Letter 14: I confess that your judgment of my verses has long been so flattering and favorable that you think me worthy of...

Sidonius to his friend Tonantius, greeting. 1. Your judgment of my verses, I confess, has long been so flattering, so favorable, that you think I should be compared with whatever poets are most choice, and certainly set above a good many. I would believe you, if you did not, just as you are very wise, so also love me very much. Hence it is that, when it comes to my praises, your affection is able to lie but is not able to deceive. 2. Besides this you ask that I send you certain Asclepiadean verses, shaped on the Horatian anvil, on which you may exercise yourself by reciting them over your cups. I obey your charge, although now, if ever, I am especially bound up and occupied with the prose manner of speaking. In short, you will find that with us the pursuit of meters has for the most part grown cold; for it is not easy to do one and the same thing both well and seldom. Long ago we sported with polished hendecasyllables, the thumb worn down upon the reeds, which you could chant more nimbly, your foot beating out the choriambics; (5) but now you wish our track henceforth to run along the embankment of the Calabrian path, where Flaccus [Horace] turned his lyric horses with the plectrum-wielding reins toward the Pindaric strain, while the string is struck in the Glyconic measure, (10) and also in the Alcaic or the Pherecratean, with the Lesbian or the anapaestic joined, growing green through the eclogues of varied song, with the many-colored violets of words. To fashion that, grant me pardon, was difficult for the ancient bards, (15) and difficult for me also, that the mouth, sounding diverse epigrams, should in no way stumble on account of my frequent letters, which a manly diction forbids to run riot in song and in luxuriant measures. (20) That scarcely Leo, king of the Castalian choir, scarcely Lampridius who follows him, could achieve, declaiming under the weight of a twofold style before his pupils of Bordeaux. This befits me and you: spare your jests, I beg; (25) I ask that care should keep, to the very end of the orator's work, the modesty it promised, than which nothing is worse, if it should be at the same time at first rigid, and soft at the last. 3. Nay rather, as often as you are gladdened by the feast of a more sumptuous table, give your leisure to pious narrations, which I approve the more; let frequent conversation serve to bring these forth, let an attentive ear serve to repeat them. Certainly, if toward these most wholesome diversions you are bent rather coolly, as one who is still young, borrow at least from the Platonist of Madaura [Apuleius] the forms of convivial questions, and, that you may be rendered the more instructed, solve these when they are propounded, propound these to be solved, and in these studies, even while you are at leisure, exercise yourself. 4. But since mention of banquets has once come up, and you so diligently demand of me a poem composed even for another occasion and another person, that you can no longer have me hesitating about publishing it, receive willingly that which, in the times of the Emperor Maiorianus, when at the request of a certain comrade we had come together to dinner, I poured out on the sudden into the album of Petrus, the master of letters [imperial secretary], when it had been suddenly produced, while my own messmates too -- Domnulus, Severianus, and Lampridius -- were composing equal verses (I have said this boastfully; nay, better verses), as the king of the banquet wove delays over the ordering of the fish-sauce; whom the emperor had summoned from cities on all sides, and the host had by chance drawn together into one city, into one supper. 5. There was only this much delay, while we divide the kinds of meters by lot. For it pleased us, for the affection of the company, that, although there was for all the same matter to write upon, yet the epigrams of each should not be set forth in one and the same kind, lest any of us, who had spoken more meagerly than the rest, should be stung first by shame, afterward by envy. For it is sooner recognized in any reciter, if he sings in the same meter as the rest, whether he also writes with the same talent. But you indeed will then more fittingly praise what is set below, when you have wholly indulged in leisure. For it is not just that you should begin as a censor to scrutinize with severity what a friend was not able to dictate with seriousness. Come, assembled youth, the place, the hour, the table, the occasion bid that you raise to the stars by your zeal (5) this volume, which you learn both by ear and by mouth. Petrus must be read by you, an author well trained in both disciplines. Let us therefore celebrate, brothers, (10) the holy festival of letters. Let the festive array carry through the falling day with feast, with cups, with dances. Bring the ruddy embossed ware with fine linen (15) and the ruddy purple cloths, which the Meliboean wave dyes in the recooking cauldron, that it may enrich with unmixed color the thirsty fleece. (20) Let the foreign furnishing give the woven yokes of Ctesiphon and Niphates and the swift beasts upon the empty cloth, on which a well-feigned wound (25) whets their fury with scarlet, and, as if a javelin pierced through, the bloodless gore flows out; where, grim and bent back by art with face turned upward, (30) the Parthian goes upon his horse and returns with his dart, fleeing and putting to flight the images of beasts. Let the table bear linens fairer than snow, and let it be covered with laurels (35) and ivy and greening vine-shoots. Let capacious baskets bring tree-medick, crocuses, asters, cassias, privets, marigolds, and with fragrant garlands (40) let them deck the sideboard and the couches. Let a hand anointed with the juice of balsam tame the shaggy hair, and let the smoke, rich with the harvest of the Arabs, (45) seek the lofty roofs. And as night comes on, let many a lamp be raised aloft on the gleaming panels to the heights of the vault; (50) and let the lamps, knowing neither oil nor sticky fat, pour out balsam-oil from their swelling belly. Let the bearers, bending their heads (55) beneath the embossed metal, carry the more lavish dishes on their laden shoulders. Let the bowls, the cups, the cauldrons join the Falernian with nard, (60) and let sewn roses crown the tripods and the tankards. It is pleasing to go among the wreaths, fanning the alabaster jars; it is pleasing, with wandering whirl, (65) to give one's broken limbs to sport, or to mimic, trembling in foot, in garb, in voice, the Bacchant women. Let Corinth of the two seas send forth from her city (70) to the warm workshops [taverns] the lyre-girls skilled in mime and palaestra, by whom the fingers, singing while the tongue sounds in like measure, weary in the manner of the plectrum (75) the strings made to live by their striking. Give also the piped bronzes, dear to the naked Satyrs; give the hoarse pipers, by whom, through the caverns of the palate (80) to be blown back with rattling cheeks, the breath of the pipe groans. Give the songs measured to the comic sock, give the words spoken beneath the tragic buskin, give whatever the advocates, (85) give whatever the poets too clamor forth in varied performance: Petrus passes over both these and those. We hold the work he has published, which, weaving with two-meter art, (90) ran through the rough journey and the labyrinthine ways. But laboring in all things and approved by all, he snatches the palm from this side and that, (95) and is borne through learned mouths. Far from here let us drive even Hippocrene and the Aganippean springs and tuneful Apollo with his attendant Camenae, (100) and Minerva too, as if she were the presider over song; put away things feigned by speech: one God grants these gifts. The power that wears the diadem stood amazed at the man speaking, (105) the toga, the soldiery, the equestrian order, and the Romulean people; and still the forums, the temples, the fields, the camps roll the cry of "Bravo!" (110) Over and above these the Po and the love of the Ligurian cities give a din of praise to their foster-son. A like favor resounds (115) through the Rhone-cities, and the wildness of the Iberians will imitate the Gauls. Nor lingering on this side of the sky, he will swiftly go to the fields of the east wind, (120) and will be borne by the north winds and the south winds and the zephyrs. 6. Behold, while I ask what you should sing, I myself have sung. For such trifles, gnawed by mice in the deepest bottom of my chest, I bring forth to light after about twenty years, such as Ulysses, absent for a like span of time, could have found when he returned home. Accordingly I beg that you pardon willingly the present jests. But this I enjoin neither bashfully nor shamelessly, that what I myself pronounced concerning the whole book of my friend, this you, as if urged by the necessity of the example, should feel concerning mine. Farewell.

EPISTULA XIII Sidonius Tonantio suo salutem. 1. Est quidem, fateor, versibus meis sententia tua tam plausibilis olim, tam favorabilis, ut poetarum me quibusque lectissimis comparandum putes, certe compluribus anteponendum. crederem tibi, si non, ut multum sapis, ita quoque multum me amares. hinc est, quod de laudibus meis caritas tua mentiri potest nec potest fallere. 2. praeter hoc poscis, ut Horatiana incude formatos Asclepiadeos tibi quospiam, quibus inter bibendum pronuntiandis exerceare, transmittam. pareo iniunctis, licet, si umquam, modo maxime prosario loquendi genere districtus occupatusque. denique probabis circa nos plurima ex parte metrorum studia refrigescere; non enim promptum est unum eundemque probe facere aliquid et raro. Iam dudum teretes hendecasyllabos attrito calamis pollice lusimus, quos cantare magis pro choriambicis excusso poteras mobilius pede; (5) sed tu per Calabri tramitis aggerem vis ut nostra dehinc cursitet orbita, qua Flaccus lyricos Pindaricum ad melos frenis flexit equos plectripotentibus, dum metro quatitur chorda Glyconio, (10) nec non Alcaico vel Pherecratio, iuncto Lesbiaco sive anapaestico, vernans per varii carminis eglogas, verborum violis multicoloribus. istud, da veniam, fingere vatibus (15) priscis difficile est, difficile et mihi, ut diversa sonans os epigrammata nil crebras titubet propter epistulas, quas cantu ac modulis luxuriantibus lascivire vetat mascula dictio. (20) istud vix Leo, rex Castalii chori, vix, hunc qui sequitur, Lampridius queat, declamans gemini pondere sub stili coram discipulis Burdigalensibus. hoc me teque decet: parce, precor, iocis; (25) quaeso, pollicitam servet ad extimum oratoris opus cura modestiam, quo nil deterius, si fuerit simul in primis rigidus, mollis in ultimis. 3. Quin immo quotiens epulo mensae lautioris hilarabere, religiosis, quod magis approbo, narrationibus vaca; his proferendis confabulatio frequens, his redicendis sollicitus auditus inserviat. certe si saluberrimis avocamentis, ut qui adhuc iuvenis, tepidius inflecteris, a Platonico Madaurensi saltim formulas mutuare convivialium quaestionum, quoque reddaris instructior, has solve propositas, has propone solvendas hisque te studiis, et dum otiaris, exerce. 4. sed quia mentio conviviorum semel incidit tuque sic carmen nobis vel ad aliam causam personamque compositum sedulo exposcis, ut me eius edendi diutius habere non possis haesitatorem, suscipe libens quod temporibus Augusti Maioriani, cum rogatu cuiusdam sodalis ad caenam conveniremus, in Petri librum magistri epistularum subito prolatum subitus effudi, meis quoque contubernalibus, dum rex convivii circa ordinandum moras nectit oxygarum, Domnulo, Severiano atque Lampridio paria pangentibus (iactanter hoc dixi, immo meliora); quos undique urbium ascitos imperator in unam civitatem, invitator in unam cenam forte contraxerat. 5. id morae tantum, dum genera metrorum sorte partimur. placuit namque pro caritate collegii, licet omnibus eadem scribendi materia existeret, non uno tamen epigrammata singulorum genere proferri, ne quispiam nostrum, qui ceteris dixisset exilius, verecundia primum, post morderetur invidia. etenim citius agnoscitur in quocumque recitante, si quo ceteri metro canat, an eo quoque scribat ingenio. tu vero tunc opportunius subiecta laudabis, cum totus otio indulseris. non enim iustum est, ut censor incipias cum severitate discutere quod non potuit amicus cum serietate dictare. Age convocata pubes, locus hora, mensa causa iubet ut volumen istud, quod et aure et ore discis, (5) studiis in astra tollas. Petrus est tibi legendus, in utraque disciplina satis institutus auctor. celebremus ergo, fratres, (10) pia festa litterarum. peragat diem cadentem dape, poculis, choreis genialis apparatus. Rutilum toreuma bysso (15) rutilasque ferte blattas, recoquente quas aeno Meliboea fucat unda, opulentet ut meraco bibulum colore vellus. (20) peregrina det supellex Ctesiphontis ac Niphatis iuga texta beluasque rapidas vacante panno, acuit quibus furorem (25) bene ficta plaga cocco iaculoque ceu forante cruor incruentus exit; ubi torvus et per artem resupina flexus ora (30) it equo reditque telo, simulacra bestiarum fugiens fugansque Parthus. Nive pulchriora lina gerat orbis atque lauris (35) hederisque, pampinisque viridantibus tegatur. cytisos, crocos, amellos, casias, ligustra, calthas calathi ferant capaces, (40) redolentibusque sertis abacum torosque pingant. manus uncta suco amomi domet hispidos capillos Arabumque messe pinguis (45) petat alta tecta fumus. veniente nocte nec non numerosus erigatur laquearibus coruscis camerae in superna lychnus; (50) oleumque nescientes adipesque glutinosos utero tumente fundant opobalsamum lucernae. Geruli caput plicantes (55) anaglyptico metallo epulas superbiores umeris ferant onustis. paterae, scyphi, lebetes socient Falerna nardo (60) tripodasque cantharosque rosa sutilis coronet. iuvat ire per corollas alabastra ventilantes; iuvat et vago rotatu (65) dare fracta membra ludo, simulare vel trementes pede, veste, voce Bacchas. bimari remittat urbe thymelen palenque doctas (70) tepidas ad officinas citharistrias Corinthus, digiti quibus canentes pariter sonante lingua vice pectinis fatigent (75) animata fila pulsu. Date et aera fistulata, Satyris amica nudis; date ravulos choraulas, quibus antra per palati (80) crepulis reflanda buccis gemit aura tibialis. date carminata socco, date dicta sub cothurno, date quicquid advocati, (85) date quicquid et poetae vario strepunt in actu: Petrus haec et illa transit. opus editum tenemus, bimetra quod arte texens (90) iter asperum viasque labyrinthicas cucurrit. sed in omnibus laborans et ab omnibus probatus, rapit hinc et inde palmam, (95) per et ora docta fertur. procul hinc et Hippocrenen Aganippicosque fontes et Apollinem canorum comitantibus Camenis (100)abigamus et Minervam quasi praesulem canendi; removete ficta fatu: deus ista praestat unus. Stupuit virum loquentem (105)diadematis potestas, toga, miles, ordo equester populusque Romularis; et adhuc sophos volutant fora, templa, rura, castra. (110)super haec fragorem alumno Padus atque civitatum dat amor Ligusticarum. similis favor resultat Rhodanitidas per urbes, (115)imitabiturque Gallos feritas Hibericorum. nec in hoc moratus axe cito ad arva perget euri aquilonibusque et austris (120)zephyrisque perferetur. 6. Ecce, dum quaero quid cantes, ipse cantavi. tales enim nugas in imo scrinii fundo muribus perforatas post annos circiter viginti profero in lucem, quales pari tempore absentans, cum domum rediit, Ulixes invenire potuisset. proinde peto, ut praesentibus ludicris libenter ignoscas. illud vero nec verecunde nec impudenter iniungo, ut quod ipse de familiaris mei integro libro pronuntiavi, hoc tu quasi sollicitatus exempli necessitate de meo sentias. vale.