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One text, 2 sources · Trismegistos-Text 37473

Urgent letter requesting a reply about letters sent the day before TM 37473OxyrhynchosVI

The same ancient text or artifact as recorded by 2 records across 2 independent projects, recognised as one entity by its TM-Text identifier. View on Trismegistos →

A Christian-era business letter from Oxyrhynchus in which a servant urgently asks his master to write at once to him and to their common master about letters sent the previous day, including an enclosed letter of Menas the pulse-dealer. He sends a groom to carry the reply.

In English machine translation

[recto] † † I urge my master immediately, at this very hour, to write both to our common master and to me his servant about the letters sent to you yesterday, since our common master is very anxious about this. But for God's sake let my master write to us immediately, since, as I said, he is very worried on account of the letter of Menas the pulse-dealer which was sent to you inside the letters. For this very reason I have sent the present groom. † [verso] [… lines lost …]

The verso, presumably with the address, is lost. 'Pulse-dealer' renders ospriges (ὀσπριγίτης), a seller of pulses or legumes.

Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Business letter). It has not been reviewed by a papyrologist: check the edition before citing. Restorations follow the edition; […] marks lost text and (?) an uncertain reading.

DDbDP-text Full record →

p.oxy.56.3873

Papyri.info — DDbDP (Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri) — text · VI · Oxyrhynchos

[r] † † παρακαλῶ τὸν ἐμὸν δεσπότην εὐθέως καὶ κατʼ αὐτὴν τὴν ὥραν γράψαι τῷ τε κοινῷ δεσπότῃ καὶ ἐμοὶ τῷ δούλῳ αὐτοῦ περὶ τῶν πεμφθέντων ὑμῖν γραμμάτων χθές, ἐπειδὴ πάνυ μεριμνᾷ ὁ κοινὸς δεσπότης περὶ τούτου. ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸν θεὸν εὐθέως γράψῃ ἡμῖν ὁ ἐμὸς δεσπότης, ἐπειδή, ὡς εἶπον, …