Letter 123
To Troilus
Even though there shall be utter
forgetfulness of the dead in Hades,
I shall remember there my so dear companion (Il
xxii. 389).
These lines were written by Homer, but as to the meaning of them, I know not whether they rightly apply to Achilles and Patroclus more than to me in relation to your beneficent and beloved person. I call God to witness, whom philosophy reveres, that I carry with me the image of your sweet and pious nature in my very heart. The wondrous echo of your words of wisdom resound in my ears. When I came back from Egypt to my own city, and when I read all your letters of the two last years, I watered them with my tears. For I got no pleasure from the letters, out of the joy I always take in you, but rather sadness, recalling in them your living fellowship, and thinking of what a friend and father alike I am bereaved, although one who is in reality living. Willingly would I undergo more weighty struggles in behalf of my city, if only I might again have a pretext for leaving it. Shall I ever have the happiness of seeing you, O truest of fathers, and of embracing your sacred head, and of joining with that council that your word captivates? If this joy is given me, I shall prove by my own example that what the poets recount of Aeson the Thessalian is not after all a fable; they aver that he was twice endowed with youth, changing to a young man in his old age.