Letter 8013: May this custom endure, and may the mutual assurance of well-being be renewed between us year after year.

These replies will render to you the customary annual joy concerning us, the debt, as it were, of your discourse that is owed to you. And because, on account of so great a distance, we cannot perform this often, we present it with due faith at fixed times. Let this practice therefore remain, and every year let our mutual security be stored up by this token of well-being. Farewell. Letter 46 (45). To Strategius. You deal with me through the longing of one who loves, that I should return. For a long while now my own mind, eager for you, has been demanding this, but my injured health resists my will. For a noxious humor, having seeped into my joints, holds me even now to my little bed, and is scarcely reduced by the dryness of the seashore. Grant therefore to my recovery the time that I had claimed for pleasure. But I declare openly that to you, after my departure, amid so great a multitude of good men, nothing is pleasant as it was before; yet I think that you are deceived by your loving affection, because there is little judgment in one who loves. And I indeed do not learn from this letter first what you feel about me, yet it is nearly the case that I ought to give thanks to my absence, because it has furnished me with a kind of written bond of your testimony. But I will let these things pass. I will not delay your expectation after the recovery of my vigor; but because this is long for one who is diligent, once I have seen to the things which we possess in the neighborhood, I will hasten my return. For I hope that as much will accrue to my health from the sight of you as could be hoped for from rest. Farewell. Letter 47 (46).

Redditum mihi esse annnum quodammodo sermonis tui debitum tibi quoque gaudium sollemne de nobis haec responsa praestabunt. quae quia propter tantam longinquitatem frequentare non possumus, deb//a fide certis temporibus ex- s hibemus. maneat igitur hic usus et qnotannis salutis indicio mutua inter nos secu- ritas recondatur. vale. XXXXVI (XXXXV). AD STRATEGIVM. Agis mecum desiderio amantis, ut redeam. iamdudum hoc animus meus vestri le expetitor efflagitat, sed valetudo saucia obstrepit voluntati. humor enim noxins arti- culis inlapsus etiam nunc me tenet lectulo et vix litorali siccitate tenuatur. tribue igitur tempus refectioni, quod ego vindicaveram voluptati. prae me autem fero, quod tibi in tanta bonorum multitudine post discessum meum nihil, ut ante, iucundum est, 2 sed puto, qvLod pia adfectione fallaris, quia parmm est in amante iudicium. et ego is quidem non ex his primum litteris, quid de me sentias, scio, prope est tamen, nt agere gratias absentiae meae debeam, quia mihi syngrapham quandam testimonii tui praestitit. verum haec missa faciam. non morabor expectationem tuam post con- ciliationem vigoris; sed quia hoc longum est diligenti, visis, quae in proximo possi- demus, reditum maturabo. spero enim tantundem accessurum sanitati meae ex con- 20 spectu vestro, quantum sperari possit ex otio. vale. XXXXVU (XXXXVI).