1We, lovers of the country, bid Fuscus, lover of the city, good health; very unlike in this one thing alone, but in everything else almost twins with brotherly hearts (whatever one refuses, the other refuses too), we nod assent together like a pair of old and familiar doves. 6You keep the nest; 6I praise the streams of the lovely countryside, and rocks overgrown with moss, and groves. 8What more would you have? 8I live and reign as soon as I have left those things which you all extol to the skies with favouring applause, and, like a priest's runaway slave, I refuse sweet cakes; 11it is bread I need now, better than honeyed cakes.
12If it is right to live in agreement with Nature, and a site must first be sought for setting a house on, do you know any place preferable to the blessed countryside? 15Is there anywhere winters are milder, where a more pleasant breeze soothes both the fury of the Dog Star and the onset of the Lion, once in his frenzy he has received the piercing Sun? 18Is there anywhere less envious Care breaks off our sleep? 19Is grass less fragrant or less bright than Libyan mosaic stones? 20Is the water purer that strains to burst the lead pipes in the streets than that which ripples murmuring down its sloping channel?
22Why, among your varied columns a wood is nurtured, and the house is praised that looks out over far-spreading fields. 24You may drive out Nature with a pitchfork, yet she will always run back, and will steal victorious through your perverse disdain. 26The man who is not skilled at comparing fleeces that drink Aquinum's dye with Sidonian purple will not suffer a surer loss, or one closer to the marrow, than he who cannot distinguish false from true. He whom prosperity has delighted too much, its reversal will shake. 31If you admire anything, you will lay it down unwillingly. Flee greatness: under a poor roof one may outrun kings and the friends of kings in life.
34A stag, superior in fight, used to drive the horse from their common pasture, until the loser in the long contest begged the help of man and took the bit; 37but after the horse, a violent victor, had left his enemy, he did not shake the rider from his back nor the bit from his mouth. 39So he who, fearing poverty, does without liberty, which is worth more than mines, will carry a master, the wretch, and will be a slave for ever, because he will not know how to make do with little. 42He whose fortune does not suit him will be like the shoe of old: if it is larger than his foot, it will trip him; if smaller, it will pinch.
44Happy with your lot, you will live wisely, Aristius, nor will you let me go unrebuked when I seem to be amassing more than is enough and not stopping. Money that has been amassed is either master or slave to each man, and it ought to follow the twisted rope rather than lead it. 49This I dictated to you behind the crumbling shrine of Vacuna, happy in everything except that you were not with me.