῳ. (361)
Οὐκ ἄρα τῶν λόγων ἐπεθύμεις, ἀλλὰ τοῦ δοκεῖν ἐπιθυμεῖν
τῶν λόγων. οὔκουν ἐτόλμησας οἰκέτην τῇδε καταλιπεῖν ἡμέ-
ραν μίαν. ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ καὶ μηδὲν δεομένῳ πέμπω. δῆλον γὰρ
ὡς αὖθις ἐντυχὼν ἐρᾶν πλαττόμενος ἐπετίμας ἄν.
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To Palladius. (361 AD)
So you weren't actually longing for the speeches — you just wanted to be seen longing for them. You couldn't bring yourself to leave a single servant here for even one day. But I'm sending them anyway, to someone who has no need of them. Because it's obvious: the next time we met, you'd have been pretending to desire them all over again and reproaching me.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.