1I see how gently you treat your household; 1all the more frankly, then, shall I confess to you with what indulgence I treat mine. 2I always have in mind both that line of Homer, 'and he was gentle as a father', and our own phrase 'father of the household'. 2But even if I were by nature harsher and harder, I should still be broken by the illness of my freedman Zosimus, to whom all the greater kindness must be shown, the more he needs it now. 3He is honest, obliging and well read; 3and his skill, and as it were his label, is that of a comic actor, in which he is very good.
3For he delivers his lines with spirit, intelligence, aptness and even grace; 3he also plays the lyre skilfully, beyond what a comic actor needs. 3He also reads speeches, histories and poems so well that this seems to be the only thing he has learned. 4I have set this out for you carefully, so that you may know better how many and how pleasant are the services this one man performs for me. 4Added to this is my long-standing affection for the man, which his very dangers have increased. 5For nature has so arranged things that nothing rouses and kindles love so much as the fear of losing it; 5and this fear I have suffered for him more than once.
6For some years ago, while he was delivering his lines intensely and vehemently, he coughed up blood, and having been sent by me to Egypt because of this, he recently returned strengthened after a long stay abroad; 6then, while for days on end he was overworking his voice, he was warned of his old weakness by a little cough and again brought up blood. 7For this reason I have decided to send him to your estate which you own at Forum Julii. 7For I have often heard you say that both the air there is healthy and the milk is very well suited to treatments of this kind. 8So I ask you to write to your people, to see that the farm and the house are open to him, and that they also meet his expenses, if he needs anything.
9But he will need little; 9for he is so sparing and abstemious that he restricts by his thrift not only luxuries but even what his health requires. 9When he sets out I shall give him as much for the journey as will suffice for him to reach your property. 9Farewell.