Letter 18: Procopius enjoys Zacharias's teasing but declines to write a flowery spring set-piece.

It seems, my excellent friend, that you will never stop joking at my expense. By all the gods, do not stop. When I hear such things said, I smile at the letters, arrive at you in thought, and seem to speak to you and hear you speaking. So if you care for charm in letters, and you certainly do, strike like this, and you will seem to give me a greater gift than if you made me Croesus. Go on calling me a sophist and saying that I love applause. Add eyebrows, vanity, and whatever else you like. Often you have said "sophist" and gone away as though saying that were the same as calling me a pretender. I would not deny my art. But if it belongs to this art to puff a man up toward pretension, perhaps you too have too much share in the art, so that I fear in proportion to your share of it ... But out of respect for you I will be silent. Perhaps you wonder that, though I am a sophist and am already seeing spring, when I ought to lead a procession in words, I have passed it by in silence. Perhaps you look in my letters for flowers, swallows, the sea's gentle change, beautiful Adonis and that astonishing Aphrodite in love, and because you do not hear about the rose you again marvel at its grace. I would say none of that, especially to you, in case you laugh again and call me tasteless and a sophist.

Ζαχαρίαι ἀδελφῶι Ὡς ἔοικεν, ὦ λῷστε, τῶν εἰς ἡμᾶς σκωμμάτων οὔποτε παύσῃ. μηδέ γε παύσαιο τούτων, ὦ πάντες θεοί. ὡς ἐγὼ λεγομένων ἀκούων προσγελῶ τε τοῖς γράμμασι, καὶ πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἀφικνοῦμαι τῇ διανοίᾳ, καὶ λέγειν τι δοκῶ πρὸς ὑμᾶς καὶ λεγόντων ἀκούειν. ὥστ' εἴ σοι μέλει τῆς ἐν τοῖς γράμμασι χάριτος, μέλει δὲ πάντως, βάλλ' οὕτω, καὶ μείζονα χαρίζεσθαι δόξεις ἢ εἴ μοι παρεῖχες Κροίσῳ γενέσθαι. κάλει δὲ πάλιν σοφιστὴν καὶ λέγε κρότων ἐρᾶν, ὀφρῦν τε προστίθει καὶ τῦφον καὶ πᾶν ὅ τί σοι φίλον. πολλάκις δὲ καὶ σοφιστὴν εἰπὼν ἀπηλλάγης, ὡς ταὐτὸν ὂν τοῦτο εἰπεῖν καὶ ἀλαζόνα καλέσαι. ἐγὼ δὲ τὴν μὲν ἐμὴν τέχνην οὐκ ἂν ἀρνησαίμην· εἰ δὲ ταύτης ἴδιον τὸ πρὸς ἀλαζονείαν ἐπαίρειν, καί σοί που μέτεστιν ἄγαν τῆς τέχνης, ὥστε δέδοικα μὴ ὅσον ταύτης μετέχεις ... ἀλλὰ γὰρ αἰδοῖ τῇ πρὸς σὲ σιωπήσομαι. ἴσως δὲ θαυμάζεις εἰ σοφιστὴς ὢν καὶ τὸ ἔαρ ἤδη θεώμενος, δέον ἐμπομπεῦσαι τῷ λόγῳ, εἶτα παρῆλθον σιγῇ· καί που ζητεῖς ἐν τοῖς γράμμασιν ἄνθη καὶ χελιδόνας καὶ θαλάττης μεταβολὴν ἥμερον, τόν τε Ἄδωνιν τὸν καλὸν καὶ τὴν Ἀφροδίτην ἐκείνην τὴν παραδόξως ἐρῶσαν, καὶ ὅτι μὴ τὸ ῥόδον ἀκούεις καὶ τὴν ἐπ' αὐτῷ χάριν πάλιν θαυμάζεις. ἐγὼ δὲ τοιοῦτον οὐδὲν ἂν εἴποιμι καὶ μάλιστα γε πρὸς σέ, μήποτε πάλιν γελάσας ἀπειρόκαλόν με καὶ σοφιστὴν ὀνομάσῃς.