Procopius turns being praised into a playful warning about publishing his unseemly children for pay.
You were evidently formidable at making small things great and at showing an unbeatable tongue wherever you wish. You fashioned so many praises against me and reported them so easily that no one starting from truth could have spoken them readily. It seems to me that you poured yourself out with so much tongue because you wanted, perhaps, to show what sort of man you had been without my noticing. You may think that, while present, you went unrecognized for the Muse you had nurtured from the rhetoricians. I knew you well even when you were present, but I did not praise you as much as I should while you were training with me, so that praise would not slacken your eagerness and stop a course always moving toward greater things and hurrying toward its prime.
Now I was greatly delighted by your letter, not looking at the praises, for I was lifted high into the air by your words and carried everywhere, but because I have been fortunate enough to call a child mine from the Muses. If you can move your tongue so well over falsehood, what might you become if you seized hold of truth? I was also pleased that you mocked yourself for loving money insatiably and extending your trade even to my words. Fill your right hand then, happiest man; I will bear with moderation the sight of my words for sale. Only be careful that you do not face a lawsuit for demanding payment in advance from home because you dared publish unseemly children of mine.
You were evidently formidable at making small things great and at showing an unbeatable tongue wherever you wish. You fashioned so many praises against me and reported them so easily that no one starting from truth could have spoken them readily. It seems to me that you poured yourself out with so much tongue because you wanted, perhaps, to show what sort of man you had been without my noticing. You may think that, while present, you went unrecognized for the Muse you had nurtured from the rhetoricians. I knew you well even when you were present, but I did not praise you as much as I should while you were training with me, so that praise would not slacken your eagerness and stop a course always moving toward greater things and hurrying toward its prime.
Now I was greatly delighted by your letter, not looking at the praises, for I was lifted high into the air by your words and carried everywhere, but because I have been fortunate enough to call a child mine from the Muses. If you can move your tongue so well over falsehood, what might you become if you seized hold of truth? I was also pleased that you mocked yourself for loving money insatiably and extending your trade even to my words. Fill your right hand then, happiest man; I will bear with moderation the sight of my words for sale. Only be careful that you do not face a lawsuit for demanding payment in advance from home because you dared publish unseemly children of mine.
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.