Letters 1 part 5/7

And if the Muses also dwell there, then you have me too as one who praises it.

But what is all this compared to the tranquility we enjoy here, and your pursuit of philosophy, which we have so often hoped for? Therefore, shaking off everything else as mere idle chatter, imitate Odysseus, looking toward the true Ithaca, and let nothing hinder you — not the lotus, not Circe, not Calypso — but, insofar as you are hastening toward greater prizes, by so much let us surpass the son of Laertes.

To Stephanos: Having beheld your brother, I seemed to have you both, and by the family likeness of his appearance I was carried back in thought to you.

So thoroughly am I, in every way, a man devoted in affection, that if I see anything belonging to my beloved friend, I consider this sufficient for the consolation of my longing.

I also received my book, which ought to have been brought back long ago; yet, having received it only now, I am not worse disposed than if I had received it at the outset.

In asking for it, I let loose every kind of appeal, and perhaps I seemed troublesome.

But when at last, with difficulty, I got it back — that I received it,

I remember; but that it came with difficulty, I no longer hold in mind.

So that, if you have supposed that I was grieved at all, or suffered anything grievous, may the breezes carry this away.

To Stephanos: It seems there is nothing you see except gold; it leads you along and lifts you into the air, and it has filled your mind with golden phantoms.

For when I wrote to you about my lack of leisure — that the occasion does not grant us everything, but necessity measures out only so much as suffices for need — and when by 'need' I meant not a lack of money, but that toward which we are led by fortune — you rushed wholly toward the notion of gold, and seemed to me to be sympathizing as though I were in financial straits, and you sought to console me, setting philosophy against wealth, as though I were groaning because I do not flaunt myself in the talents of Croesus.

So loudly does gold buzz about your ears, that you seem to hear everyone speaking of gold.

For, by Zeus, what led you into this folly? Or how could I possibly defend not writing letters by pleading a lack of money, as though the one writing a letter must be dripping with much gold? And indeed, if anything else is, writing at least is self-governing, and free from the dominion that comes from wealth.

Thus your faculty of reasoning is convicted by your own passion:

For, having inclined in this direction, it transforms everything toward this one idea, and it holds the hearing as an accomplice in its own deception.

While consoling others, you yourself will be in need of one to cure you.

I was led to jest with you about these things, and to put into my letter the laughter I underwent while reading yours.

But you, yielding a little to your grief, henceforth write a temperate letter.

To Sosianus and Julius. What happened to me upon receiving your letter is no bad thing to relate to you.

For lately someone, wishing to be thought wise in celestial matters and possessing, as he claimed, the art of foretelling the future from the stars, chanced suddenly upon me; and setting his reckoning upon his fingers, he said: 'Fortunate as you are, you do not even know it—'

'something great and splendid, beyond all hope, will presently come to you.'

And I, hearing this, pictured him to myself as Plutus, god of wealth, in person; my mind was filled with dignities, and I held an opinion more haughty than the fortune I hoped for.

So then, while I was in this state of mind, someone came up and delivered your letter to me; 'this is it,' I said, 'that very thing.'

The prophecy has come to pass.

For those who have learned good news are eager to disclose it before anyone else.

For what could have happened to make you write to me now so unexpectedly? But when I turned to what was written within and read of a discarded reed-pen and a most dishonorable trade, 'alas, alas,' I said to myself, 'what unexpected fortune I have had!'

As the saying goes, we have gone from horses to donkeys.

Alas, Fortune knows how to make all things strange and new, yet never would I have hoped to become a seller of reed-pens, sitting beneath a hut.

These things, it seems, Zeus grants me at his rising. And laughter ran through those who heard it, at my expense, and one said, 'Receive the man—and the bird of the god as well.'

To Nephalius. You have caused us no ordinary anxiety, neither being present as you had earlier promised, nor disclosing the reason by letter, so that we now proceed even to strange imaginings, fearing lest something of what we most dread has befallen you.

And now a certain rumor has also disturbed us, saying just what rumor is wont to say.

May it indeed prove to be mere rumor, and carry nothing further with it.

If, then, you care at all to restore our good spirits, grant us at least the comfort that a letter can give.

There was present, in place of modesty, wantonness; in place of the bridal chamber, lamentation; in place of lawful persuasion, violence and a sword raised on high.

If, then, the one who dared this were a man distinguished for wealth or for power—

—even then it would have been terrible (for how could it not be terrible, O Zeus, when captivity rules within a civil society governed by laws?)—yet there would nonetheless have been some consolation in the matter.

But as it is, this is the very sum of our misfortunes: the one who dared this deed cannot even be readily identified as to his origin, while the suffering itself has become only too well known to us.

But put an end, O most wise one, to the mourning of those who have suffered—

restore the daughter to her mother's bosom, so that those who have behaved so outrageously may know that Justice exists, and that she pursues wrongdoers.

Show those who honor chastity that the laws are of some avail—that there are men in authority who know how to lead the charge against wickedness.

To Diodorus. You mock our silence, but I cannot bear your vanity, on account of which you perhaps think yourself someone of consequence, since you show yourself to us only after so very long a time, and time and again put words into our mouths, asking, 'When will the handsome one come to us, the one so pleasant to behold, who outdoes the Sirens in his charms, who overlooks his own homeland in order to preserve that of Caesar?' Do you imagine that we invent such talk, while you forever wear us out with delay, and do you altogether reckon within yourself, as a maxim, that scarcity ever sharpens desire in those who seek it?

And this is not the only vexation, grievous as it is, but you also hold the ancestral festivals in no regard whatsoever.

Time and again you have raised our hopes that you would come, and then drawn back once more, so that we have been deceived.

So that it has been resolved that we should even send an embassy, to summon our benefactor.

For that is the title you delight to be called.

But do appear at last, O best of men, to complete the festival together with us.

But if you are waiting for the embassy, then it is high time for you to stay right where you are.

To Diodorus. The most devout Timothy is called by his profession to a life of quiet, yet the griefs of fortune, in their compulsion, bid him also to come to you.

For he has a father reduced to want by a reversal of fortune, and brothers who distress him both by their number and by their tender age—

for being many, and still young in years, they look to their father's hands for support.

all of them dependent on the kindness of one man alone.

But there is one who joins forces with Fortune against them.

For the house which the god scarcely left to them, burdened as it is with debts to so many creditors, this man alone insists on taking for himself, though its worth exceeds his own claim upon it—when he ought either to bring in a buyer and receive his due share of the whole price, or else to accept such a portion of it as will make up the full measure of the debt.

But he regards the present scarcity of buyers as a godsend, and shows himself more merciless than Fortune herself.

But lend your tongue as an ally to him who is in need, procuring for him a merciful judge.

As for the one who is distressing him, let him be brought under a just constraint, gentler than his own present disposition, to either wait for a buyer or take that portion of the house which the debt requires—so that we may admire both you for your advocacy, and the judge for his verdict.

To Nonnus. You have renounced your beloved, longing for greater things and pressing eagerly toward the priesthood—

but I, who have always admired your fine hair, now fear lest it become an obstacle to your resolve.

For when you see the moment at hand, and your celebrated locks about to fall, you will, I think, weep over your loss and flee from it, and you will seek instead to appear a handsome bridegroom rather than a priest.

And again, should it so happen, you will become betrothed to a girl, and when the wedding is at hand, your desire will once more leap back toward the priesthood.

But cease at last from being carried round in this circle; let experience be your teacher, lest I should again hear—the text here is corrupt—of pretenders and eunuchs of yours, and all the other things that have now been such an education to us.

To Jerome and Theodore. I have long known your wisdom shining forth everywhere through report, and what personal sight did not grant me, rumor at least has bestowed, proclaiming with one common voice that your grandfather is renowned for his exposition of the laws, that your father draws men's ears toward the severity of the laws by the grace of his tongue, and that from these forebears you two carry forward everything which they, having attained it first, distributed to you each in part.

That which I first knew by report, I have now learned by experience, and I declared: 'Happy is the city in which so venerable a lineage exists, and a son succeeds his father in office'—

and happy are the children of such blessed fathers, as happy too are all who have set the hopes of their life upon you.

But would that I could somehow be with you, and drink my fill of your learning!

But great indeed is the longing that the homeland instills in men, and Odysseus bears witness—he who passed over Calypso, in order that he might behold Ithaca—

and besides, it seems to me unlawful to appropriate a place belonging to another, contrary to the principle of justice.

Therefore, farewell, and receive from me my accustomed homage.

To Hermias. Having beheld your greatness through the letters you sent me, I naturally admired you for your character, and I rejoice together with the city of the Berytians, if she has such a man set forward as her champion—one who takes thought for virtue and learning, and this at a time when the age drives men toward the very opposite.

But may you have joy of yourself, and may the city have joy of your providence.

But it is grievous to me to neglect my own homeland, having taken example from you.

For if you contrive every means to adorn the city that gave you birth, believing this right, how could it be fitting for me not to do these same things, for which I praised you when you did them? Yet also to insinuate myself into a place which another has had the good fortune to obtain seems to me foreign to a reasonable disposition.

But may you prosper, O best of men, in your devotion both to me and to the city itself.

To Orion. I think it superfluous to write to a man who now does nothing but dream of returning to us, so that he may sing the wedding hymn and become the bridegroom of a beautiful maiden—

for it is only right to grant a man in love the praise of his beloved, on whose account, though absent in body, your heart leaps with love and you flutter with excitement toward us, and the good things now at hand seem to you but small tokens of true human happiness, while to you the one city that seems to exist is the place of your childhood games—perhaps even grander in your eyes than Byzantium itself.

And I fear lest, your longing flowing so strong, you might suddenly set out toward us without even bidding your friends farewell, complaining all the while of the length of the voyage.

But let these things be said only in jest—

may you at last return with sober reasoning, hastening instead toward the begetting of children.

To Anatolius. Many and splendid are the things that commend the young man to me.

I am drawn toward goodwill by my very first trial of him.

And besides these, the law of my profession threatens strict accounting should I overlook anything that is due.

And perhaps the young man's own diligence will also contribute to me no small share of reason to favor him.

It remains for us to ask for the favor that comes from the divine, with which alone it is possible for our purpose to reach its fulfillment.

To Dorotheus. You were indeed a formidable one at fitting wings upon whomever you please, and showing him soaring aloft.

For, winged by your letter, I seemed to be everywhere, as you had said, in report; I roamed over as many cities as men inhabit, and I passed even as far as the barbarians, carried along by a buoyant mind, and every nation seemed to crown me for my eloquence; and, simply put, on account of your letter I no longer knew what I might appear to be, until one of the gods snatched me away from your wings.

And, scarcely recovering from my delusion, I said, 'Why am I experiencing this?'—consider the one who wrote it, and reckon well his goodwill, and you will marvel at how much the longing of friendship knows how to persuade.

For it makes one believe even things that do not exist, and honor falsehoods as though they were truth. Hence, I think, you are insatiable in your praises, and, though you say everything so effortlessly, you still think these words to be less than what actually exists.

But your own judgement is your measure for praises, holding that nothing suffices for praise.

Nay, stay your hand, I entreat you by the god of Friendship, from writing such things to a man who thinks meanly of himself and is put to shame by your letters.

To Diodorus (?). Again the season of piety is come, and again my course runs toward your wisdom.

For a certain man, one of those who have dedicated themselves to God and are known for their philosophy, has, it seems, through unjust calumny fallen into the wrath of the judge, as if he had raised a hostile hand against those who administer the laws.

But those who informed of this transferred onto him, so they say, the wrongs committed by others.

And the judge, full of wrath, summons him before himself and hastens toward punishment; and now, if ever, the moment is at hand that calls for humanity.

Appear, then, and speak some word of your own, and you will release the judge from his wrath.

For even if some terrible deed had been done—though it has not—turn the one who passes sentence toward forgiveness, if for no other reason, by paying honour to the habit he wears.

Appear together with the many who are well-suited to make this plea—or rather, appear before them all, that you may seem to contribute something of your own.

But you yourself will thus receive the praise of all, as one who was both first and most earnest in his plea, and who became for others an example of noble humanity.

To Pancratius. "For he wishes not to seem the best, but to be so," says Aeschylus, when he set out to praise a certain man.

Such a man you have shown yourself to be to us—not displaying that common sort of friendship which lasts only while one is present, nor measuring your goodwill by distance, but striving to be better still and to surpass even yourself.

Fittingly, then, forgetfulness knows not how to steal you from my mind; rather, I am always moved to say something Socratic—that if I do not know Pancratius, I have forgotten myself as well: Pancratius, whose tongue dances in service of the Muses, and whose virtue, like a precinct inaccessible to vice, has made his sacred soul its own dwelling.

Therefore you are blessed indeed, bearing such marks of distinction, and you dwell in the city that is the common mother of letters—the city for which, longing for her, the Seasons made a truce among themselves; which the sea gently laps; which the Nile embraces, pouring itself about her as about a beloved; and on every side groves and trees and fields of grain, and manifold graces strike upon the eyes.

But God will increase your happiness, granting it to you as a reward for your virtue.

But share with your friends your good fortune, gladdening us with the good things of your eloquence, and sending your poems from your home to ours.

For it is not right that things should lie hidden which, once displayed to others, will bring the greatest benefit.

To Pancratius. Those who once sailed past the Sirens and drank in their songs with their ears longed no more for their homelands, remembered their children no more; it seemed to them better to suffer anything than to depart from those strains whose pleasure they had tasted.

But we, having tasted your Muse, as the saying goes, with but the tip of a finger, have been so carried away toward her by our whole desire that we would not choose to be parted from her even a little, though necessity keeps our bodies apart.

We now dwell in the city of Alexander, fashioning in our imagination our being together with you.

Such is the disposition the Loves engender in me.

And if for a little while I recover myself and come back to my senses, I delight anew in tales told of you.

And each in turn calls to mind something of yours—one the gentleness of your speech, another the dignity of your character.

Others have named you sweet; another speaks of the moderation of your judgement; another has said that you carry the Muses upon your tongue; and everyone vies to outstrip the rest, each wishing to be the sole narrator of your praises.

But do you write, healing our absence with letters, and deign to look with favour upon the bearer of this letter.

To Nephalius. As much as you once let your anger loose upon us in your letters, so much now have you surpassed our hopes by your kindness.

For to set right what has gone before, and to console one who believes himself wronged in friendship—how is this not the mark of a man wise in judgement and skilled at healing what pains? One thing alone among your actions vexed me: that you should think I had suffered so much as to need gifts to change my mind, as Agamemnon once did with the Thessalian soldier.

Yet I have received the gifts gladly, prizing not so much the gifts themselves as the intention of the one who sent them.

And let the bearer of this letter, who stands in need of your goodwill, obtain it in whatever he asks that gives no offence.

To Gessius, physician and sophist. The bearer of this letter, though raised by a widowed mother and pleading want of the necessities of life, has nonetheless not been puffed up by youth nor, finding himself free to do as he pleased, inclined toward idleness; rather, wishing to set right his fortune, he both loves learning and hastens toward your eloquence, meaning to draw from it a sufficient resource for a decent life—for it is enough merely to look upon you to find release from one's troubles—correcting, through the teaching you provide, his hopes for the future.

Wherefore, knowing your disposition, and how ready you stand to those in need of kindness, I bring the young man to you with confidence, offering you, in place of a great gift, material by which you may once more exercise your husbandry.

To Philip, my brother. At last you have relieved us of our perplexity, writing that you wish to sing the marriage hymn,

and to become a father of children.

For much rumour, running abroad, brought different reports from different quarters, and while all were telling their tale, we listened in silence, not knowing the greatest matters concerning our own kin, and seeming to those who inquired as if we were jesting, as though we feigned ignorance on purpose.

But now, delighted by what you have written, I would gladly become a winged Perseus at once, and, soaring over the sea and arriving among you, behold the sacred bridal chamber and the sweetest sight of all: a bridegroom made amorous by philosophy—and even should someone call him a creature of matter, answering philosophically that procreation must be honoured, offering, as it were, a contribution in place of himself, and duly rendering what is fitting toward this end.

You have been captured, then, my excellent friend, and though late, you are at last learning the arrows of the Loves; and the bride, they say—by the Graces!—is beautiful, and capable enough to turn her lover aside from philosophy.

"Only become a father of legitimate children, begotten for the furrow," as Comedy says; and may I soon see from you both a child who by his very look proclaims his father—or rather one who resembles him in gentleness, magnanimity, and his other virtues.

To Hieronymus. How mightily you pride yourself on the Nile, marshalling Egypt against us and setting her in our midst, as though you had quite forgotten your beloved Elusa.

And how sophistic indeed your letters were! I seemed to see before me the very bombast of Gorgias.

For you said—unless some of your words escaped me—that the Nile rains up out of the earth, and turns into navigable water what was once dry ground to walk upon.

But what has this to do with you, who dwell in the city of Hermes, which neither Zeus the Rain-giver oversees, and past which the Nile merely runs, hastening on toward some other place? And why do you falsely claim a harvest of autumn fruit—unless you call snakes "fruit," and that great abundance of scorpions?

Stung once, it seems, by one of these, and crying "alas, alas!" as they say, you then, in the midst of it, caught sight of a sumptuous table, and rushed wholly upon it, bidding the scorpion good riddance, and saying to the feast, perhaps, this line from comedy: "may I never, even in death, be parted from you."

But you also charge me with silence, though you yourself say nothing at all to us.

For otherwise you would have found us saying much more, and you would not have told us of the man of Cothocidae, mocking the sophists with the tale of the affliction of the pipes.

Farewell—you, and the little child, and your wife.

And do not weigh heavily upon the child Alexander, pressing too hard upon his tender age.

To Gessius, physician and sophist. How bitter are the designs of Fortune against us, and sufficient to furnish the plot of a dread tragedy!

We have not yet ceased mourning the most pitiable burial of the children, and suddenly Fortune drags off the mother as well—dealing with her, perhaps, according to her own pleasure, if she has added her to her most beloved children, but for us joining suffering to suffering, and heaping tomb upon heavier tomb—and has bereft, alas, little children still clinging to their mother's breast, of their mother.

These are truly sufferings worthy of tears, and beyond even the stage, such as might confirm the myth that an unhappy woman was once turned from a human being into stone.

For she was, it seems, Phrygian and a barbarian, and her soul had not been fortified beforehand, against Fortune's potion, with the remedies that philosophy provides.

Just as the story goes concerning that great Anaxagoras: when someone brought him news of his son's untimely death, he said at once—being, as it were, long prepared and unmoved by the report—"I too knew, when I begat him, that I had begotten a mortal."

And I think, judging from what has been said, that if someone had also reported to him that his wife lay dead beside his son, he would certainly have added: "I also knew that I was living with a mortal woman."

Wherefore I praise those who first invented tragedy, because, having observed how Fortune churns the affairs of men up and down—

—they devised the stage for us, so that by the well-wrought misfortunes of strangers they might forearm us against the calamities of our own kin.

For what dreadful thing has befallen us that time has not shown before? What new thing could arise that is not brought back to some similar pattern? But if it is our wish to show ourselves superior to Fortune, we shall take refuge in the harbour of our accustomed philosophy, considering who we are and whence we have come, and what account is to be given of the things that concern us—that those who have been bound must certainly be loosed, whenever it seems good to the one who bound them, and must lay aside the mask which the poet of this great drama has placed upon us.

For this is, in truth, the counsel of "Know Thyself."

This is your task, wisest of men—continually unfolding, as I believe, the reasonings of providence, and offering yourself as an example of endurance to those uninitiated in wisdom.

Wherefore let us return to ourselves, saying, "But what could I do?" and "God brings all things to their fulfillment."

For by keeping these things in view, you will act in a manner worthy of yourself, and will move the Divine one day to look upon our affairs with kindly eyes.

To John. I have received your letter, dear to me and truly overflowing with charm—a letter which, in Socratic fashion, blames my guardian spirit for my long silence, and which, by its praises, raises me up—prostrate as I am and unable to lift my eyes to the height of virtue (for what indeed am I but a sophist, as you yourself would jest?)—to philosophy itself; or rather, it beguiles the ear, so that, being stolen away by praises that belong to me not at all, rhetoric might patiently endure being put on trial, and might bear these familiar warblings: the phantom semblance of a branch of statesmanship, and consorting with the crowds, and whatever else the words of those who mock her are wont to say.

For, out of reverence, I would not say that this is due to the jealousy of philosophy and of Plato.

And you yourself too, I think, wisest of friends, hold the opposite opinion of this art; for the sake of jesting, it seems, you bring against it the charge of "a donkey's shadow," as the saying goes, rolling out upon us your Thrasymachuses and your Poluses, and whatever other fancies the wit of Plato has fashioned.

But cease henceforth, my good friend, from speaking ill of the greatest of things.

But I reserve my threat for a more fitting occasion.

To Diodorus. Meeting with your letter, I was brought to remembrance of a former happiness, picturing in my mind that Nile of old and the enjoyment of your company beside it, and I was moved to tears at how the scale of Fortune turns, now up, now down.

Now it brings men together in ways one would never have hoped, now again it parts those whom, beyond all hope, it had joined.

...a remedy, sharing our longing through letters, and by our writing contriving, in a manner of speaking, our very presence.

To Diodorus. Having received the much-talked-of command, for which I had long ago uttered every kind of entreaty, I kept silence—not because, once I had obtained it, I forgot the favour, nor because I inherited the muse of Gerontius—

for to you alone has Fortune granted this advantage.

And who that has not seen him will not satisfy his longing through you—being led, as it were, by an exact likeness, up to the very pattern itself? I honoured this favour with silence, lest by speaking I should obtain less than I desire, having spoken short of the mark.

And so a favor inscribed forever in remembrance shall be laid up for you with me — more surely than with the Persian king, who knows well how to honor treachery, as he did Pausanias' going over to the Medes — even though, most excellent friend, wishing above all to succeed, and having carried your resolve into deed, you uttered on my behalf a piteous speech, one very far indeed from my own pride of spirit.

For before the judge himself you called us beggars.

At this I was especially indignant — that you should gape so eagerly after material wealth, having fallen from the height of philosophy, as to utter, for the sake of money, words ignoble and mean, and to have regard neither for my own worth,

nor for the most wise Diogenes, who defined the greatest wealth as lying in a bare wallet.

But become at last a free man, and count the whole inhabited world a small thing compared with virtue.

To Diodorus. To those who are earnest in friendship, I think goodwill suffices, together with a readier willingness to serve the needs of one's intimates; but actually to spend from one's own resources besides is neither otherwise just, nor good for the one who receives the favor.

For he who has once suffered loss becomes more reluctant when a second need arises.

This, even should you never experience it — being ever confirmed in the law of friendship — yet I myself am restrained by shame from writing about what seems needful.

Wherefore, if you wish me to go on always delighting in the frankness I share with you, you will not hesitate to take up the debt that friendship already owes.

To Marcellus. The cause of this present letter is not boldness, nor ignorance of how to keep within one's proper bounds, but rather a man who is both a friend of God and full of every virtue — whom neither his having but now scarcely come from Egypt, nor a fair school of study, nor a threatening storm, nor the sea standing in his way, nor a long journey has persuaded to disregard the promises made to you; for he knows one virtue alone, to fulfill his promises in deed and to act in the same way toward all alike — his whole gaze is set upon you.

Indeed, he is reported to be coming to us all the sooner, and I am readily persuaded of it, having drawn proof from the promises he made to you.

It remains, then, for you to be won over; and it would be fitting not to wish to detain a man who counts nothing so dreadful as the necessity of transgressing what he has promised.

Send the man, then, with all speed, as one who will report to us your kindness and humanity.

To Sabinus. You, as though it were a reproach, cast poverty in my teeth, and this thing seems to you the most utterly destructive of beasts; and, what is greatest of all, in your eyes I am an Irus, and perhaps in want even of my daily bread.

And indeed what would you not say, having fallen away from virtue and philosophy alike — pitying what one ought rather to admire, and supposing that a man is deprived of some great good when he is lofty and light, and not borne downward by the weight of matter? For measuring happiness by the belly, and being given over to the opinions of men, you hire out your tongue for what is not lawful, you throw the law-courts into confusion, and the executioners are but a side-business to your deceit.

You batter at the doors of the rich, and if any man knows how to give a fine feast, he grows weary of being lavishly praised by you.

Your festal attire is a splendid, many-colored garment, your gait pompous, your gaze poured out this way and that, and your ears are everywhere, like Midas, in case some little woman somewhere should utter a word, dazzled by your show.

But until when, fettered by such long slumber like some Endymion, will you not rise up toward virtue? Cease at last from gaping after your poor little body, and from feeding, to your own harm, the prison-house of your soul.

Cease dreaming of gold, and forever imagining a great abundance of silver, and roaming in your mind through many offices of power.

the things within your house, such as you show to none of your friends —

But desert to our side, if you will, and bow down before our common goddess, Poverty, and know her as one who loves you.

She has pledged that she will love you yet more.

To Dorotheus. How greatly you grieved me by departing, I could not have foreseen, had I not had experience itself as my teacher.

For from the moment you went off and left us, I have not ceased roaming about with you in thought, picturing to myself harbors and the sea.