Letter 17: If you recall, my dear son, you had charged me with the task of joining this ninth book, dedicated especially to...

Sidonius to his friend Firminus, greeting. 1. If you recall, my lord son, you had laid this charge upon me: that this ninth little book, dictated especially for you, should be joined to the other eight which I wrote to Constantius, a man of singular talent and of wholesome counsel, who in public debates assuredly surpasses the rest of the eloquent, whether he decides matters differently or alike, by the gifts of his more excellent oratory. The promise has been fulfilled, not indeed exactly, but at least promptly. 2. For when, having by chance traveled through the dioceses, I came home, if any rough draft, lying about heedlessly, was contained in crumbling and decayed scraps of paper, in haste and under constraint, a hurried copyist, I wrote it out, in no way held back by the winter season from at once carrying out your bidding, although the page that could not be dried by the frost and the drop on the pen, harder than the pen itself, delayed the scribe, a drop which you would have judged not to flow but to shatter under the pressing fingers. Even so, nevertheless, I took care to discharge my duty before Favonius [the west wind], with his warm breath and his birth-giving rains, should wed our twelfth month, which you people call the month of Numa [February]. 3. It remains that, with you as the arbiter, we should not demand of one another things altogether most discrepant, maturity and speed. For whenever any book is ordered to be written quickly, the author looks for honor not so much from his merit as from his compliance. As for the rest, since you declare that the iambics sent recently to Gelasius, a most kindly man, pleased you, by means of these verses too I shall present to you the home-bred slaves [products] of the town of Mitylene [Sapphic verse]. Now over the alternating sea of speech my skiff has driven its bold course, nor has it feared to turn the helm in the twofold current. It has loosed the yardarms, gathered in the high sails, the hand lays aside the little oar, and, with the cross-benches joined to the shore, it seeks the sand of the shallows to be kissed. Although the muttering chorus of the envious betrays its madness with a dog-like snarling, yet it says nothing openly indeed, and dreads the public verdicts. They lash the stern, they shake the keel, they fan the rounded ribs of the sides, around the mast there flit the hisses of the malevolent tongue. We, however, keeping the prow straight with skill as our companion, fearing nothing of the swelling storms, come to rest in harbor, having gained the foliage of a twin crown, Which the people of Quirinus [Rome] bestowed on me, or which the purple-bearing senate granted, which the associated order of the expert in their judgments gave me, When Nerva Trajan saw a perpetual statue set up with my titles, fixed among the authors of either library; And which afterward, when I was nearly within sight, after a span of two lustres [ten years], I received, taking up the office which alone, as one man, once governed the rights of the senators and of the people alike. Besides hexameter verses I have woven many jokes into many rags [scraps]; frequently I have rolled out elegiacs subjoined to six feet, with a double clause. Now, accustomed to ride over eleven syllables, I have sported nimbly, and in the Sapphic measure I have often sung, in the swift iambic but rarely. Nor can I recall how much I once wrote in my first youthful ardor; whence I would that the greater part might be kept silent and hidden away! For with the goal of old age nearer, whatever is bound up with our final years, it shames one the more, if youth has sported anything frivolous, now to call it to mind. Shuddering at which, I have transferred my whole genus of care to the cultivation of letters [epistles], lest, guilty by too wanton a song, I be guilty also in deed; Nor, lest I be dissolved as rotten by pleasing words, should I join figures of speech and ornaments to my pages, lest the reputation of a poet stain in any way the rigor of a cleric. In short, hereafter I shall not be carried headlong to any sort of epigram, nor shall I be compelled from now on to bring forth quickly any poem in the tender meter or in the grave; Unless perhaps I shall tell of the interrogations of the persecutors, and of the martyrs deserving heaven, who by the price of death procured the rewards of life. Of these let the hymn first chant to me of him who held the see of Toulouse, hurled headlong from the topmost step of the Capitol [Capitolium]; Whom, as he denied Jupiter and Minerva and confessed the good things of Christ's cross, the raging populace bound to the side of an unyoked bull, So that, when the ox had been goaded down the precipice, it scattered his mangled corpse, with the rocks dyed by the warm gruel of his loosened brain. After Saturninus I wish my plectra to sing those whom I have approved as the rest of my patrons, who in my anxiety aided me hardily through my labors, Each of whom my pious words cannot now by name confine within the verse; yet those whom my strings cannot sound, my heart shall sound. 4. Let us return at the end to the oratorical style, intending now to conclude the present subject by the order once proposed, lest, if we close a prose work with musical epilogues, according to the rules of Flaccus [Horace], where an amphora began to be fashioned, a pitcher should rather seem to have come out. Farewell.

EPISTULA XVI Sidonius Firmino suo salutem. 1. Si recordaris, domine fili, hoc mihi iniunxeras, ut hic nonus libellus peculiariter tibi dictatus ceteris octo copularetur, quos ad Constantium scripsi, virum singularis ingenii, consilii salutaris, certe in tractatibus publicis ceteros eloquentes, seu diversa sive paria decernat, praestantioris facundiae dotibus antecellentem. sponsio impleta est, non exacte quidem, sed vel instanter. 2. nam peragratis forte dioecesibus cum domum veni, si quod schedium temere iacens chartulis putribus ac veternosis continebatur, raptim coactimque translator festinus exscripsi, tempore hiberno nil retardatus, quin actutum iussa complerem, licet antiquarium moraretur insiccabilis gelu pagina et calamo durior gutta, quam iudicasses imprimentibus digitis non fluere sed frangi. sic quoque tamen compotem officii prius agere curavi, quam duodecimum nostrum, quem Numae mensem vos nuncupatis, Favonius flatu teporo, pluviisque natalibus maritaret. 3. restat, ut te arbitro non reposcamus res omnino discrepantissimas, maturitatem celeritatemque. nam quotiens liber quispiam scribi cito iubetur, non tantum honorem spectat auctor a merito quantum ab obsequio. de reliquo, quia tibi nuper ad Gelasium virum sat benignissimum missos iambicos placuisse pronuntias, per hos te quoque Mitylenaei oppidi vernulas munerabor. Iam per alternum pelagus loquendi egit audacem mea cymba cursum nec bipertito timuit fluento      flectere clavum. Solvit antennas, legit alta vela, palmulam ponit manus, atque transtris litori iunctis petit osculandum      saltus harenam. Mussitans quamquam chorus invidorum prodat hirritu rabiem canino, nil palam sane loquitur pavetque      publica puncta. Verberant puppim, quatiunt carinam, ventilant spondas laterum rotundas, arborem circa volitant sinistrae      sibila linguae. Nos tamen rectam comite arte proram, nil tumescentes veriti procellas, sistimus portu, geminae potiti      fronde coronae, Quam mihi indulsit populus Quirini, blattifer vel quam tribuit senatus, quam peritorum dedit ordo consors      iudiciorum, Cum meis poni statuam perennem Nerva Traianus titulis videret, inter auctores utriusque fixam      bybliothecae; Quamque post, visus prope, post bilustre tempus accepi, capiens honorem, qui patrum ac plebis simul unus olim      iura gubernat. Praeter heroos ioca multa multis texui pannis; elegos frequenter subditos senis pedibus rotavi      commate bino. Nunc per undenas equitare suetus syllabas lusi celer atque metro Sapphico creber cecini, citato      rarus iambo. Nec recordari queo, quanta quondam scripserim primo iuvenis calore; unde pars maior utinam taceri      possit et abdi! Nam senectutis propiore meta, quicquid extremis sociamur annis, plus pudet, si quid leve lusit aetas,      nunc reminisci. Quod perhorrescens ad epistularum transtuli cultum genus omne curae, ne reus cantu petulantiore      sim reus actu; Neu puter solvi per amoena dicta, schema si chartis phalerasque iungam, clerici ne quid maculet rigorem      fama poetae. Denique ad quodvis epigramma posthac non ferar pronus, teneroque metro vel gravi nullum cito cogar exhinc      promere carmen: Persecutorum nisi quaestiones forsitan dicam meritosque caelum martyras mortis pretio parasse      praemia vitae. E quibus primum mihi psallat hymnus qui Tolosatem tenuit cathedram, de gradu summo Capitoliorum      praecipitatum; Quem negatorem Iovis ac Minervae et crucis Christi bona confitentem vinxit ad tauri latus iniugati      plebs furibunda, Ut per abruptum bove concitato spargeret cursus lacerum cadaver cautibus tinctis calida soluti      pulte cerebri. Post Saturninum volo plectra cantent, quos patronorum reliquos probavi anxio duros mihi per labores      auxiliatos, Singulos quos nunc pia nuncupatim non valent versu cohibere verba; quos tamen chordae nequeunt sonare,      corda sonabunt. 4. Redeamus in fine ad oratorium stilum materiam praesentem proposito semel ordine terminaturi, ne, si epilogis musicis opus prosarium clauserimus, secundum regulas Flacci, ubi amphora coepit institui, urceus potius exisse videatur. vale. Apollinaris Sidonius The Miscellany The Latin Library The Classics Page