Letter 8022: You claim to be living the country life -- tending vines and grafting fruit trees, nursing a vigorous old age.

You claim to be living the country life -- tending vines and grafting fruit trees, nursing a vigorous old age. Your letters tell a different story. Unless, of course, your corner of Gaul is a branch office of Mount Helicon [the Muses' mountain]. You plow different furrows with your pen and plant different rows with your prose. As for me, since you want to know our news: I'm idling in the home of Latin eloquence [Rome], split between leisure and study. God willing, the years will be kind to my little boy, and he'll eventually invite me to share in his own studies. In the meantime, prod my laziness with frequent letters. Farewell.

Rusticari te adseris et dncendis vitibug aut orboribus inserendis crudam senectn- tem fovere. non hoc litterae tnae sapiunt, nisi forte Gallia tua dedux Heliconis. alios sulcos stilo intennoves , alios ordine^ pangis. ego autem , quoniam scire nostra 5 desideras, in domicilio Latiaris facundiae otio et studio torpeo. dii dabunt incre- menta annorum parvulo meo. ipse me praefata Fortunae venia ad studiorum suomm societatem vocabit. interea frequentibus epistulis desidiam meam stimula. onum quippe hoc litterarum genus superest post amaros casus orationum mearum, qnod me