Letter 104.9

To my Lord. 1. I have received your letter, most elegantly written, in which you say that, over the interval, a longing for letters from me has welled up in you. Socrates' view is therefore true, that pleasures are for the most part bound up with pains, when in prison he reckoned that the pain of the tight-pressing chain was offset by the pleasure of its being loosened. In just the same way, surely, in our own case, as much vexation as absence brings, so much benefit does the longing it provokes bring. For longing arises out of love. And so love has been increased by longing, which is by far the best thing there is in friendship. 2. Then, as to what you ask about my health: I had already written to you before that I was being tormented by a pain in my shoulder, and so violently indeed that I could not manage, by writing, to compose that very letter in which I was telling you of it, but had to make use, contrary to our custom, of [...] [Four pages are missing.]

? 144–145 A.D. To my Lord. I have received your letter, most charmingly expressed, in which you say that the intermission in my letters has caused a longing for them to arise in you. Socrates was right, then, in his opinion that "pleasures are generally linked to pains," when in his imprisonment he held that the pain caused by the tightness of his chains was made up for by the pleasure of their removal. Precisely so in our case the fondness which absence stimulates brings as much comfort as the absence itself causes affliction. For fond longing comes from love. Therefore, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and this is far the best thing in friendship. Then as to my health, about which you enquire, I had already written to you that I was suffering so much pain in the shoulder that I could not succeed in writing the very letter in which I mentioned it, but, contrary to my usual custom, had to employ another hand . . . .

ad M. Caesarem 4.9 [64 Hout; 1.186 Haines] Domino meo. 1 Accepi litteras tuas elegantissime scriptas, quibus tu intervallo desiderium mearum obortum tibi esse ais. Est igitur vera Socrati opinio doloribus ferme voluptates conexas esse cum in carcere dolorem constricti vinculi voluptate resoluti conpensaret. Item profecto in nobis, quantum molesiae absentia, tantum commodi adfert desiderium inritatum. Nam desiderium ex amore est. Igitur amor cum desiderio auctus est, quod est in amicitia multo optimum. 2 Tum, quod quaeris de valetudine mea, jam prius scripseram tibi me umeri dolore vexatum ita vehementer quidem, ut illam ipsam epistulam, qua id significabam, scribendo dare operam nequirem, sed uterer contra morem nostrum <...> <“--quattuor paginae desunt--”>