It is difficult for a mortal to avoid the caprice of some power on high, but it is much more difficult to find a defence for a silly slip sent by some such heavenly power. Both of these misfortunes have now happened to me. When I came to you to give you the morning greeting, I ought to have used the usual expression “Joy to you,” but like a golden ass I blundered and said “Health to you,” a pleasant enough greeting, but not suitable—it is not for the morning. As soon as I had said it I was all sixes and sevens. I began to sweat and went pink. Some of the company thought it a slip—naturally enough; others thought that I had become a fool in my old age, or that it was a hangover from yesterday’s drinking. You took it very well, though—not a trace of a smile to mark my slip of the tongue. So I thought it a good idea to write something to comfort myself, so as not to be too upset over my slip, or think it intolerable if I, an old man, had fallen so far from what was proper before so many witnesses. I don’t think an apology was necessary for a tongue that slipped into a wish so pleasant.

When I began to write, I thought that I was taking on an impossible task, but as I went on I found plenty to say. But before I tell you this, let me say a few suitable words about these greetings “Joy to you,” “Do well,” and “Health to you.” “Joy to you” is the ancient greeting, not however confined to the morning or to the first meeting, but they used it whenever they first caught sight of one another, as in “Joy to you, you lord of this Tirynthian land,” Trag. adesp. 292 N-2. and after dinner when they were ready to talk over their wine, as in “Joy to you, Achilles, there is no lackOf meat for all alike.” Homer, Il. ix, 225. when Odysseus was declaring to him his embassy’s mission. They used it also when they took their leave, as in “Joy to you! No longer mortal know me now,To you a god divine.” A verse of Empedocles (B 112 D.-K). This greeting was not reserved for a special time, as now only for morning. Indeed even on the most unwelcome and inauspicious occasions they used it nevertheless, as in Euripides when Polynices at the end of his life says “Joy to you! For now does darkness gird meround.” Euripides, Phoenissae, 1453. It was not just a sign for them of friendly feeling, but also of dislike and final parting. For example, to bid “Joy to it and a long one” meant that they washed their hands of it.

Philippides, the one who acted as courier, is said to have used it first in our sense when he brought the news of victory from Marathon and addressed the magistrates in session when they were anxious how the battle had ended; “Joy to you, we’ve won,” he said, and there and then he died, breathing his last breath with that “Joy to you.” Cleon the Athenian demagogue also began his letter from Sphacteria with “Joy to you,” when he gave the good news of the victory there and the capture of the Spartiates. 424 B.C., during the Peloponnesian War. Cf. Aristoph., Clouds, 609. However after him Nicias in his despatches from Sicily followed the old practice and began right away with the matter in hand. Thuc. VIII. 11.