F irst done, then entered,1 say they who keep their books carefully. The same saying is applicable to this letter, which now at last answers your recent one to me. The reason of the delay has been that, when I made up my mind to write, some things came into my mind, which could not be written down beak in air, as the saying is. Then intervened the sitting of the Senate, and the labour it entailed was felt the more heavily in that, being simultaneous with my joy, it had taken deeper hold of me, just as the wind when combined with the sun.2 Now this letter, as it was not forthcoming at its due time, asks the indulgence usual in postponements, that it be without prejudice.
When I received your letter, I began my answer thus—Love me as you do love me, you say: I propose to answer this phrase somewhat less briefly. For I used to answer your letters more at length in those days when, as you yourself shew, you were sufficiently assured of my love for you. Look, I beseech you, that you do not rob yourself, and of your own accord demand a diminution of love, for I would have you believe that you are so much more fully loved by me now, as in all things a present certain fruition exceeds an uncertain hope in the future. Shall not I, who loved the native quality of your genius even then, when in bud and in leaf and in flower, love now far far more deeply the very fruit of your matured excellence? Then should I be deemed the most blockish of all country swains and all ploughmen, if I valued what was sown above what was harvested. I indeed, being granted all that I wished and prayed for, have been cast and fined in my very wishes and prayers: to meet that fine I put in my doubled love for you, not, as was the custom in old time for fines to be inflicted, at the rate of half less a thousand (asses).3 A dry-nurse commonly loves a baby more than an older child; a foolish nurse is even prone to be angry with adolescence for taking away her boy from her arms and giving him over to the playground or the forum. Your instructors of youth too love their pupils more while they learn boyhood's lessons and pay their fees. When I was called to the care and cultivation of your natural powers, I hoped you would be what you now are; I carried my love on to these your present days. Conspicuous in your boyhood was your innate excellence; even more conspicuous was it in your youth; but in such a way as when a cloudless day begins to break with newly-dawning light. Now already your full excellence has risen with dazzling disc and spread its rays on every side: and yet you call me back to that bygone measure of my dawning love for you, and bid the morning twilight shine at noonday! Hear, I pray you, how much enhanced beyond your former is your present excellence, that you may more easily understand how much larger a measure of love you deserve, while you cease to claim only as much.
To begin my comparison of yourself to yourself with your dutifulness, I will mention your bygone devotion to your father,4 and contrast it with your present attention to duty. Who does not know that, when your father was unwell, you used to discontinue baths in order to keep him company, deny yourself wine, even water and food; that you never studied your own convenience in the matter of sleep or waking or food or exercise, but sacrificed everything to your father's convenience? . . . .
Five Letters between Marcus and Fronto of which only the opening Words Remain
163 A.D.