Familiar Letters

to offer a letter, in what words or what speech I may use to express this immense joy and pleasure of my soul. For the magnitude of joy is such that all words seem lighter and colder. My brother, friend, companion, acquaintance, partner in studies as well as in desires is returned to me, and he is returned from a place whence I had now most piously despaired of his return. From the harshest prison, from the most bloodthirsty beast, from the hands of an immense tyrant who was accustomed to feed equally on the homes of the guilty and the innocent, he is returned to me. From such a cruel and savage monster, my sweetest and most pleasant Panaghatos has escaped safe and sound. Sadness has departed, affliction has ceased, the constant sickness of the mind has receded. For nothing could be sweet to me while that friend, whom I have always considered more than half of my soul, was held most sadly in squalor and prison. What sorrows I have suffered, what hardships I have endured. How often I called the gods and the stars cruel. How often I blamed the justice of God, which could endure such things. But as he says, with a slow step indeed, for now I take joy not only from your liberation but also from the ruin of this latest Phalaris, which accumulates joys in me immensely. But these things are enough. Now, truly, my sweetest and most pleasant Panaghatos.
He rejoices at the return of his friend from prison.

To have been.

To be delighted.