Letter 7072: Don't judge my care for you by the length of this letter.

127. I do not want you to measure my concern for you from the length of this letter: the words of one who greets you are few [...] but the wishes are abundant. Let me therefore be permitted to imitate, toward you, the same frugality I keep in religious observances. [...several lines illegible in the source...] [...the manuscript here is broken and corrupt...] by which friendship is rightly conferred, and to discharge a dutiful office on a brief page, as it were with a small mouth. For the saying does not require a long excursus. To you, however, I prescribe the limits of the pen: let whatever you write about yourself seem to me far too long, if it be glad news. 130. To Sibidius. My mind is sick, for as long as there is no sure assurance that you have entered the harbor of health. I wish you to satisfy this expectation of mine. For I do not desire that an honor be done me by a literary courtesy, but that relief be granted to my great anxiety. 131.

cxxvnn. Curam de te meam nolo ex epistula metiaris: pauca fsalutantis verba sunt . . . .... sed vota prolixa. liceat igitur mihi imitari erga te parsimoniam religionum. ostenta . . . o cura ura 6 . . . obis ille que . . . i exitus offlcia 7 . . . a enim quae direi) . . . igata pa- tuerunt 8 . . . ii reuertetur legib; . . . sed patris sensui acer . . . nc uestrae deme exi^ 9 . . . go atque — et . . . ia nri apud optimates ui 10 ... nansura — coe . . . s 3 defensione V fecerunt] (77), fecerit V 6 haec] (i7), hoc V uiuinns V 8 quidem] (/7), quod V acerua K, aoer// P, asseruata (//] secessio U nunc uestrae] non cura est V tibi accedit F 14 tantum — 15 decerpi om. F tantum] VF, tanti P insimulationum] P 2 m, VF, insimulationem P I m. improbitate P 2 m.j probitate P l m. VF 15 decerpsi V uir con- sularis F laudatur P 1 m. 16 ingemescit P 1 m. uirisimile P 1 m. 17 posse F tare metum F, metum licitare V 22 mihi om. F 24 c. u.] ego, cum P, om, VF adferas P 28 imitare V 214 SYMMACHI EPISTVLAE PVF quibus iure amicitia confertur, et officium pium brevi pagina tamquam parvo ac ore persolvere. neque enim requirit dictio excursum. tibi autem prae- scribo stili terminos: eioint mihi, quae de te scripseris, nimis magna, si laeta sint. cxxx. AD SIBIDIVM. 5 Aeger est animus meus, quamdiu fides certa sit, quod portum sanitatis intraveris. huic expectationi satisfacias volo. non enim mihi honorem fieri obsequio litterario, sed magnae soUicitudinis tribui levamen exopto. CXXXI.