XI.
To the Lord Bishop Lupus
A.D. 478 (?)
[1] THAT unfortunate book which you regard as sent not so much to you as through you, has inspired a letter which I in my turn regard as written not so much to me as against me. I cannot reply to your reproaches with an eloquence equal to yours; I rely only on the justice of my cause; how indeed am I to plead 'not guilty' when you imply the opposite? At the very outset, therefore, I frankly ask your pardon for my offence, such as it is; but I confess only to an error born of diffidence and by no means of improper pride. [2] The strictness of your judgement is no less formidable to me in literary than in moral questions, but I must admit that when I opened the volume it was the thought of the friendship you profess for me which oppressed me most. And that I think is natural; for it is human nature for a friend who suspects an injury to be severer than any one else. [3] It is true enough, as you point out, that my book is a medley packed and piled with multifarious subjects, episodes and personal facts; it would have been outrageous had I been so infatuated with my work as to imagine that no part of it would displease you. Whatever your judgement might prove to be, it was evident that I should derogate from my loyalty, if I failed to give you at least the first sight of the volume, even though I might not formally present it. If I were lucky enough to meet with your approval, you could not accuse me of having arrogantly neglected you; if on the |196 other hand I were less fortunate, you could not say that I had forced my work upon your notice. [4] Nor did I expect to find it very difficult to excuse the motive which saved me from possibly having to blush for myself. I imagined you to be as well aware as I myself that modesty becomes the writer of a new book better than assurance, and that timidity is far more likely to win the vote of the severe critic than a provocative spirit. On the other hand, if a man boldly announces a volume on a fresh subject, however much he may really have done to satisfy the legitimate expectation of the public, he will soon find that he will be expected to do more. Whatever strictures you may pass on the tenor of this reply, I prefer to make a clean breast of it rather than resort to disingenuous evasions. [5] Any one but myself would probably have argued somewhat after this wise: 'I never gave any one the advantage over you; no one else had received a special letter from me. The man whom you believed to be preferred before you had to be content with one letter to his credit, and that, too, having no relation to the present matter. You on the other hand, for all your complaints at being overlooked, must have been simply exhausted by the three garrulous sheets you received; you must have been sickened by so long an immersion in empty and dull verbiage. Moreover you may not have observed that, even so, your position and your high deserts have received ample consideration; your name appears in the first superscription of the book, as befits that of the primate among our bishops. His name, on the contrary, only occurs once in a letter addressed to himself; yours is so mentioned more than once, and you are cited |197 besides in letters addressed to other persons. [6] Remember, too, that where there is a subject likely to please you, I have encouraged you to read it, whereas the person in question can only do so by your kindness; he is probably so embarrassed by your attitude to my little gift that I should be surprised if even now he has had a real chance of perusal, while you long ago reached the stage of transcribing. I expect he will hardly regard as my holograph a copy over which you have glanced; for to an example revised by you he can never impute either excess of barbarisms or defects in punctuation. In fine, it might appear that all rights in the book had been handed over to you, seeing that you have the use of it while you please, and can dispose of it for so long that you may be said to keep it rather in your memory than in your bookcase.' [7] Such arguments, with more of the same kind, might readily be adduced. I, however, shall waive them all, and prefer frankly to seek your pardon instead of making excuses for a problematical offence. I make even less excuse for the carelessness of the present letter, first, because I have no longer the art of fine writing, even if I attempt it; second, because, when one has got a book off one's mind, one is longing for a holiday and cannot bring oneself to elaborate what one does not care to make public. [8] But as I rightly make a point of giving way to you in everything-----for where, indeed, is your equal to be found?----and as for ten whole lustres, as often as a comparison has been instituted, you have been preferred to all priests that have ever been, whether in our own time or before it, I would have you understand, that though your lamentations may shake the |198 stars, though you call the glowing ashes of your fathers to witness my outrage to the laws of friendship, yet if there is to be any contest in mutual affection, my foot shall stand firm against yours, were it for no other reason than that to be beaten in anything is bad, but to be vanquished in loyalty an abomination. Whether you approve or no, I have right on my side in replying by this open declaration to reproaches, which for all their bitterness, are yet more to me than all the honeyed flatteries of others.
[9] I have given you as communicative a letter as you could desire. But all my correspondence with you is that; no letters of any writer-could be more so. For you have the gift of encouraging men to write with confidence. I say no more of myself; but there is not a literate, however retiring, whom you do not know how to draw out, just as the sun's rays by their absorbent power extract the moisture hidden in the bowels of the earth. So sharp are those rays, that they can penetrate not the fine sand or surface soil alone, but if there be a concealed spring deep under some massive mountain, there too the ardent nature of the mysterious powers of heaven reveals the secret of the liquid element. In like manner, venerated father, your lucid eloquence knows admirably how to influence and draw into the light, by its subtle address, all the studious who from love of quiet, or from modesty, lie in the obscurity of dark corners, their fame yet unawakened. [10] Enough: I come back to the point; I have talked endlessly and at large, but since I have surrendered and confessed my fault, I entreat you to be placable and give me the benefit of your clemency and forgiveness. Such are your holy cheerfulness and love of others that |199 you will derive a greater pleasure from this my written apology than you would from any positive act of reparation. Deign to hold me in remembrance, my Lord Bishop.
XII.
To his friend Oresius
c. A. D. 484
[1] I HAVE just received your letter, which I may compare to the salt mined in the hills of Tarragona. The reader finds it sharp and lucid, yet none the less of a bland savour. The phraseology is charming, but the matter is also full of point. Taking small account of my present state of life, it asks me for a new poem, and this demand brings me no less trouble of mind than the admirable diction delight. At the very outset of my religious career, the art of versifying was the first thing that I renounced; gravity of deed was now my business, and if I occupied myself with such frivolous things as verses, I might well be accused of levity. [2] Besides, it is a matter of universal experience that a pursuit which has been intermitted for any time is only resumed with difficulty. Every one knows that both art and artist achieve their highest by constant practice; if the usual exercise be forgone, arm and intellect alike will grow inert. The later or the more seldom the bow is used, the more refractory it is under the hand; it is the same with the ox under his yoke and the horse with his bridle. Moreover, disinclination is not my only motive; it is accompanied by a certain timidity. After three whole Olympiads of silence, to |200 begin rhyming again would be no less embarrassing than irksome. [3] But it seems almost a crime to refuse you even the most difficult things; your warm heart is quite unused to be denied, and it would be a shame to deceive you of your confident hope. I shall therefore choose a middle path: I will compose nothing new; but if I can find any of my former letters containing poems, written before the pressure of my present duties, you shall have them. I shall merely ask you not to be unfair, and set me down as an incurable poetaster. I shall pride myself just as much on your good opinion if you deign to think of me rather as a modest than as an accomplished man. Farewell.
XIII.
To his friend Tonantius
c. A. D. 481
[1] I MUST admit that your judgement on my verses has long been too flattering and appreciative: I must admit that you rank me among the elect of poets and even above many of their number. I might be inclined to listen, were not your critical acumen influenced by your friendship. Praises born of partiality, though uttered in perfect good faith, are really based on error. [2] You ask me now to send you some Asclepiads forged on the Horatian anvil, that you may keep yourself in practice by declaiming them at table. I do so, though never in my life have I been so busily engaged in writing prose.
'Long time, with hand well worn by the pen, have I written smooth hendecasyllables which you might |201 sing more easily than choriambics, dancing on lighter foot to freer measure. But you will that our way should henceforth run by the Calabrian road, where, with reins of mighty music, Flaccus guided his lyric steeds to the melody of Pindar, while the strings were struck to the Glyconian rhythm, to the Alcaic also and the Pherecratian, the Lesbian and the anapaestic; in the freshness of his varied song he went, with words like violets of diverse hue about him. Hard was it for bards of old, hard for me to-day to see that the tongue, essaying the various music of verse, trips not by reason of too many written letters, and their male style which forbids luxuriant graces. Hardly may Leo himself attempt it, king of the Castalian choir; hardly he who most nearly follows him, Lampridius, though he professes prose and verse alike before his students of Bordeaux. Yet this it is which I must try for you: spare me, then, your jests. Suffer your poet to keep to the close his pledge of modesty; for nothing is less excellent than this, to end with laxity where the beginning was with rigour.'
[3] I should personally much prefer that when you divert yourself at the banquet you should confine yourself to pious histories; recite them often among your friends, and let an eager audience encourage their repetition. And if (for you are yet young) these salutary distractions but faintly appeal to you, then borrow from the Platonist of Madaura his formulae of festal questions; and to master them more fully, practise answering them when others propound, or yourself propound them for solution; make this your study |202 even in leisure. [4] But as festive occasions have been mentioned, and you insist upon a poem, even one composed on another theme and for another person, I cannot hesitate to produce one longer. Take, therefore, with what grace you may, one written in Majorian's reign, when a number of us were invited to a banquet by a common acquaintance, and I had to produce something extempore on a book by Petrus, the emperor's secretary, which was just out, the master of the feast delaying the first course awhile for the occasion. My friends Domnulus, Severianus, and Lampridius, summoned from their several homes to a single city, had also been invited, and had to write as I did. That sounds presumptuous; they wrote, of course, far better. [5] We were only granted just time for the allotting of the metres; for we had agreed, as honourable members of the poetical fraternity, that though the subject should be the same for all, the verses of each should be in a different measure, so that the unsuccessful competitors might be spared immediate mortification and subsequent jealousy of the victor. For if all is composed in the same metre, inequality of talent is much more easily detected. I recommend the enclosed to your approval, preferably at some hour of perfect relaxation. It would hardly be fair to subject it to a severe criticism when your friend was never able to give his whole mind to the composition.
* 'Come, flower of youth, called happily together. The place, the hour, the festal board, the theme, bid you extol to the skies the book which you now hear |203 recited, now yourselves recite. It is the book of Petrus, master alike of prose and verse. Brothers, let us celebrate the pious festival of letters. Let all things ministering to delight usher out the day which now moves to its close, fair cheer, and wine and the dance.
Bring out hangings of fine linen ruddy of hue; bring purple steeped with Meliboean dye in brazen vessels to enrich the fleece with purest stain. Let the fabric from a far land display the heights of Ctesiphon and of Niphates, and the wild beasts racing over the field, driven to madness by wounds skilfully feigned in red, from which a blood which is no blood seems to issue, as though a real dart had pierced their sides. There the Parthian fierce of mien and adroit in the backward gaze vanishes on swift steed and turns again to launch a second dart, now flying, now putting in turn to flight the wild beasts' counterfeited forms.
Let the round table be spread with linen purer than snow, and covered with laurel, with ivy and the green growths of the vine. Pile great baskets high with cytisus and crocus, starwort and cassia, privet and marigold; let sideboard and couch be gay with garlands of sweet scent. Let some hand perfumed with balsam smooth your disordered hair; let frankincense of Araby smoke to the lofty roof. Come the dark, let many a light be hung from the glittering ceiling, high in the chamber's upper space; innocent of oil and clammy grease, let each lamp's bowl yield flame from Eastern balms alone.
Let servitors bear in on laden shoulders viands fit for kings, their necks bowed under silver richly chased. |204 In patera and bowl and cauldron let nard mingle with Falernian wine; let wreaths of roses crown tripod and cup. For we shall tread where garlands sway from many an unguent-vase; in mazy rounds our languid limbs shall know disport; by step, by garb, by voice, each shall play the quivering Maenad. From her seat between two seas let Corinth send her players of the cithara trained in the best of schools to mimetic dance and song; let their tuneful lingers accompany their melodious voices, the plectrum cast aside, and deftly ply the wires that leap to life beneath their touch.
Give us, too, the bronze pipe loved of the nude Satyr; give us deep-sounding flute-players for our chorus, who from cavernous mouth and full-blown cheek shall chant the loud wind into the tubes.
Give us songs for the tragic buskin, for the comic soccus songs; give us eloquence of rhetors and melody of poets, of each in his several part, the best.
Give us all these, yet Petrus shall surpass them all. In our hands is his book woven of prose and verse, faring swift over roughest paths and labyrinthine ways. In every kind he makes essay, in every kind approved; from this side and from that he bears the palm; even learned lips must celebrate his praise. Away with the well of Hippocrene, away with Aganippe's fount; avaunt! Apollo, maker of sweet song, with all thy train of Muses; avaunt! Minerva, arbitress of melody. Away with all the names of legend; one God alone has dowered him with these gifts.
When this man raised his voice, all sat dumb----emperor and senator, warrior, knight, and all the folk |205 of Romulus. And still their acclamations roll through forum, temple, camp, and country, while Po and Liguria's loyal cities add their loud plaudits to the chorus. Like greetings echo through the towns of Rhone, even the wild Iberian shall imitate the Gaul. Nor shall the sound die in this region of earth; it shall press onward to the lands where Eurus reigns; Zephyr, Aquilo, and Auster shall bear it on their wings.'
[6] Seeking a song for your lips, I have found one of my own. These trifles I drag into the light from the bottom of my desk, where for well-nigh twenty years they have lain for the rats and mice to gnaw: such verses as Ulysses might have found when he came home from Troy. I pray you give me gracious pardon for this distraction of an idle hour; it is surely neither false modesty nor impudence which begs you to bow before the force of precedent, and judge my small performance in the spirit with which I judged the whole book of my friend. Farewell.
* The poem is translated into German rhymed decasyllabics by Fertig, i, p. 13.