Letter 7011: Ad Iovinum inlustrem ac patricium et rectorem provinciae

11 To Jovinus, the illustrious one and patrician and governor of the province How often have I sent off my writings to you in a prosaic report! And I drink no cups from your fountain: you whom, richer, I had once refreshed with watering streams, yet now no draught is given back from the Castalian waters [the springs of poetic inspiration]. If a lesser concern for your love had held me, it would already have been permitted to clasp your neck with my hand; but now I get all the less from it, because I love all the more, and since I long for more, I groan over vows denied. You who have poured my heart wholly into your own breast, why, I ask, do our eyes not likewise share one light? Or at least, dear friend, I send greeting in writing, as I may; but let your page render me aid by which I may be relieved.

XI Ad Iovinum inlustrem ac patricium et rectorem provinciae Prosaico quotiens direxi scripta relatu! nullaque de vestro pocula fonte bibo: quem prius inrigua recrearas ditior unda, nec modo Castaliis redditur haustus aquis. si me cura minor vestri tenuisset amoris, iam fuerat licitum stringere colla manu, nunc magis inde minus capio, quia diligo maius, et cum plus cupiam, vota negata gemam. qui sibi transfudit mea pectora pectore toto, cur, rogo, non pariter lumina lumen habent? vel quod, amice, licet scriptis fero, care, salutem: sed mihi qua relever pagina reddat opem.