Letter 7018: Ad Flavum

To Flavus My letter goes so often to dear Flavus: so the diligent care of obligation urges me to speak. Now in prose, now sending verses, love pays what it owes with warm words. Indeed, let the traveler who wants to take to the road carry at least a few words — no one passes me by without speaking; the warmth of friendship makes me seek you often by the page; and if no man is available, a breeze will serve as bearer. With astonished heart I hang on the wandering clouds and receive no sign sent back by hand. Does a foreign page turn too little for you? Love does not extort what time does not allow. So that you may write, let a strip be unwound from a beech: it would be sweet to me to read your words on bark. Or does your tongue disdain the whisper of Roman speech? Then answer, I beg, in Hebrew letters. Learned one, write what you will in Achaemenian signs, or better, compose something melodious in Argolic style. Let barbarian runes be painted on ashen tablets — what papyrus does, a flat twig can do as well. Or let a page come back inscribed on shaved parchment: whatever can be reread will be the fruit of the lover.

XVIII Ad Flavum Ad carum totiens mea pergit epistula Flavum: sic monet officii sedula cura loqui. nunc quoque prosaico, modo mittens carmina versu blandior affatu debita solvit amor. quin tibi pauca ferat, qui vult iter ire viator nemo mihi tacite praetereundus abit, fotus amicitiae te ut pagina saepe requirat; et si vir desit, portitor aura placet. attonitis animis ego per vaga nubila pendo nullaque suscipio signa relata manu, an tibi Charta parum peregrina merce rotatur? non amor extorquet quod neque tempus habet, scribere quo possis, discingat fascia fagum : cortice dicta legi fit mihi dulce tui. an tua Romuleum fastidit lingua susurrum? quaeso vel Hebraicis reddito verba notis. doctus Achaemeniis quae vis perscribito signis , aut magis Argolico pange canora sopho. barbara fraxineis pingatur rhuna tabellis, . quodque papyrus agit virgula plana valet. pagina vel redeat perscripta dolatile Charta: quod relegi potent, fructus amantis erit.