Sacchetti on Messaging

There was a very amusing repartee which Giovanni Augut [John Hawkwood] made to certain friars minor, who, coming to him at one of his castles where he was, called Montecchio, about a mile from the town of Cortona, presenting themselves before him said, 'Sir, God grant you peace.' And he quickly replied, 'God take from you your alms.' The friars, as men struck with terror, said, 'Sir, why say you so to us?' And Master Giovanni [Sir John] answered, 'Rather should I ask you: Why say you so to me?' Said the friars, 'We thought to say well.' And Master Giovanni [Sir John] replied, 'How think you to say well when you come to me and say to be, “God make you die of hunger?” Know you not that I live by war, so for you live by alms; so that the reply that I made you was like your greeting. And after doing some other business which they had with him, they took their leave, and returned to the convent of Castiglione, in the Aretino.

— Franco Sacchetti, Il trecentonovelle clxxxi (1399) (S.H. transl.)