Rustic Letters

Euthycomides to Blepaeus. As I was drying my grape-clusters in the sun, Mania came up to me, all coy and giving herself airs, and pelted me with a great many sallies. Now I had long had a smouldering desire for her, and I was planning to do something bold. So, gladly seizing the chance, I came up close, let the grapes be, and crept up to gather—and very gladly too—the fruit of her season. Let this, by Pan, be your Great Mysteries.

Comarchides to Dropaeus. The soft tame ram has knocked his leg very badly against a stump, and a fever has taken hold of him, and his groin has swollen up. I would rather have him recover than come into four bushels of dried figs. Greet for me the ewe with the soft wool, the one I am always praising to you, and the two little oxen, and the dog; and bid Mania herself, too, good day.

Eupeithides to Timonides. That Secyle of yours is wronging me, filching from my sheaves and pilfering on the sly. If she stops, well and good, and we shall remain friends; but if she keeps at her work, I will sue you for damages. For with good reason might the tombs of my forefathers groan, if I, Eupeithides of Corydallus, were to look on and let myself be robbed—and that by a slave-girl worth perhaps two minae.

Anthemion to Draces. What fine thing have you done, and what good work have you toiled at? As for me, I planted out a row of young vines, then set beside them tender shoots of fig-trees, and all around my farmstead I planted olives. Then I had my dinner, a thick soup of peas, and tossed off three good cups, and fell asleep well content.

Baeton to Anthemion. My beehives are empty, and the bees have deserted the hearth—though till now they were no runaways. On the contrary, they stayed faithful and lived in their hives as in their own homes, and they had a well-watered meadow rich in flowers, and we feasted them with a banquet of everything. And they, out of their excessive love of work, feasted us in return with much fine honey, and were never barren of that sweet travail. But now they have gone off and departed, though we had not grieved them in a single thing—no, by Aristaeus and Apollo himself! And so they are fugitives, and their house is widowed, and the flowers in the meadow grow old around it. And whenever I call to mind their flight and their graceful dance, I think of nothing else but that I have been robbed of daughters. I am angry with them, then; for why did they leave their nurturer—their very father, in plain truth—and their guardian and keeper, who was not without kindness? I must track down their wandering, and find out where in the world they have settled in their flight, and who has taken them in—for it is someone they have no business with that now holds them. Then, when I have found them, I will heap many reproaches on the thankless, faithless creatures.

Callarus to Callicles. And where is a man to turn the stream, if it is neither to be let into the road nor to cross over onto the neighbours' land? For surely you will not order us to drink it up. It was said long ago that a bad neighbour is a bad thing, and now it is believed of no one more than of you. But your violence will get you nowhere; for we will not sell you the plot, and the master will first go to law with you over this—provided he is sound in his wits.

Dercyllus to Opora. It is not because you say you are beautiful, nor because you say you have many lovers, that I praise you. Those men, perhaps, admire you for your looks; but you please me because of your name, and I praise you as I praise my native soil, and I have admired the cleverness of whoever named you so—plainly that not only the men in the city might be mad for you, but the country folk as well. So what wrong do I do in making trial of the harvest? For among other things the name itself is an enticement to love, and especially for a man who lives by farming. I have sent you, then, from your namesake in the field, figs and grape-clusters and new wine from the presses; and in the spring I will send you roses too, the harvest of the meadows.

Opora to Dercyllus. Whether you are in earnest about my name or are jesting, you yourself surely know; but I do not think it right that you should play the gallant to me with such gifts as you send. For your fine presents are tree-fruit worth a couple of obols and a wine still raw and unruly with youth—let some Phrygian girl drink it! I drink Lesbian and Thasian, and what I need is silver. To send harvest to Harvest is simply to carry fire to fire. And this, too, you may as well know, since I see it just as it is myself: it is my name that is the cause of my making money from those who wish to come to me; for it teaches me that the beauty of the body, too, is like the harvest. While it is in its prime, then, it is proper to take in return the favour for it; but once it has slipped away, what else would I be than a tree stripped bare of fruit and leaves alike? And yet to those trees nature grants the power to bloom again; but a courtesan's harvest comes only once. So one must lay something by from now against old age.

Chremes to Parmenon. Late I have learned that you gave me good advice, when you taught me to run away from courtesans. For they gape to grab whatever they can, and pretend to love, and shut the door on you again and again, and—what is hardest of all for me to bear—before a man has had his fill and is satisfied, they will not lie with him, but put on airs and play the prude, and then beg for more; and in secret they thresh down and gulp up everything more than the labourers in the field, while in our presence they play the dainty lady. I, however, do everything by hand and am eager to catch them, to hoist them up by both legs and turn straight back to my goats. I had a mind, indeed, to take that thrice-cursed Theban girl who was piping to me, lift her up by the middle, fling her onto the little couch, and get on with the business. But a plague on the soldier who got in my way! Thrasyleon, I think, was his name—or some other such thing twisted together out of a wild beast.

Philariphus to Simylus. I have heard that your boar is lustful. Why, then, have you not seized him by force and made him a gelding, as we are used to doing with our he-goats? For that, you know, persuades even the animals to keep quiet and to grow thoroughly sober. And I, of course, am a master at this business; for I will turn him out sound and whole on the spot, packing him with salt and smearing him with pitch. Then he will be healthier, I assure you, than Croton himself or a gourd, and will stop being amorous and wearing away your substance. For who, in his senses, would keep an undocked, wanton beast?

Lamprias to Tryphe. The young men keep good hounds for the chase, but a swifter or leaner hare than this I have never in my life beheld; it is a wonder how they even caught him. For when he was skinned and stripped of his hide, then at last he came to light—or rather (since that is not the right word) he is now more out of sight than ever. But you, Tryphe, stop your giggling at me; for if your father sees you, you wretch, you will get something thoroughly bad. And I myself rather dread him, even though he is present here; but you, I do not know how, have grown so coy that you make light of him.

Tryphe to Lamprias. Let us nail up the hare's hide, Lamprias, so that you may have it as a trophy of the hunt, after the manner, no doubt, of those great hunters. So shall your good luck in the chase be recorded too. But did you catch him yourself, or did you get him as a gift? And how was he ever spotted in the first place, being so small? The hounds, then, were truly keen-scented; for there was no seeing him, but they caught his scent. And you, ever since you began to hunt, have become for us a very Hippolytus. Take care, then, lest Aphrodite be angry with you too for your disdain.

Callippides to Cnemon. The country life is fine in all its other ways, and not least in the gentleness of temper it gives; for the quiet of it, and the leisure it allows to the men of the soil, breeds a fine mildness. But you, somehow, are a boor and no good neighbour to those who live beside you. You pelt us, at any rate, with clods and wild pears, and you raise a great outcry when you see a man, as though you were hunting a wolf; you are a vexation, and, as the saying goes, a briny neighbourhood. As for me, if I were not farming my father's land, I would gladly sell it to escape a fearsome neighbour. But, my good Cnemon, put away the harshness of your temper, and do not let your anger carry you off into forgetfulness, lest you go mad and not even know it. Let this friendly counsel from a friend be a remedy for your disposition.

Cnemon to Callippides. I ought to make no answer at all; but since you are a meddler and force me, against my will, to hold converse with you, I have at least gained this much—that I speak to you through messengers, and not to your face. Take, then, this for the answer they call "the Scythian's reply." I am mad; I thirst for blood; I hate the race of men. That is why I pelt those who trespass on my land with clods and stones. And I count Perseus blessed on two grounds: that he was winged and met no one, and that he was above greeting or saluting anybody. And I envy him besides, very much indeed, for that possession of his by which he turned those he met to stone; for if some good fortune of lighting upon it had ever come to me, there would be nothing more plentiful than statues of stone—and you I would have made into one first of all. For what has come over you, that you set me to rights and are so eager to make gentle a man whose thoughts are at war with everyone? That is why I have left the part of my land along the road untilled, and that stretch of my ground is widowed of crops. But you set yourself up as one of those a man cannot do without, and you are eager to have me for a friend—me, who am not even a friend to myself. For what came over me, that I am a human being at all?

Callippides to Cnemon. You are no different from the ill-omened days, so wild and solitary is your temper; yet, even unwilling, you must become gentle to us, out of respect both for our neighbourhood and for the honour due to the gods of the boundaries, who, after all, are common to us both. I am sacrificing, then, to Pan, and I am inviting those of the Phylasians who are most fit to take part in the rite. Among these I would be glad for you, too, to come; and you, by drinking with us and sharing in the libations, will be somewhat gentler. For Dionysus loves to wither away angry tempers and lull them to sleep, and to rouse up good cheer; and this same god will be for you a Healer too, and will free you from your bitter bile, quenching with wine the kindling of your wrath. And when you have listened, perhaps, to a flute-girl, Cnemon, and fallen into song, and slipped into a tune, you will have something calm in your soul too. Nor would it be amiss, when you are in your cups, for you even to raise your arm and dance. And if, in your drink, you should fall in with some girl calling for her maid, or trying to find the nurse she has lost, then perhaps you may do something warm and youthful. There would be nothing out of place in such a thing being done at the sacrifice of Pan; for he too is most amorous, and just the god to set upon young maidens. Unknit your brow, then, and relax this sullen, clouded look into good humour. This is the exhortation of a friend who means you well.

Cnemon to Callippides. So that I may even abuse you, I send this in reply, and let off some of my anger upon you; for I wanted above all that you were present, that I might lay hands on you myself. For why do you long to destroy me? Why are you eager to be the death of me, inviting me to a feast and a banquet? In the first place, I have a dreadful horror of seeing many people and being among a crowd; I flee a public sacrifice as cowards flee the enemy. And I look askance at wine, too, as something terribly strong to plot against and overthrow a man's judgment. As for the gods, both the rest of them and Pan, I salute them and address them only in passing; but I sacrifice nothing, for I do not wish to trouble even them. And you dangle flute-girls and songs before me, you ridiculous fellow. For these things I would, in a new way, refrain from laying hold of you; but those other notions of yours are fine indeed—to dance and to keep most warm company with a girl! You, it seems to me, would leap even into fire and tumble even onto knives; but for me, may you be no friend, neither when you sacrifice nor in any other way.

Dercyllus to Aeschreas. Did I not say that you would find a Plutus with sharp sight and not blind, and you laughed at me and at the land and at Fortune, since she takes thought even for the worthy? You, at any rate, have shown yourself to be one of those happy men who, they say, in the age of Cronos had everything from the earth of its own accord, and lived their public life in unstinting fellowship and simplicity of character, and dwelt in one single household—the whole space beneath the sky. Now that you have grown rich, who is so fond of fault-finding, or so wicked, as to be vexed and to harbour envious thoughts? May the temper of farmers never be filled with so much wickedness as to feel envy at wealth and to set their minds on money. Let that be turned over to the wild goats and to the orators in the law-courts.

Demylus to Blepsias. Our neighbour Laches has forsaken farming and the work of the fields, gone aboard a ship, and is sailing the Aegean, they say, and measuring out other seas, and riding the waves, and living the life of a gull, and battling with contrary winds; one headland passes him on to the next, and, looking about him for fat gain and dreaming of wealth all at once, he has bidden a long farewell to those little goats of his and to his former herdsman's life. Though he could live off the fields in a thrifty, modest way, he is not content with what he has, but conjures up Egyptians and Syrians and stares about for his sample, and is forever, by Zeus, reckoning interest upon interest and counting money upon money, and the thought of gain to be made both ways inflames and consumes his mind. But of storms he takes no thought, nor of contrary winds, nor of the sea's instability, nor of the unseasonableness of the seasons. We, on the other hand, even if we gain little for great toil, yet the land is far steadier than the sea, and, being more to be trusted, holds out hopes that are more secure.

Mormias to Chremes. There was I, golden fool, sacrificing for a wedding to no purpose, and going about garlanded with not the least cause, and flattering the gods both indoors and out; while my son brought the yoke of oxen down from the fields, meaning to bring the bride up from the city to the family farm. But he ransomed a flute-girl with whom he happened to be in love, threw a bride's robe about her, and brought me home a ringdove instead of a turtledove, as the saying goes—a courtesan instead of a bride. And at first, modest enough in maidenly fashion and in keeping with the custom of brides, she kept her trade hidden; but with difficulty their cleverness and their contrivances against me at last broke out. They shall not, however, despise me utterly, as though I were a man of clay; for I will cry that fine bridegroom to the crows, unless he leaves off this excessive luxury and digs and breaks clods beside me. And the bride I will sell off too, and that for export, unless she too lends a hand in the work alongside the Phrygian and the Thracian girl.

Phaedrias to Sthenon. All fair things grow in the fields, and with these the earth is adorned, and feeds all men; and some of the crops are of the whole year round, while others, lasting but a little while, are good things to eat in their season. Of all these the gods are the makers, but the earth is at once their mother and their nurse. And justice, too, grows there, and self-control—and these in the fields are the fairest of trees and the most useful of fruits. Do not, then, despise farmers; for there is a wisdom even here—a wisdom not embroidered upon the tongue, nor tricked out with the power of words, but keeping a profound silence, and through the very life it lives confessing its virtue. And if these things written to you are wiser than the produce of the fields might warrant, do not be surprised; for we are neither Libyans nor Lydians, but Athenian farmers.