Nilus of Ancyra→the Unnamed Recipient|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted
To the Unnamed Recipient.
And how has this final calamity now left you alone, and you alone drain the cup of the evils of captivity? Why was I treated mercifully and so escaped the trial of the sword? Why did neither a murderous right hand add me too to the other corpses, but instead I met with sparing as a trial of greater evils, grudged a swift release, and reaping over you a long and painful mourning? But since I see that you are sympathetic, I said, and disposed in no other way than as the very one who has suffered (for the straining intentness of your hearing has become proof of this to me, and the unceasing lamentations), I shall recount all my affairs in detail, just as they stand, not speaking at length to your leisure for listening-far from it-and let no necessity constrain you.
It calls to one's own household. For a narration is burdensome to a soul that is distracted, when the hearing rather keeps its reasoning fixed upon the thing it is anxious about. But they, showing both by look and by voice that what tended toward the question was disagreeable to them, said, And what other leisure is more to be preferred than to tend the grieving heart, and to empty out the sorrow of a soul in pain? For just as a cloud lays aside the pure water it distills in showery drops, and little by little is cleared of its gloom as it is emptied of the mist of water, so a soul is lightened of its despondency by chanting out, like a tragedy, its own misfortunes, since in the narration of grievous things its distaste too is poured out along with them. For these things strike at a suffering that is kept silent, as a humor strikes when the affliction is inflamed and the pus is ever throbbing beneath, and has no road by which it may come to be emptied out. They seemed, then, to speak fittingly; and I begin my report here.
And how has this final calamity now left you alone, and you alone drain the cup of the evils of captivity? Why was I treated mercifully and so escaped the trial of the sword? Why did neither a murderous right hand add me too to the other corpses, but instead I met with sparing as a trial of greater evils, grudged a swift release, and reaping over you a long and painful mourning? But since I see that you are sympathetic, I said, and disposed in no other way than as the very one who has suffered (for the straining intentness of your hearing has become proof of this to me, and the unceasing lamentations), I shall recount all my affairs in detail, just as they stand, not speaking at length to your leisure for listening-far from it-and let no necessity constrain you.
It calls to one's own household. For a narration is burdensome to a soul that is distracted, when the hearing rather keeps its reasoning fixed upon the thing it is anxious about. But they, showing both by look and by voice that what tended toward the question was disagreeable to them, said, And what other leisure is more to be preferred than to tend the grieving heart, and to empty out the sorrow of a soul in pain? For just as a cloud lays aside the pure water it distills in showery drops, and little by little is cleared of its gloom as it is emptied of the mist of water, so a soul is lightened of its despondency by chanting out, like a tragedy, its own misfortunes, since in the narration of grievous things its distaste too is poured out along with them. For these things strike at a suffering that is kept silent, as a humor strikes when the affliction is inflamed and the pus is ever throbbing beneath, and has no road by which it may come to be emptied out. They seemed, then, to speak fittingly; and I begin my report here.
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.