Petrarch: Contra Medicum Quendam

Quisquis es qui iacentem calamum et sopitum—ut ita dixerim—leonem importunis latratibus excitasti, iam senties aliud esse alienam famam prurienti lingua carpere, aliud propriam ratione defendere. Iniquum, fateor, inter nos certamen instituitur: ubi me percutias habeo, ubi te repercutiam non habes. Quod enim nomen habere potest mercennarius et infamis artifex?

Whoever you are who have roused the prostrate pen and the sleeping—so to say—lion with importunate barkings, you will now feel that it is one thing to carp at another’s fame with a prurient tongue, another to defend one’s own by reason. An unequal, I confess, contest is being set up between us: I have where you may strike me; you do not have where I may strike you back. For what name can a mercenary and infamous artificer have?

Profecto autem michi tecum non de opibus aut de imperio, sed de solo nomine pugna est, cuius te egenum atque inopem esse, etsi non admonearis, intelligis. Quia tamen cogis ad id, ad quod nunquam sponte descenderem, et loqui aliquid necesse est, ne, si—quod interdum in animum venit—propter contemptum rerum tuarum tacuero, tu tibi forsan ex mea taciturnitate complaceas, petita non a te sed a lectore venia siquid contra morem meum dixero, respondebo ad aliqua. Multa enim tam inepte dicis, ut quisquis ea responso digna duxerit, ipse merito videri possit ineptior.

In truth, however, my fight with you is not about opulence or imperium, but about the name alone, of which you understand yourself to be needy and inopulent, even without being admonished. Because nevertheless you force me to that to which I would never descend of my own accord, and it is necessary to say something, lest, if— as sometimes comes into my mind— on account of contempt for your affairs I should keep silence, you perhaps should take complacence to yourself from my taciturnity, pardon sought not from you but from the reader if I shall have said anything against my custom, I will respond to some things. For you say many things so ineptly that whoever has judged them worthy of a response may himself deservedly seem the more inept.

Primum itaque, literis tuis lectis, risum me cohibere nequisse noveris. Quonam enim alio modo clarius probare poteras verum esse quod negas: te, scilicet, egressum tuis, alienis in finibus oberrare, magno cum eorum discrimine qui, nimium creduli, te sequuntur, quibus, sanitatis fructum pollicitus, nil nisi intempestivos flosculos inutilium verborum ingeris, cum facto non verbis opus sit? Quanto enim sudore quantoque cum studio inanem, sed ampullosam et tumidam plenamque convitiis epystolam effudisti!

First therefore, with your letters read, know that I could not restrain laughter. For by what other way could you more clearly prove that what you deny is true: that you, namely, having gone out from your own, wander on alien frontiers, with great peril for those who, too credulous, follow you, to whom, having promised the fruit of sanity, you thrust upon them nothing except untimely little blossoms of useless words, when there is need of deed, not of words? For with how much sweat and with how much zeal you have poured out an empty, yet ampullous and tumid epistle, full of insults!

Sed hic vester est mos: adversus verum iurgio certatis. Et nimirum hoc ipso quantum tibi fideres apertissime declarasti. Si enim non extremus perditissimusque omnium fuisses, non desperasses fieri posse ille unus ex multis, qui, iuxta sententiam meam, esses in Romani Pontificis consilium evocandus.

But this is your custom: you contend against the truth with wrangling. And indeed by this very thing you have most openly declared how much you confided in yourself. For if you had not been the very lowest and most depraved of all, you would not have despaired that it could come to pass that you, that one out of many, who, according to my judgment, were to be summoned into the counsel of the Roman Pontiff.

Imo vero generose mentis inditium est, etsi uni tantum spes glorie proposita sit, in id niti, ut unus ille tu sis. Quod si assecutus fueris, voti compos egregii; alioquin, laudabili saltem sis commendandus affectu.

Nay rather, it is an indication of a generous mind—though hope of glory be proposed to only one—to strive for this, that you may be that one. But if you shall have attained it, you will have your vow—an outstanding one; otherwise, at least you should be commended for a laudable affection.

Ego quidem—nam memini—non artificium sed artifices improbavi, eosque non omnes, sed procaces atque discordes. Mirum dictu ut, sibi conscius, tuus multorumque animus indoluit et exarsit. Nescio quid hic rei est.

I indeed—for I remember—disapproved not the art but the artificers, and not all of them, but the impudent and the discordant. Strange to say how, your conscience being aware, your spirit and that of many smarted and blazed up. I know not what the matter is here.

Argue tardos philosophos, punge inertes poetas, carpe incompositos oratores: nunquam Plato et Aristotiles, nunquam Homerus et Virgilius, nunquam Cicero aut Demosthenes irascentur; increpa medicos inutiles et ignaros: omnes prope frement et insanient. Quod ante non noveram, brevi literula sum expertus: singulare quiddam hoc in genere dixerim. An forte ideo quia universali macule nemo subtrahitur?

Arraign the tardy philosophers, prick the inert poets, carp at the uncomposed orators: never will Plato and Aristotle, never Homer and Virgil, never Cicero or Demosthenes be angered; upbraid the useless and ignorant physicians: almost all will roar and run mad. What I had not known before, I have learned by a brief little letter: I would say this is something singular in this kind. Or perhaps for this reason, because no one is exempt from the universal stain?

Nolo id quidem opinari: necdum despero fore aliquem medicum cui valde probetur quicquid dixi dicturus ve sum, quique suam singularem laudem in comuni ceterorum infamia recognoscat et—quod cuntis excellentibus ingeniis insitum reor—gaudeat se paucorum similem dissimilemque multorum. Quod nisi ita esse crederem, frustra suasissem unum de multis eligendum—ut verba mea repetam—"non eloquentia, sed scientia et fide conspicuum". Quo consilio cur in me tam vehementer exarseris mirarer, nisi ignorantiam ac diffidentiam tuam noscerem, cum—ut postea didici—vestrorum quoque doctissimi egrum uni fideli medico et rari erroris committendum dicant, ne, plurimos consulens, plurimorum incidat in errores. Tu tamen ille unus proculdubio non es, quod si esses, nunquam discordes ac nescios medicos increpanti tam ventosa respondisses epystola.

I do not indeed wish to suppose that: nor do I yet despair that there will be some physician to whom whatever I have said or am going to say is greatly approved, and who recognizes his singular praise in the common infamy of the rest and—what I deem implanted in all excellent ingenia—rejoices that he is like the few and unlike the many. Which, unless I believed it to be so, I would have urged in vain that one be chosen out of many—to repeat my words—“not for eloquence, but conspicuous for science and good faith.” At which counsel why you have flared up so vehemently against me I should marvel, did I not know your ignorance and diffidence, since—as I afterward learned—even the most learned of your own say that a sick man ought to be entrusted to one faithful physician, and one of rare error, lest, by consulting very many, he fall into the errors of very many. You, however, are without doubt not that one; for if you were, you would never have replied to one rebuking discordant and unknowing physicians with so windy an epistle.

Profundissime tangebaris, tam graviter exclamasti.

You were most profoundly touched, you exclaimed so gravely.

Nec puduit illud etiam inter confusum murmur inserere: me pontifici adulatum. Ego ne cuiquam adularer, cui propositum sit, vulgo etiam non ignotum, preter virtutem ac bonam famam, universa contemnere? Quid autem me moveret, ut nunc fierem quod ab annis tenerioribus nunquam fui?

Nor was he ashamed to insert even this amid the confused murmur: that I had adulated the pontiff. I—should I adulate anyone whose purpose is, not unknown even to the common crowd, to contemn all things except virtue and good fame? And what would move me, moreover, to become now what I have never been since my tender years?

Percontare ipsum illum de quo loquimur, et dicet tibi sepe ultro se michi obtulisse quantum tu optare, licet sis importunissimus, non auderes, meque propter amorem libertatis, quod tibi inexpertum et incognitum bonum est, omnia recusasse. Desine itaque lepram tuam et ambitionis avaritieque malum bene valentibus imponere. Tu palpator, tu non solum blandus, sed—si es ille quem puto—tediosissimus etiam adulator, non modo pontificum sed et pauperum latrinas, vilissimi spe lucelli, ego florentes silvas et solitarios colles ambire soleo, nonnisi vel scientie cupiditate vel glorie.

Question that very man himself of whom we speak, and he will tell you that he has often of his own accord offered himself to me as much as you, though most importunate, would not dare to desire, and that I, on account of love of liberty, which to you is an untried and unknown good, refused everything. Cease therefore to impose your leprosy and the disease of ambition and avarice upon those who are in good health. You a palpator, you not only a blandisher, but—if you are the one I think—an utterly tedious adulator, are wont to haunt not only the latrines of pontiffs but even of paupers, in hope of the most paltry lucre; I am wont to range flourishing woods and solitary hills, for nothing save either from desire of science or of glory.

Id non scripto sed cachinno refellendum arbitror quod inter anxie conquisitas evadendi vias, quibus inenodabilem veri laqueum tentas abrumpere, palpitando dixisti: me, forsan tui nominis invidia tactum, illud scripsisse, quo tibi gregique tuo famam eriperem. Ego ne tibi miser invideam? Absit!

I judge that to be refuted not by writing but by a guffaw: that thing which, amid anxiously sought ways of escape—by which you try to snap the inextricable noose of truth—you said in your floundering, namely, that I, perhaps touched by envy of your name, wrote that piece whereby I would snatch away reputation from you and your flock. Should I, poor man, envy you? Far be it!

avertat Deus! Qui enim misero invidet, necesse est sit ipse miserrimus. Ego tibi nomen eripere nitar, inglorie?

may God avert it! For whoever envies the miserable, it is necessary that he himself be most miserable. Shall I strive to snatch your name away, ingloriously?

Procul ab hoc periculo es; ire potes toto securus orbe terrarum: quod ad fame iacturam attinet cantabis vacuus coram latrone viator. Erit qui forte nares amputet, oculos effodiat: famam tibi nullus eripiet quam non habes.

You are far from this danger; you can go secure through the whole orb of lands: as far as the loss of fame is concerned, the traveler, empty, will sing in the presence of a robber. There will be someone who perhaps cuts off noses, gouges out eyes: no one will snatch away from you the fame which you do not have.

Quid autem intolerabilius homine insolenti, qui, ubi pudorem semel abiecerit, quicquid dixeris negabit? Magna meretricie frontis impudentia est! Negas ecce medicos discordare, que publica totius humanis generis est querela.

What, moreover, is more intolerable than an insolent man, who, once he has cast off modesty, will deny whatever you say? It is a great meretricious impudence of brow! Behold, you deny that physicians disagree, which is the public complaint of the whole human race.

Utinam tamen ita sit! Malim me esse mentitum, quanquam hac in re mentitus esse non possim; ceterum, salvis omnibus, errasse maluerim, quam, me veridico, periclitari tot hominum milia, qui discordi et vario et prorsus incerto medicorum imperio gubernantur. Nempe, quod in summi pontificis nuper cura dicis fuisse concordes, vide, non dico ne mentiaris—id enim iam vobis quotidianum atque vulgare est —, sed ne maximis testibus veritas vos ipsa confundat.

Would that it were so! I would prefer to have lied, although in this matter I cannot have lied; moreover, saving all, I would have preferred to have erred, rather than, I being veridical, that so many thousands of men be endangered, who are governed by the discordant and variable and utterly uncertain imperium of physicians. Indeed, as to your saying that in the recent care of the Supreme Pontiff they were concordant, see to it—not that you should not lie—that indeed is now for you quotidian and vulgar —, but that the truth itself, with the greatest witnesses, does not confound you.

Concordastis, forte, postquam ille convaluit, qui—quod nemo, ne ipse quidem, dubitat—multo ante convaluisset, si tu saltem per totum egritudinis sue tempus in extremis Indie litoribus habitasses. O si—quod ominari horreo; sed, licet immortalis Dei vicarius, est tamen ipse mortalis—si ergo tunc nature debitum persolvisset, quanta fuisset inter vos et quam indecisa discordia de pulsu, de humoribus, de die cretico, de farmacis! Celum ac terram dissonis clamoribus implessetis, causam ipsam egritudinis ignorantes.

You agreed, perhaps, after he recovered, who—which no one, not even he himself, doubts—would have recovered much earlier, if you at least had dwelt on the farthest shores of India through the whole time of his illness. O if—which I shudder to omen; yet, though the vicar of the immortal God, he himself is nevertheless mortal—if therefore then he had paid the debt to nature, how great and how undecided would the discord among you have been about the pulse, about the humors, about the critical day, about the pharmaceuticals! You would have filled heaven and earth with dissonant clamors, ignorant of the very cause of the illness.

Miseri qui sub auxilii vestri fidutia egrotant! Cristus autem, in cuius manu salus hominum sita est, salvum illum, ignorantibus omnibus vobis, fecit—et faciat precor quantum sibi, quantum Ecclesie, cui presidet, est necesse! —; vos, Dei beneficium et complexionis ac nature sue laudem usurpantes, videri vultis illum a mortuis suscitasse, et nunc tandem, transacto periculo, concordatis—non ineleganti vafritie —, ne, si pater ille doctissimus quique vel ingenio vel experientia, non dicam omnia, ut tu adulator, sed multa cognoscit ac previdet, discordare vos senserit, precipites ancipitis vie duces abiciat, spernat atque oderit.

Wretched are those who, under the trust of your help, are sick! But Christ, in whose hand the health of men is placed, made him safe with all of you ignorant—and may he, I pray, do so as much as is necessary for himself, as much for the Church over which he presides! —; you, usurping God’s benefaction and the praise of his complexion and nature, wish to seem to have raised him from the dead; and now at last, the danger having passed, you come into concord—with not-inelegant craftiness —, lest, if that most learned father, who both by genius and by experience—I will not say all things, as you the flatterer, but many things—knows and foresees, should perceive you to be at odds, he cast off the headlong leaders of a double-edged road, spurn, and hate them.

Sed michi crede: nequiquam rete iacitur ante oculos pennatorum. Novit ille mores vestros; et—si me interroges—propter cuiusdam speciem honestatis et ne consuetudinem publicam damnasse videatur, vestra potius vult ferre fastidia, quam quia ignoret aliquanto gravius esse periculum vitam suam nugis vestris, quam fragilem sine gubernaculo carinam pelago ventisque committere.

But believe me: in vain is the net cast before the eyes of the winged. He knows your manners; and—if you ask me—on account of a certain appearance of honesty, and lest he seem to have condemned public custom, he prefers rather to bear your fastidiousness than because he is unaware that it is a somewhat graver peril to entrust his life to your trifles than to commit a fragile keel without a rudder to the deep and the winds.

Quod ad me attinet, iracundiam tuam minime quidem miror. Sciebam verum esse satyricum illud:

As for what pertains to me, I by no means marvel at your irascibility. I knew that satiric saying to be true:

Accusator erit qui verum dixerit,

He who has spoken the truth will be an accuser,

nec minus illud comicum:

and no less that comic one:

Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit.

Obsequiousness begets friends, truth begets odium.

Quod cum comuniter verum sit, tum, precipue inter illos qui mendacio vivunt. Illud miror: quod ira se in rabiem furoremque convertit. Nichil enim tibi scripseram, quippe qui nunc etiam invitus non intellecturum alloquor; at Romano Pontifici, gravi tunc egritudine laboranti, metu ac devotione dictantibus, epystolam scripsi brevem—sed, nisi fallor, utilem sibi, tibi forte non ita —, admonuique ut turbam dissidentium medicorum, necnon et medicum non scientie sed inanis eloquentie curiosum, que ingens nostris temporibus multitudo est, omni studio caveret.

Which, while it is commonly true, then especially among those who live by mendacity. I marvel at this: that anger turns itself into rage and frenzy. For I had written nothing to you, since even now, unwilling, I address one who will not understand; but to the Roman Pontiff, then laboring under a grave sickness, with fear and devotion dictating, I wrote a brief epistle—but, unless I am mistaken, useful to him, perhaps not so to you —, and I admonished that he should beware with every diligence of the crowd of dissident physicians, and also of the physician curious not about science but about empty eloquence, which is an enormous multitude in our times.

Quod licet gravissime stomaceris, me tamen neque consilii mei penitet, neque me lapidandum credidi, si sibi, licet non egenti, fidele consilium dedissem, cui omnes qui cristiano nomine gloriamur, non modo consilium sed obsequium insuper et obedientiam deberemus. Debuisti, si sanus esses, non michi rescribere, qui tibi nichil scripseram, sed eidem illi scribere, si sibi forsan aromatico illo tuo ac medicinali suadere posses eloquio, ut tibi se ipsum et res suas crederet, vitam ac salutem nisi de tuis manibus non speraret, contra autem me studiisque meis deditos, nocuum atque inutile genus hominum, declinaret, seu me poetam seu quodlibet aliud dicere libuisset. Omnia enim tibi licere arbitror, ydiota, qui propter mei, quinpotius veri odium, in poetas immeritos es invectus.

Although you are most grievously vexed at this, yet I neither repent of my counsel, nor did I think I ought to be stoned, if I had given faithful counsel to him—though he did not need it—to whom all of us who glory in the Christian name ought to render not only counsel but, besides, deference and obedience. You ought, if you were sane, not to write back to me, who had written nothing to you, but to write to that same man, if perchance you could persuade him by that aromatic and medicinal eloquence of yours, that he entrust himself and his affairs to you, and hope for life and health from no hands but yours; but that he avoid me and those devoted to my studies, a harmful and useless kind of men, whether it pleased you to call me a poet or anything else. For I suppose everything is permitted to you, idiot, who, on account of hatred of me—or rather of the truth—have inveighed against undeserving poets.

Ego tamen hac in re poetice nichil scripsi; quod ita esse, nisi plane desiperes, ipse stilus indicio est. Cogeret me forte procacitas tua poetice aliquid de te loqui teque omnibus seculis lacerandum tradere, nisi quia indignus visus es, qui per me posteris notus esses aut locum in meis opusculis invenires.

I, however, in this matter wrote nothing poetically; that this is so, unless you were plainly out of your senses, the style itself is an indication. Your impudence might perhaps have compelled me to say something poetically about you and to hand you over to be torn by all the ages, except that you seemed unworthy to be known to posterity through me or to find a place in my opuscules.

Sed quid colores ceco, quid surdo sonos ingero? Mechanice res tuas age, oro te; cura, si potes; si minus, interfice; et precium posce, cum occideris. Id nulli imperatori aut regi, sed tibi uni, vite necisque domino, ut iactas, humani generis cecitate permittitur.

But why do I lay colors upon the blind, why do I thrust sounds upon the deaf? Mechanically, manage your own affairs, I beg you; take care, if you can; if not, kill; and demand a price, when you have killed. This is permitted to no emperor or king, but to you alone, lord of life and death, as you boast, by the blindness of the human race.

Utere funesto privilegio. Optime enim tutissimeque arti cerebrum addixisti: quisquis evaserit, tibi vitam debet, quisquis obierit, tu illi preter experientiam nichil debes; mors nature aut egroti vitium, vita tuum munus est. Iure igitur Socrates, cum factum de pictore medicum audisset: "Caute;" inquit "artem enim deseruit que defectus suos habet in aperto, eamque complexus est cuius error terra tegitur".

Make use of the fatal privilege. For you have most excellently and most safely devoted the brain to the art: whoever has escaped owes life to you; whoever has died, you owe him nothing except experience; death is the fault of nature or of the sick man, life is your gift. Rightly therefore Socrates, when he had heard the report about a painter become a physician: "Cautiously," he said, "for he has deserted an art whose defects he has in the open, and has embraced one whose error is covered by earth."

Quid te autem non ausurum rear, qui rethoricam medicine subicias, sacrilegio inaudito, ancille dominam, mechanice liberalem? Nisi forsan illa te cogitatio has in insanias traxit—que si unquam caput tuum potuisset irrumpere, nunquam usqueadeo asininum atque obtusum dicerem—ut scilicet, quoniam etate nostra iniquissimos homines imperitare viris optimis fato rerum pessimo videmus, ad artes quoque speciem hanc tyrannidis trahendam ac propagandam putes. Sed prius omnia, quam huiusce rei arbitrium fortune traditum videbis.

What do I suppose you would not dare, you who would subject Rhetoric to Medicine—by an unheard-of sacrilege, the mistress to the handmaid, the liberal to the mechanical? Unless perchance that notion dragged you into these insanities—which, if it had ever been able to break into your head, I would never call so asinine and obtuse—namely, that since in our age we see most inequitable men lord it over the best men, by the worst fate of affairs, you think that this very semblance of tyranny should be drawn over and propagated to the Arts as well. But sooner will you see all things than see the judgment of this matter handed over to Fortune.

Faciet illa Nerones atque Caligulas regnare, Dyonisios atque Phalaridas in patria florere, Catonem intra pestes lybicas errare, mori Regulum in carcere, in paupertate Fabritium, Marcellum in insidiis, in exilio Scipionem. Hec et his similia faciet, quotiens volet more solito iocari; medicine suppeditare rethoricam non poterit: extra suos fines imperium non habet.

She will make Neros and Caligulas reign, Dionysiuses and Phalarises flourish in their fatherland, Cato wander amid the Libyan plagues, Regulus die in prison, Fabricius in poverty, Marcellus in ambushes, Scipio in exile. These and things like these she will do, as often as she wishes to jest in her accustomed manner; she will not be able to supply rhetoric to medicine: outside its own bounds it has no command.

Sed quid loquor? Nescio an, priusquam ad finem suscepti sermonis venio, libeat mutare sententiam ac fateri ius illam etiam in artibus habere. Quod nisi ita esset, nunquam tu de tanta ignorantia, tam superbus incederes, cum multi interim viri literatissimi mendicent.

But what am I saying? I do not know whether, before I come to the end of the discourse undertaken, it may please me to change my opinion and confess that she too has jurisdiction even in the arts. But unless it were so, never would you, with such great ignorance, strut so proud, while meanwhile many most lettered men beg.

Verum ea non artium fortuna, sed artificum dici debet. Ad id michi respondeas velim: si, rebus omnibus fortune imperio confusis, artes quoque confundere et liberales mechanicarum servas facere—quod utrarunque prohibebaris nomine—voluisti, cur non potius navigationi quam medicine rethoricam servam faciebas? Navigationem certe sui generis, hoc est mechanicarum, quidam dixere rethoricam, eo quod in primis illi cui mercatura omnis subiacet, in peragrando orbe lustrandisque litoribus atque innumerabilium nationum conciliandis ratione animis, multa fit opus eloquentia.

But that ought to be said to be not the fortune of the arts, but of the artificers. To this I would have you answer me: if, with all things thrown into confusion by the command of Fortune, you wished also to confound the arts and to make the liberal the slaves of the mechanical—which by the name of both you were forbidden—why did you not rather make rhetoric the slave of navigation than of medicine? Certain people have indeed called navigation the rhetoric of its own kind, that is, of the mechanical arts, because especially for him to whom all commerce is subject, in traversing the globe and surveying the shores and in conciliating by reason the minds of innumerable nations, there is much need of eloquence.

Unde et Mercurium, quem sermonis deum vocant, inde dictum volunt: quod mercatorum kirius, hoc est dominus, esse videatur. Quod cum ita sit, cur non potius, ut dixi, navigationi rethoricam ancillari precipis—quod equanimius propter similitudinem latura sit—nisi quia ruditatem illam tuam et caligantis ingenii cecitatem occultare nullo modo potes? Proximis tuis literis expecto, ridiculosissime rerum censor, ut lanificio iubeas subesse grammaticam, dyaleticam armature.

Whence also Mercury, whom they call the god of discourse, they want him to be named from that: because he seems to be the kyrios of merchants, that is, the lord. Since this is so, why do you not rather, as I said, command rhetoric to be handmaid to navigation—which, on account of the likeness, will bear it more equanimously—unless it is because you can in no way hide that rudeness of yours and the blindness of a caliginous wit? In your next letters I expect, most ridiculous censor of things, that you order grammar to be subject to wool-working, dialectic to armature.

Quid enim te rursus non ausurum putem, qui me os in celum posuisse dicas, quoniam medicos divinum ac celeste genus attigerim, cum tu impurissimum os aperire non sis veritus in Plinium Secundum, virum ex omnibus sue etatis doctrina ingenioque prestantissimum? Ita enim de illo scriptum video; nec excipitur Galienus, coetaneus—nisi fallor—suus, vir et ipse non indoctus, sed indoctorum atque loquacium abundantissimus successorum.

For what, indeed, should I think you not going to dare again, you who say that I have set my mouth in heaven, since I have touched upon physicians as a divine and celestial genus, when you did not scruple to open the most impure mouth against Pliny the Second, a man most outstanding among all of his age in doctrine and ingenuity? For thus do I see it written about him; nor is Galen excepted, his coeval—unless I am mistaken—himself a man not unlearned, but the most abundant among the unlearned and loquacious successors.

Que autem ista dementia? Que ve ista voluptas est? A pedite vulnus acceptum equiti refundis innoxio; et soluta oratione cum sis lesus, iram ulcisceris in poetas, quasi poeticum sit omne quod nescias.

But what is that madness? And what, indeed, is that pleasure? You repay upon an innocent horseman the wound received from a foot-soldier; and, though you have been hurt by soluta oratio (prose), you avenge your anger on poets, as if everything you do not know were “poetic.”

Id si tibi permisero, quid usquam—queso—non poeticum relinquetur? Quid enim non te penitus ignorare crediderim, qui ad exprimendum ineptissimos sensus tuos tam pueriliter desudasti? Deus bone, que deliramenta!

If I allow you that, what anywhere—I pray—will be left that is not poetic? For what would I not believe you to be utterly ignorant, you who have so childishly sweated to express your most inept sentiments? Good God, what delirium!

Que somnia! Insultas poetice cuius nunquam faciem vidisti; laudas medicinam quam ego non improbo. Quis enim sane mentis hoc audeat?

What dreams! You insult a poetess whose face you have never seen; you praise medicine, which I do not disapprove. For who, being of sound mind, would dare that?

Scio artem esse non inutilem, et sero licet a nostris hominibus receptam, postea tamen in honore habitam; quinetiam inventioni deorum—ut perhibent—immortalium consecratam, tam magna res visa est, ut humana non putaretur inventio. Quam opinionem certioris fidei auctor inEcclesiastico confirmans, "Altissimus de terra" inquit "creavit medicinam". Quamvis id omnium sit comune—quicquid novimus, quicquid scimus, quicquid sapimus, quid nisi divina inventio Deique donum est, cum in eiusdem libri principio scriptum sit: "Omnis sapientia a domino Deo est"?—at ne tibi de mechanice tue singulari ceu laude complaceas, audi quid de agricultura, altera mechanicarum, eodem scribitur libro: "Non oderis" inquit "laboriosa opera et rusticationem ab Altissimo creatam". Quid habes quod super quemcunque agricolam accolas? Ambe artes uno de fonte prodeunt: ambas creavit Altissimus.

I know the art is not un-useful, and although received late by our countrymen, yet afterward held in honor; indeed it seemed so great a thing that—consecrated, as they report, to the invention of the immortal gods—it was not thought a human invention. Which opinion an author of sounder authority, confirming in Ecclesiasticus, says: “The Most High created medicine from the earth.” Although that is common to all—that whatever we learn, whatever we know, whatever we are wise in, what is it if not a divine invention and a gift of God, since at the beginning of that same book it is written: “All wisdom is from the Lord God”?—yet, lest you take complacency to yourself as though in singular praise of your mechanics, hear what is written in the same book about agriculture, the other of the mechanical arts: “Do not hate,” he says, “laborious works and husbandry created by the Most High.” What do you have for which you should set yourself above any farmer? Both arts proceed from one fountain: both were created by the Most High.

Imo vero, quid habes quo te agricole conferas, cum humanam ille vitam adiuvet, quam tu, licet contrarium professus, oppugnas; ille humano generi laborando prosit, tu noceas quiescendo; ille nudus in campis fame sua publicam pariat saturitatem, tu faleratus in thalamis voce tua publicam destruas sanitatem?

Nay rather, what have you by which you compare yourself to the farmer, since he aids human life, which you, though professing the contrary, oppugn; he benefits the human race by laboring, you harm it by resting; he, naked in the fields, by his own hunger brings forth public satiety, you, bedecked in your chambers, by your voice destroy public health?

In eo quidem non similiter concordamus: quod effectus medicorum dicis esse mirabiles. Quos effectus? queso te. Nisi illud forsan inter miraculosa connumeras, quod vos sepius quam ceteri hominum, imo vero quasi continue, egrotatis.

In this indeed we are not similarly in concord: that you say the effects of physicians are marvelous. Which effects? I beg you. Unless perhaps you reckon among the miraculous this, that you more often than the rest of men, nay indeed almost continuously, fall ill.

Itaque magnis in populis facies vestra solo pallore discernitur, iamque in proverbium abiit "colorem medici" dicere, quotiens croceum hominem aut tabescentem videris. "Parum ne" hic "miraculi est, salutem aliis quam ipse non habeas polliceri?". Esset profecto miraculum, nisi illud extenuaret assiduitas mentiendi. Nisi forte ille mirabilior est effectus, quod qui se totum vestro consilio tradiderit, sanus esse nunquam poterit.

Therefore, among large populations your appearance is distinguished by pallor alone, and now it has passed into a proverb to say “the color of the physician,” whenever you see a saffron-colored man or a tabescent one. “Is it too little” here “of a miracle, to promise health to others which you yourself do not have?” It would indeed be a miracle, were it not that the assiduity of lying attenuates it. Unless perhaps that effect is more marvelous: that he who has handed himself over wholly to your counsel will never be sound.

Hi sunt medicorum non tantum miri sed stupendi etiam effectus, medicorum vero non omnium sed multorum, atque in primis tui.

These are the effects of physicians, not only wondrous but even stupendous—of physicians, indeed, not of all but of many, and above all of yours.

Credo ego Ypocratem virum doctissimum fuisse; puto Galienum illo duce, multa primis inventionibus addidisse. Non detraho claris viris, ne fiam tui similis, qui obtrectandi studio me cum Plinio miscuisti, quem si intelligere posses, esses hortandus ut legeres, et te ipsum in eo speculo intuens, vel deformitatem tuam corrigeres, vel desineres superbire. Sed—crede michi—grecum hominem putares, cum tamen is inter raros latine eloquentie principes inSaturnalibus numeretur.

I believe Hippocrates was a most learned man; I think that Galen, with him as leader, added many things to the earliest inventions. I do not detract from illustrious men, lest I become like you, who, from a zeal for detraction, have mixed me up with Pliny—whom, if you were able to understand, you would need to be urged to read, and, looking at yourself in that mirror, you would either correct your deformity or cease to be proud. But—believe me—you would think him a Greek man, although he is counted among the rare princes of Latin eloquence in the Saturnalia.

Si te in literis tuis video, arrogans et ignarus es: alterum facit ut nil discas, alterum ut nil scias. Quid enim de hoc tanto viro somnias? Dicis eum quod veri habet ab antiquis medicis accepisse: vos a quibus tot mendacia didiceritis non dicis.

If I see you in your letters, you are arrogant and ignorant: the one causes you to learn nothing, the other that you know nothing. For what indeed do you dream about this so great a man? You say that whatever of truth he has he received from the ancient physicians; you do not say from whom you all learned so many mendacities.

Sed quid iterum tempore gloriaris? Ignavissimorum quorundam hominum consuetudo est, ut, cum inter vitia senuerint nullique pares sint, sola se preferant senectute. Atqui ne hanc ipsam unam gloriandi tibi materiam concesserim.

But why do you again boast of your age? It is the custom of certain most ignoble sluggards that, when they have grown old amid vices and are a match for no one, they put themselves forward by old age alone. And yet I would not grant to you even this very one ground for boasting.

In singulis enim te verbis detegis nichil esse, nichil sapere, nichil nosse.

For in each single word you reveal yourself to be nothing, to have no sapience, to know nothing.

Computa annos et reperies virum illum omnes fere, quibus uteris, medicos precessisse. Quanquam, quid attinet medicorum antiquitate nominibusque confidere, qui si ad lucem redeant, una voce fatebuntur nullos se hostes alios habere quam vos, quorum vel turpi segnitie vel ingeniorum hebetudine sui labores ac vigilie perierunt, quique quotidie mentiendo illos arguitis fuisse mendaces?

Compute the years and you will find that that man has preceded almost all the physicians whom you employ. Although, what does it avail to trust in the antiquity of the physicians and in their names, who, if they were to return to the light, would with one voice confess that they have no other enemies than you—at whose shameful sloth or hebetude of wits their labors and vigils have perished—and you who daily, by lying, arraign them as having been mendacious?

Lege, si libet, et nisi ego quoque tibi grecus videor, epystolam illam totam, que cum ad hoc unum scripta esset, ut universali domino cautionem pareret, tibi nescio cui—imo quidem scio, sed dissimulo—dolorem peperit ac furorem. Illam lege, si libet: invenies me nil omnino contro medicinam nilque contra veros medicos locutum, sed contra discerptores atque adversarios Ypocratis; quod eodem plaudente fieri credidi. Tu autem non contentus in me multa dixisse, multa itidem contra poeticam ac poetas, quadam libidine vobis insita loquendi de rebus peregrinis et incognitis, evomuisti.

Read, if it pleases, and—unless I too seem Greek to you—the whole of that epistle, which, though it was written for this one purpose, to furnish a safeguard to the universal lord, brought to you, I know not whom—nay indeed I do know, but I dissemble—pain and madness. Read that, if it pleases: you will find me to have said nothing at all against medicine and nothing against true physicians, but against the rending critics and adversaries of Hippocrates; which I believed was done with him applauding. But you, not content with having said many things against me, likewise have vomited forth many things against poetry and poets, out of a certain libido implanted in you for speaking about foreign and unknown things.

Non legeras apud Varronem, Romanorum doctissimum, neque apud Tullium, quem fidenter—licet forte obstrepas—dixerim principem latinorum, quid de poetis scriptum est? Verba enim ipsa, nequid me mutasse vel addidisse suspiceris, apposui: "A summis" inquit "hominibus eruditissimisque sic accepimus: ceterarum rerum studia et doctrina et preceptis et arte constare; poetam natura ipsa valere, et mentis viribus excitari, et quasi divino quodam spiritu inflari. Quare suo iure noster ille Ennius sanctos appellat poetas, quod quasi deorum aliquo dono atque munere commendati nobis esse videantur.

Had you not read with Varro, the most learned of the Romans, nor with Tully, whom I would confidently—though perhaps you may protest—call the chief of the Latins, what has been written about poets? For I have set down the very words themselves, lest you suspect that I have changed or added anything: "From the highest and most erudite men we have thus received: that the pursuits of other matters consist in study and doctrine and precepts and art; the poet is strong by nature itself, and is stirred by the powers of the mind, and as if inspired by a certain divine spirit. Wherefore, in his own right, that Ennius of ours calls poets sacred, because they seem to be commended to us as though by some gift and munus of the gods."

Sit ergo, iudices, sanctum apud vos, humanissimos homines, hoc poete nomen, quod nulla unquam barbaria violavit". Hec Cicero; multa sequuntur in eandem sententiam gravissima, innumerabilia etiam apud alios, que sponte pretereo. Neque enim michi propositum est in auribus tuis nobilitare velle poetarum nomen, quod tibi ignobile videri ea demum summa michi nobilitas videtur. Cui autem hec narrem?

"Therefore, judges, let this name of poet be sacred among you, most humane men, a name which no barbarity has ever violated." These are Cicero’s words; many very weighty things follow in the same sentiment, and innumerable also among others, which I pass over of my own accord. For it is not my purpose to wish to ennoble in your ears the name of poets, which, because it seems ignoble to you, seems to me for that very reason the highest nobility. But to whom, however, am I telling these things?

Nescio an te ridiculosior sim, si asino lyram tangam. Respondebis: "Audio, sed nichil intelligo"; et poete nomen, nulla unquam—ut modo dicebam—barbarie violatum atque omni ex parte tibi incognitum, violabis plus quam barbarica feritate. Itaque peroportune audies quod cuidam nuper tue professionis homunculo, cum assensu et approbatione multorum, dixi.

I know not whether I shall seem more ridiculous to you, if I should touch the lyre to an ass. You will reply: "I hear, but I understand nothing"; and the poet’s name, never—just as I was now saying—violated by any barbarity and in every respect unknown to you, you will violate with more than barbaric ferocity. Therefore you will most opportunely hear what I lately said to a certain little fellow of your profession, with the assent and approbation of many.

Cum enim, vestro more, multa contra poetas hisceret potiusquam diceret, nunc poetam Ciceronem nunc Plinium affirmans, quesivi ab eo quid poete nomine crederet importari. Quod cum se nescire non negasset, pro tempore historiam dixi non inamenam cognitu, magnis ab auctoribus relatam, quam tibi quoque dictam puta, siquid omnino aliud quam de febribus audire potes. Hanibal, vir bellicosissimus, bello victus a Romanis, Ephesum ad Antiochum, regem Syrie, profugerat; a quo letissime susceptus, eo quod Romanorum odiis estuanti nullus usquam consultor tam ydoneus videbatur, in summo honore apud illum erat.

For when, after your fashion, he was gaping rather than speaking many things against poets, now affirming Cicero, now Pliny, to be a poet, I asked him what he believed to be imported by the name “poet.” And since he did not deny that he was ignorant, I told, for the occasion, a history not un-unpleasant to know, related by great authors—think it told to you as well, if you can hear anything at all other than about fevers. Hannibal, a most bellicose man, having been vanquished in war by the Romans, had fled to Ephesus to Antiochus, king of Syria; by whom he was most gladly received, because to one seething with odium toward the Romans no counselor anywhere seemed so apt, and he was in highest honor with him.

Contigit autem Phormionem quendam nomine, secta perypatheticum, qui ea tempestate literarum scientia clarus habebatur, simul illic forte apud regem esse; ad quem, si vellet, audiendum invitatus Hanibal, dum fama viri tactus annuisset, seniculus non indoctus et, ut homo grecus, audax et verbosus Phormio, credo, extimans nichil se melius in presentia tanti ducis nichilque convenientius loqui posse, materiam rei militaris ingressus, in plures horas sermonem continuum protraxit. Denique dum qualiter sit ductandus exercitus, qualiter instruenda acies, qualiter capiendus castris locus, quando signum pugne dari, quando cani receptui conveniat, postremo que ante prelium, que in prelio, que ve post prelium sint servanda, copiose disseruisset, secutusque esset plausus omnium, quesitumque ab Hanibale quid sibi etiam videretur de illo sapientie professore, "Multos" inquit ille "stultos delirosque senes vidi; nullum tamen quo magis delectarer quam sene hoc, quippe qui tam multa de rebus incognitis loqueretur". Quo dicto facete admodum et illius et vestram impudentum notavit audaciam. De omni enim materia loqui vultis, vestre professionis obliti que est, si nescis, urinas et que nominare pudor prohibet contemplari; nec pudet insultare his quibus virtutum atque animi cura est.

It happened, moreover, that a certain Phormio by name, a Peripatetic by sect, who at that time was held renowned for the science of letters, chanced likewise to be there with the king; to whom, Hannibal having been invited to listen if he wished, and, touched by the man’s fame, having assented, the little old man—not unlearned and, as a Greek man, bold and verbose—Phormio, I think, supposing that he could say nothing better in the presence of so great a leader and nothing more convenient, entered upon the material of military affairs and prolonged a continuous discourse for many hours. Finally, when he had copiously discoursed about how an army should be led, how a battle-line should be drawn up, how a place should be seized for a camp, when the signal of battle should be given, when it is fitting that the retreat be sounded, and, lastly, what should be observed before the battle, in the battle, and even after the battle, and applause from all had followed, and Hannibal was asked what he himself thought as well about that professor of wisdom, “Many,” he said, “foolish and doting old men have I seen; yet none with whom I would be more delighted than with this old man, seeing that he speaks so much about things unknown.” By this remark, very wittily, he marked the impudent audacity both of that man and of your lot. For you wish to speak about every material, forgetful that your profession is, if you do not know it, to contemplate urines and the things which modesty forbids to name; nor are you ashamed to insult those whose care is for virtues and for the mind.

Eleganter de hoc Phormione loquens Cicero, "Quid" inquit "aut arrogantius aut loquacius fieri potuit, quam Hanibali, qui tot annis de imperio cum populo Romano, omnium gentium victore, certasset, grecum hominem, qui nunquam castra vidisset, nunquam denique minimam partem ullius publici muneris attigisset, precepta de re militari dare?". Quanquam non omnino par tua et Phormionis causa, multoque iustius ego te rideo, quam illum risit Hanibal. Ille enim de rebus licet experientia ignotis at saltem lectione cognitis loquebatur, tu de his rebus loqueris quarum non tantum usu atque arte es indoctus, sed ingenio etiam prorsus indocilis. Hanc historiam cum illi contentioso homini narrassem, quod erat ipse senex, sibi dictum credidit, quasi et senium ei et stultitiam exprobrassem; itaque vehementer excanduit.

Speaking elegantly about this Phormio, Cicero said, "What could be either more arrogant or more loquacious than that to Hannibal, who for so many years had contended about command with the Roman people, conqueror of all nations, a Greek man, who had never seen a camp, who had never, in fine, touched even the least part of any public office, should give precepts on the military art?" Although your case and Phormio’s are not entirely the same, I laugh at you much more justly than Hannibal laughed at him. For he was speaking about matters unknown indeed to experience but at least known by reading; you speak about things of which you are not only untaught in practice and in art, but are even utterly indocile by nature. When I had told this story to that contentious man, because he himself was an old man, he believed it had been said of himself, as if I had reproached him with both old age and stupidity; and so he flared up vehemently.

Tu qua etate sis non satis scio; nisi quod delirare sepius solent senes, non quidem omnes, sed quorum iuvenilis etas vilibus curis et obsceno artificio acta est. Quo autem ingenio sis, michi incognitum esse noluisti. Audiens, ergo, te video mordendi avidum, sed ignorantia torpentem, algentis more aspidis, coactum virus non posse diffundere, nisi quod in finem, multo irarum attritu terrifice concalescens, neque tamen tam morsu quam sibilo metuendus, in me calcaneotenus erigeris; ubi, scilicet, Boetium Severinum adversus sacras Pyerides testem citas atque, ut testimonio fidem queras, cautissimus disputator, patritium illum vocas, quasi de pretura vel consolatu questio sit, et quasi non multi testes, licet minime patritii sint, hac in re multum Boetio preferendi.

I do not quite know what age you are; except that old men are wont to delirate more often—not indeed all, but those whose youthful age was spent in vile cares and obscene artifice. But of what genius you are, you did not wish to be unknown to me. Hearing, therefore, I see you avid for biting, but torpid with ignorance, like a cold asp, your coagulated venom unable to diffuse—except that in the end, terribly heating up by much attrition of angers, and yet to be feared not so much for bite as for hiss, you rear yourself up against me to the heel; where, to wit, you cite Boethius Severinus as a witness against the sacred Pierides and, that you may seek faith for the testimony, most cautious disputant, you call him a patrician, as if the question were about the praetorship or the consulship, and as if many witnesses, although by no means patricians, were not to be much preferred to Boethius in this matter.

Verum absit ut huius vel alterius fide digni hominis testimonium recusem: ad inquisitionem veri omne genus studiosorum hominum admitto, mechanicis duntaxat exclusis. Ille igitur quid? Ab egrotantis cura scenicas meretriculas philosophico procul arcet edicto.

But far be it that I refuse the testimony of this man or of any other trustworthy man: for the inquiry of truth I admit every kind of studious person, mechanics only excluded. What then of him? By a philosophical edict he keeps far away from the care of the sick the stage-prostitutes.

Vive, bellator egregie: universam poesim letali iaculo transfixisti. Certe siquid eorum de quibus tam temerarie disputas didicisses, scires scenicam illam quam Boetius notat, ipsos inter poetas in precio non haberi. Non autem vidisti, cece, quod iuxta erat, licet id ipsum literis tuis ignoranter insereres.

Live on, excellent warrior: you have transfixed the whole of poesy with a lethal javelin. Certainly, if you had learned anything of those matters about which you so temerariously dispute, you would know that that scenic thing which Boetius notes is not held in esteem among the poets themselves. But you did not see, blind man, what was right beside you, although you ignorantly inserted that very thing into your letters.

Quid enim ait? "Veris eum Musis curandum sanandumque relinquite". Hee sunt Muse quibus, si qui usquam hodie supersunt, poete gloriantur ac fidunt, quarum ope non egra corpora mactare, sed egris animis succurrere didicerunt. De quibus si loqui velim, donec cerebro humido ac fluenti tanta res insideat, amens ero.

What, indeed, does he say? "Leave him to be cared for and healed by the true Muses." These are the Muses in whom, if anywhere today any still survive, poets glory and confide, by whose aid they have learned not to slaughter sick bodies, but to succor sick souls. Of whom, if I should wish to speak, until so great a matter settles upon a moist and flowing brain, I shall be out of my mind.

Neque enim vel Amphionis vel Orphei citara tam duram silicem movere posset, neque tam hirsutam tigridem lenire; quas tu atque omnes id genus fictiones, veluti vero adversas, mira plebei artificis temeritate condemnas. In quibus, tibi tuique similibus studiose abditus, allegoricus sapidissimus ac iucundissimus sensus inest, quo fere omnis Sacrarum etiam Scripturarum textus abundat; quas te animo irridere non dubito, sed supplitium times. Quam ob rem feram equo animo te poetis, quos ignoras, vanitate notissima insultantem, idque michi alicuius bone spei argumentum fuerit, si tibi valde displiceam.

For neither the cithara of Amphion nor of Orpheus could move so hard a flint, nor soften so rough a tigress; which, and all fictions of that kind, you condemn, as though adverse to the truth, with the remarkable temerity of a plebeian artificer. In these there is contained—studiously hidden from you and your likes—an allegorical sense most sapid and most pleasant, with which almost the whole text of the Sacred Scriptures also abounds; which I do not doubt that you mock in your mind, but you fear punishment. Wherefore I shall bear with equanimity your insulting the poets, whom you do not know, with most notorious vanity, and this will be to me an argument of some good hope, if I greatly displease you.

Cur autem indigner audere te aliquid adversum me, cum adversus Cristum, si impune liceat, sis ausurus, cui Averroim, tacito licet iudicio, pretulisti? Scis quod non mentior, quamvis aliud verbo clames. Cesset pene metus: profecto, ut sciolus videaris, esse voles hereticus.

But why should I be indignant that you dare anything adverse against me, when against Christ, if it were allowed with impunity, you would be about to dare—him to whom you have preferred Averroes, albeit by a silent judgment? You know that I do not lie, although you cry otherwise by word. Let fear almost cease: assuredly, in order that you may seem a sciolist, you will wish to be a heretic.

Sed ad fictiones, quas carpebas, redeo. Audi ergo quid Lactantius, vir et poetarum et philosophorum notitia et ciceroniana facundia et—quod cunta trascendit—catholica religione clarissimus, primo suarumInstitutionum libro ait: "Nesciunt qui sit poetice licentie modus, quousque progredi fingendo liceat, cum officium poete in eo sit, ut que vera sunt in alia specie obliquis figurationibus cum decore aliquo conversa traducat; totum autem quod referas fingere, idest ineptum esse et mendacem potiusquam poetam". Stupes, belua: nunquam, puto, istud audieras.

But I return to the fictions which you were carping at. Hear then what Lactantius, a man most illustrious both for knowledge of poets and philosophers and for Ciceronian facundity and—what surpasses all—Catholic religion, says in the first book of his Institutions: "They do not know what the measure of poetic license is, how far it is permitted to advance by feigning, since the office of the poet is in this: that the things which are true he should translate, transformed into another appearance by oblique figurations with some decor; but to feign entirely what you report is to be inept and a liar rather than a poet." You are stunned, brute: never, I suppose, had you heard that.

Mentiri vobis liquimus; quodque gravissimum mendacii genus est, mentiri summo cum discrimine damnoque credentium. Id si michi non credis, vulgus interroga, cui et illud in proverbium versum est, ut apertissime mentienti dicant: "Mentiris ut medicus". Poete—neque enim me hoc nomine dignari ausim, quod tu michi, demens, ad infamiam obiecisti—poete, inquam, studium est veritatem rerum pulcris velaminibus adornare, ut vulgus insulsum, cuius tu pars ultima es, lateat, ingeniosis autem studiosisque lectoribus et quesitu difficilior et dulcior sit inventu. Alioquin, si tibi falso persuades—quod quidam indocti solent, qui quod consequi nequeunt execrantur—ut scilicet poete officium sit mentiri, illud tibi consequenter persuadeas velim: esse te poetarum maximum, cuius prope plura mendacia sunt quam verba.

To lie to you we have left off; and—and this is the gravest kind of lying—to lie with the utmost peril and harm to those who believe. If you do not believe me on this, ask the common crowd, for whom that too has turned into a proverb, so that to one most openly lying they say: "You lie like a doctor." The poets—nor indeed would I dare to deem myself worthy of this name, which you, demented man, have thrown at me for infamy—the poets, I say, have as their study to adorn the truth of things with fair veils, so that it may be hidden from the tasteless rabble, of which you are the lowest part, but for ingenious and studious readers it may be both harder in the quest and sweeter in the finding. Otherwise, if you falsely persuade yourself—which certain unlearned men are wont to do, who execrate what they cannot attain—that the office of the poet is to lie, I would wish you, consequently, to persuade yourself of this: that you are the greatest of poets, in whom there are almost more lies than words.

Ultro tibi meonius senex cedet, victus cedet Euripides, cedet Maro, vacuus tibi Elicon linquetur, indecerpta laurea illibatusque castalius fons.

Unbidden, to you the Meonian old man will yield; conquered, Euripides will yield; Maro will yield; Helicon, emptied, will be left to you, the laurel plucked and the Castalian fount untouched.

Sed expergiscere, si potes, lippientesque oculos aperi: videbis poetas raros quidem, natura rerum disponente ut rara quelibet cara simul et clara sint. Videbis eos gloria et nominis immortalitate fulgentes, quam non sibi tantum, sed et aliis peperere, ut quibus ante alios preituris consulere nominibus datum est, et quorum adminiculo ipsa etiam virtus eget, non equidem in se ipsa, sed in eo quod habet cum tempore et cum oblivione certamen. Te vero cum tuis nudos videbis, omni vera laude vanitatibus obsitos obrutosque mendaciis.

But rouse yourself, if you can, and open your bleary eyes: you will see poets rare indeed, the nature of things disposing that whatever is rare is at once dear and illustrious. You will see them shining with glory and with the immortality of a name, which they have procured not for themselves only, but for others also, so that it has been given to them to care for the names of those destined to go before others, and whose aid even Virtue herself needs—not, to be sure, in herself, but in that contest which she has with time and with oblivion. You, however, with your own, you will see naked, with every true praise replaced by vanities, encrusted with them and overwhelmed by lies.

Hec non adversus medicinam—quod sepe testatus sum—neque adversus excellentes medicos, qui irasci non debent si, semper rari, nostra sint etate rarissimi, sed adversus te delirantesque similiter dicta sint. In quibus illud forte mirabitur quispiam: quod libellum pro epystola remisi. Sed meminisse conveniet facilius infligi vulnus quam curari, et citius dici convitia quam repelli.

These things are not against medicine—which I have often attested—nor against excellent physicians, who ought not to be angry if, being always rare, in our age they are most rare; rather, let them be said against you and those similarly delirious. Among which someone perhaps will marvel at this: that I sent a booklet in place of an epistle. But it will be well to remember that a wound is more easily inflicted than cured, and insults are more quickly uttered than repelled.

Ideoque et maior defensio Demosthenis quam Eschinis accusatio est, et longior Ciceronis quam Salustii invectiva.

And therefore both the defense of Demosthenes is greater than the accusation of Aeschines, and the invective of Cicero is longer than that of Sallust.

Hactenus hec; cetera in tempus aliud reservo. Nolo enim putes me lacessiti stili et iustissime indignationis aculeos, more apium, in vulnere reliquisse. Experiere iterum, cum voles, quid inter ingenium et ingenium, quid inter calamum et calamum intersit.

Thus far these things; the rest I reserve for another time. For I do not want you to think that I have left, after being provoked, the stings of the stylus and of most-just indignation, after the manner of bees, in the wound. You will experience again, when you wish, what difference there is between ingenuity and ingenuity, what between pen and pen.

Illud verendum: ne, dum per abruta distractus, multumque huic tue ridiculose eloquentie intentus, in insuetis conflictationibus tempus teris, his, quos pecunia pariter ac sanitate spolias, magni periculi causa sim. De hoc tamen ipse videris; ego michi quicquid attentaveris ad cumulum glorie ascribam. Alta petentibus non semper quies: sed eorum sepe, qui sine gravi periculo vinci possunt, optanda rebellio est.

That is to be feared: lest, while distracted over steep places and much intent on this your ridiculous eloquence, you wear away time in unaccustomed conflictations, I be a cause of great danger to those whom you despoil equally of pecuniary means and of health. As to this, however, you yourself will see; I, for my part, shall ascribe whatever you attempt against me to the heap of glory. For those seeking the heights there is not always quiet; but often the rebellion of those who can be conquered without grave peril is to be desired.

Si bene dixisses, audisses bene. Audisti autem non quod ego loqui solitus, sed quod tu meritus audire. Sile parumper et rumina, et tibi ipsi da veniam, qui cepisti.

If you had spoken well, you would have heard well. But you heard not what I am wont to speak, but what you merited to hear. Be silent for a little while and ruminate, and grant pardon to yourself, you who started it.

Verum ego satis: ne sanus sim, si diutius tecum loquar, qui—quod ridiculum omne supergreditur—medicine nomine mortem michi literarum tuarum in fine denunties. Ad quam differendam medicina forte aliquid, tu profecto nichil; ad celerandum vero quamplurimum conferre potes. Preclarum sortitus artificium: longevis corpusculum scis expedire langoribus.

But I for my part enough: may I not be sane if I speak with you any longer, you who—which surpasses all ridiculousness—under the name of medicine announce death to me at the end of your letters. For the deferring of it medicine perhaps contributes something, you assuredly nothing; but for hastening it you can contribute very much. A splendid craft you have drawn by lot: you know how to free a little body from long-lived languors.

Certe ipsa michi vivas—modo voces habeat—medicina grates actura sit, si eorum presentem infamiam fando nudavero, qui antiquam illius gloriam novis erroribus extinxerunt.

Surely may Medicine herself live for me—provided it have voices—to render thanks, if by speaking I shall have laid bare the present infamy of those who have extinguished its ancient glory with new errors.

Habes unde michi perpetuo gratias agas: de muto et elingui, argutulus atque facetulus factus es. Disertissime Ypocras, nescis quantum huic calamo debeas. Ecce iam prosam scriptitas: cito facies carmina; iam hymnos incipis balbutiendo contexere: boni ingenii puer eris. Imo vero, stulte senex et ignare, multo consultius tacuisses, non ut ideo philosophum te probares, sed ut ignorantiam saltem tuam silentio velares.

You have wherefore to render me thanks perpetually: from mute and tongueless, you have been made a little sharp and a little facetious. Most eloquent Hippocrates, you do not know how much you owe to this pen. Behold, now you are writing prose: soon you will make poems; already you begin, stammering, to weave hymns: you will be an ingenious boy. Nay rather, foolish old man and ignorant one, it would have been much more prudent to have kept silent, not in order thereby to prove yourself a philosopher, but so that at least you might veil your ignorance with silence.

Tacendo enim latere poteras, loquendo non potes. Lingua animi sera est; hanc tu, nullo ad ostium pulsante, nescio cur movisti, tenebricosam fedamque pectoris tui domum omnibus aperiens, que melius semper clausa mansisset, nisi quia dementiam diutius occultare difficile est. Credo non legeras quod scriptum est: "Stultus quoque si tacuerit, sapiens reputabitur; et si compresserit labia sua, intelligens". Bene Socrates, cum decorum adolescentem tacitum vidisset, "Loquere" inquit "ut te videam": non tam in vultu putabat videri hominem, quam in verbis.

By keeping silent you could lie hidden; by speaking you cannot. The tongue is the bolt of the mind; this you, with no one knocking at the door, for some reason have moved, opening to all the tenebrous and foul house of your breast, which would have better always remained shut—except that it is difficult to conceal madness for long. I believe you had not read what is written: “Even a fool, if he keeps silent, will be reckoned wise; and if he compresses his lips, intelligent.” Well did Socrates, when he saw a decorous adolescent silent, say, “Speak, that I may see you”; he thought a man was seen not so much in his face as in his words.

Ecce, locutus es: vidimus te; iamque si milies taceas, videmus. Voluisti apparere, et multis, quos latere poteras, esse ludibrio. In quod—gaude, prepotens orator—externa ope non eges; nullo opus est indice, operose mus: tuo te prodis inditio, tam late tristis male coagulati eloqui fumus manat.

Behold, you have spoken: we have seen you; and now even if you were to be silent a thousand times, we see you. You wished to appear, and to be a laughingstock to many whom you could have lain hidden from. In this—rejoice, prepotent orator—you do not need external aid; there is need of no informer, operose mouse: you betray yourself by your own indication, so far and wide does the gloomy smoke of ill-coagulated eloquence emanate.

O ridiculum animal—volebam dicere—librum scribis; rectius dixerim quod tue professionis est proprium: aromatum lenta fedas involucra; et ubi periculosis ambagibus dictare soles miserorum mortes, utque vilia magno costent, fallasque licentius, radicibus nostri orbis imponere peregrina vocabula, ibi nunc, ut tibi videtur, philosophicos locos, ut ego sentio, tabificos iocos scribis. Sed ut libri formam habeant, versutus opifex, distinguis in partes; et forsitan victor eris: apothecarii scripsisse te librum dicent. Quid ni igitur exclamem?

O ridiculous animal—I was going to say—you are writing a book; more rightly I would say what is proper to your profession: you befoul the pliant wrappings of aromatics; and where by perilous ambages you are wont to dictate the deaths of the wretched, and so that cheap things may cost greatly, and that you may cheat more licentiously, to impose peregrine vocables upon the roots of our orb, there now, as it seems to you, you write philosophic loci; as I sense it, consumptive jests. But so that they may have the form of books, sly craftsman, you divide them into parts; and perhaps you will be the victor: they will say that an apothecary has written a book. Why then should I not cry out?

Accurrite philosophi, accurrite poete, accurrite studiosi, quicunque usquam scribendis libris operam datis, accurrite; vestra res agitur: mechanicus libros scribit, penitusque verum fit illud Sapientis Hebrei: "Faciendi libros nullus est finis". Quid enim fiet si mechanici passim calamos arripiunt? Actum est: ipsi boves, ipsique lapides scribent; nilotica biblus non sufficiet. Siquis est pudor, dimittite illam literatis; vos, si glorie cupiditate tangimini, in vento et aqua scribite, ut ad posteros fama citius vestra perveniat.

Hasten, philosophers, hasten, poets, hasten, students, whoever anywhere devote effort to writing books, hasten; your cause is at stake: a mechanic is writing books, and that saying of the Hebrew Sage becomes thoroughly true: "Of making books there is no end". For what will happen if mechanics everywhere snatch up the pens? It’s all over: the oxen themselves, and the stones themselves will write; Nilotic byblus will not suffice. If there is any shame, leave that to the literati; you, if you are touched by the desire of glory, write on the wind and on the water, so that your fame may reach posterity more quickly.

Quid querar? quid eloquar? quid dicam?

What shall I complain of? what shall I express? what shall I say?

Desinite—queso—qui papiros arte conficitis, quique tenues in membranas cesorum animalium terga convertitis: etruscis expiandum sacris infaustum et infame monstrum incidit. Quid enim bicipitem puerum aut quadrupedem miramur? Quid obstupescimus mule partum, tactumque de celo templum Iovis, aut sub nubibus visas faces?

Cease—I beseech— you who by art fabricate papyri, and you who convert the backs of slaughtered animals into thin membranes: an ill-omened and infamous monstrous prodigy has occurred, to be expiated by Etruscan rites. For why do we marvel at a two-headed boy or a four-footed one? Why are we stupefied at a mule’s birth, and the temple of Jove touched from heaven, or torches seen beneath the clouds?

Quid ethneis vaporibus ardens equor et cruentos amnes, imbremque lapideum, aut siquid tale in annalibus veterum reperitur? Habent suum secula nostra portentum: mechanicus etiam libros arat. Quis non Roscio deinceps artis histrionice librum donet?

What of the sea blazing with Aetnaean vapors and blood-stained rivers, and a stone-rain, or if anything such is found in the annals of the ancients? Our age has its own portent: the mechanic even plows books. Who would not, next, present a book to Roscius of the histrionic art?

Erat et ille mechanicus, sed insignis, ingenioque promeritus non modo maximorum ducum gratiam, sed ipsius quoque familiaritatem atque amicitiam Ciceronis. Mulcebat ille oculos: mechanicus noster aures vulnerat; agebat ille quod placeret omnibus: hic quod nulli. Aut quis coquine magistrum indignetur Apitium suam literis disciplinam inserere?

He too was a mechanician, but a distinguished one, and by his genius he earned not only the favor of the greatest leaders, but also the very familiarity and friendship of Cicero. That man soothed the eyes; our mechanician wounds the ears; he did what pleased everyone; this one what pleases no one. Or who would begrudge the master of the kitchen, Apicius, to insert his own discipline into letters?

Cur enim inter culinas non scribatur? Inter latrinas scribitur: cognatas res esse nomen arguit. Aut cur non inter epulas libri fiant?

Why indeed should it not be written among kitchens? It is written among latrines: the name argues that they are cognate things. Or why should books not be made amid banquets?

Inter urinas fiunt, ad quas stilo celebrandas florentissima artium rethorica captiva perducitur, et que populos moderatur, inque animis regum regnat, inter medicos ancillatur. Sed queso te, philosophie atque artium domine: quo animo Tullius rethoricam tot voluminibus tantoque studio tractasset, si futuram talis ingenii servam sciret? Quam vero, non dicam servam, sed familiaris etiam tua sit, si aliunde nescirem, abunde quidem artificiosus et hybleo melle dulcior orationis tue textus insinuat.

Among urines they are made, for the celebration of which with the stylus the most flourishing of the arts, rhetoric, is led as a captive; and she who moderates peoples and reigns in the minds of kings serves as a handmaid among physicians. But I beseech you, master of philosophy and of the arts: with what mind would Tullius have handled rhetoric in so many volumes and with such study, if he knew she would be the slave of such a genius? How truly— I will not say a slave, but even your familiar— she would be, if I did not know otherwise, the texture of your oration, artful indeed and sweeter than Hyblean honey, abundantly insinuates.

Certe quod scolis omnibus est notum, rethorice facultatis officium est "apposite dicere ad persuadendum, finis persuadere dictione". Quanta autem illud arte facias, quanta hoc felicitate perficias, qui te semel audierit non ignorat. Sed ista suum locum invenient: nunc a primordiis inchoandum. Excuset autem prolixitatem mei sermonis, tue ignorantie magnitudo de qua aut nichil omnino dici debuit, aut parum dici non debuit.

Certainly, what is known to all schools is that the office of the rhetorical faculty is “to speak aptly for persuading; the end is to persuade by diction.” But with how great art you do that, with how great felicity you accomplish this, whoever has heard you once does not ignore. But these matters will find their own place: now from the beginnings it must be begun. Let the magnitude of your ignorance, moreover, excuse the prolixity of my discourse, about which either nothing at all ought to have been said, or too little ought not to have been said.

Prima quidem libri tui pars de te ipso agit: quis qualis ve tu sis. Iam id ipsum caute. Sciebas te incognitum, nisi tabellionum more de te ipso aliquid loquereris, atque ita qua scriberes autoritate constaret.

Indeed, the first part of your book deals with yourself: who and of what sort you are. Now this very thing, cautiously. You knew yourself to be unknown, unless, in the manner of tabellions, you said something about yourself, and thus it would be established with what authority you were writing.

"Qui sim" inquis "perlecto hoc toto iam nosces opusculo". O magne vir, nimis humiliter de te sentis: imo vero confestim accepto in manus opusculo novi te, quem et ante noveram. Sed nunc scientiam tuam omnem funditus detexisti, et—ut scriptum est in Psalmo—"denudasti fundamentum eius usque ad collum". Quid autem de te dicas, quem te facias audiamus: "Sum" inquis "medicus". Audis hec, medicine repertor, Apollo, vel amplificator, Esculapi? "Consequenter et philosophus". Audis ista, Pithagoras, qui nomen hoc primus omnium invenisti?

"Who I am," you say, "once you have read through this whole opuscule you will already know." O great man, you think too humbly of yourself: nay rather, immediately upon taking the opuscule into my hands I knew you, whom I had known even before. But now you have laid bare all your science from the bottom, and—as it is written in the Psalm—"you have denuded its foundation even up to the neck." But let us hear what you say about yourself, whom you make yourself to be: "I am," you say, "a medic." Do you hear these things, Apollo, discoverer of medicine, or you, Aesculapius, its amplificator? "Consequently also a philosopher." Do you hear these words, Pythagoras, who first of all discovered this name?

Flete repertores artium: fines vestros proterit asinus infulatus, non se modo philosophum, sed philosophiam insuper suam iactans. "Philosophia nostra" inquit. Heu, quid hoc est?

Weep, discoverers of the arts: an ass wreathed with fillets is trampling your boundaries, vaunting not only himself as a philosopher, but, over and above, his own philosophy. "Our philosophy," he says. Alas, what is this?

Peiora sunt audienda, si vivimus. Iam—ut suspicor—ad finem seculi propinquamus. "Erunt signa in sole et luna et stellis"; hoc signum in Evangelio non fuit: quando asinus philosophabitur, celum ruet.

Worse things must be heard, if we live. Already—as I suspect—we are approaching the end of the age. "There will be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars"; this sign was not in the Gospel: when a donkey philosophizes, heaven will fall.

Quid vis dicam? Iam philosophie misereor, si tua est; sed meo periculo iurare ausim, nescire te quid sit esse philosophum. At ne omnia unam in partem congeram, multa etiam nunc de hac re tecum loqui habeo.

What do you wish me to say? Now I pity philosophy, if it is yours; but at my own peril I would dare to swear that you do not know what it is to be a philosopher. But, lest I heap everything onto one side, I still have many things even now to speak with you about this matter.

Premisi autem hoc, ut scires apud me philosophum te non esse. Quid vero, quid deinde intulit audax stultus? Se his artibus armatum, non tantum corporis sed animi vitia curaturum.

I premised this, moreover, so that you might know that, with me, you are not a philosopher. But what, what then did the audacious fool bring forward? That he, armed with these arts, would cure the vices not only of the body but also of the mind.

Venite huc qui egrotatis: salus non semper ex Iudeis est; adest semibarbarus sospitator. Et me superbum vocitas! Relege nunc epystolam illam meam que te furere fecit, et faciet mori: quando ego vel philosophiam vel poesim meam, quando me aut philosophum aut poetam dixi, aut aliud quidquam, quam tuorum morum et ingenii contemptorem, quod michi non modo licitum sed debitum rebar?

Come here, you who are ailing: salvation is not always from the Jews; a semi‑barbarian savior is at hand. And you call me proud! Reread now that epistle of mine which made you rage, and will make you die: when did I ever call either my philosophy or my poesy, when did I call myself either a philosopher or a poet, or anything other than a despiser of your morals and disposition, which I reckoned not only lawful but due to me?

Verecunde se solius rethorice magistrum dicit Augustinus: tu te philosophum dicis ac medicum; addis et tertium: rethorice dominum. Quartum licet addere, postquam titulis gaudes: cloaca es magna quidem, ut est apud Senecam, et profunda. En quod ad primam tui gloriosi partem operis modo responsum velim.

Modestly Augustine calls himself the master of rhetoric alone: you call yourself a philosopher and a physician; you add a third: lord of rhetoric. A fourth may be added, since you rejoice in titles: you are a great sewer indeed, as it is in Seneca, and deep. Behold what, to the first part of your glorious work, I would just now wish to have answered.

Secunda apologetici tui pars de me erat, cuius in cognitione si falleris, non miror. Quid enim non tibi alius videri possit, cum tu tibi philosophus videaris? Dixisti equidem: "Philosophus sum". Tam hoc verum quam quod sequitur; tam philosophus tu quam ego ambitiosus, arrogans, superbus.

The second part of your apologetic was about me, in the cognition of which, if you are mistaken, I do not marvel. For what can another not seem to you, since you seem a philosopher to yourself? You indeed said: "I am a philosopher." This is as true as what follows; as much a philosopher are you as I am ambitious, arrogant, proud.

Nunquam michi, fateor, cum populo convenit; tanta tamen animi securitas est, ut iudicem populum non recusem. Quos honores ambierim, et non potius spreverim oblatos? Quid michi unquam arrogaverim?

Never, I confess, have I been in accord with the people; yet so great is the security of mind that I do not refuse the people as judge. What honors have I canvassed, and not rather spurned when offered? What have I ever arrogated to myself?

Ubi superbe me gesserim? De qua re et dictum est aliquid, et plusculum dicere est animus. Loquar autem tibi iam, non ut adversario procaci et infesto, sed ut homini, nescio tamen an rationis ullum vestigium habenti; et dicam quod, ut puto, non intelliges, quoniam vicinarum rerum nedum ydiotis, sed doctis etiam laboriosa discretio est.

Where have I borne myself arrogantly? About which matter both something has been said, and I have a mind to say a little more. I will speak to you now, not as to a procacious and hostile adversary, but as to a man—though I do not know whether you have any vestige of reason; and I will say what, as I suppose, you will not understand, since the discrimination of neighboring things is laborious not only for idiots, but even for the learned.

Sed dicam clarius quam dici soleat, ut, si non intellexeris, cerebri tui non stili mei vitium accusetur. Audi ergo: superbo libertas omnis superbia videtur; sapiens vero inter superbiam fidutiamque discernit, et scit largiter referre quo animo quid dicatur aut fiat. Hinc ille vir optime sibi conscius, dum in publico peroranti populus obstreperet, "Tacete" inquit "melius ego unus novi quid reipublice expediat, quam vos omnes". Quod, ut animose, sic vere dictum, aliquos qui ad superbiam traherent fuisse, a vulgi moribus non abhorret; docti autem generose fidutie ascribunt.

But I will speak more clearly than is wont to be said, so that, if you do not understand, the fault may be charged to your brain, not to my style. Listen then: to a proud man, every liberty seems pride; but the wise man distinguishes between pride and confidence, and knows how, with large-mindedness, to ascribe with what spirit something is said or done. Hence that man, most excellently conscious of himself, while the populace was being obstreperous as he was perorating in public, said: “Be silent: I alone know better what is expedient for the republic than all of you.” Which, though spiritedly said, was said truly; that there were some who would drag it toward pride is not out of keeping with the habits of the crowd; the learned, however, ascribe it to a generous confidence.

Scipio, ille vir maximus, qui famosum primus agnomen ex Africa reportavit, capitalem causam dicturus, primo quidem die "sine ulla criminum mentione" ut ait Livius, "orationem adeo magnificam de rebus a se gestis est exorsus, ut satis constaret neminem unquam neque melius neque verius laudatum esse". Quid ergo? Nunquid in proprio laus ore sordebat? Audi: "Dicebantur" inquit "ab eodem animo ingenioque quo gesta erant, et aurium fastidium aberat, quia pro periculo, non in gloriam referebantur". Secundo autem dicende cause die, dum acrius urgeretur, non modo sordidam et obsoletam vestem reorum more non induit aut submisse iudicum misericordiam imploravit, sed cum forte, revolutis annis, dies esset quo ipse bello punico secundo, periculosissimo omnium atque gravissimo, supremam manum imposuerat, virtutis ac felicitatis proprie recordatus, et ob hoc conscientie fidutia evectus, victricem capiti lauream imposuit, testatusque eo die litibus ac iurgiis abstinendum propter dici illius anniversarium honorem, quo ipse olim cum Hanibale et Carthaginiensibus bene ac feliciter decertasset, agendasque potius deis grates precandosque ut populo Romano semper sui similes duces darent, desertis in curia accusatoribus atque iudicibus, favente ac prosequente universo populo, Capitolium et deorum templa triumphantis in morem circuivit, non minus gloriosus civium reus quam fuerat hostium triumphator.

Scipio, that very greatest man, who first brought back the famous agnomen from Africa, when he was about to plead a capital cause, on the first day indeed, “without any mention of the charges,” as Livius says, “he began an oration so magnificent about the matters transacted by himself, that it was sufficiently agreed that no one ever had been praised either better or more truly.” What then? Did praise upon his own lips grow sordid? Listen: “They were spoken,” he says, “by the same spirit and genius with which they had been done, and the fastidiousness of the ears was absent, because they were related with reference to the danger, not turned into glory.” But on the second day appointed for pleading the cause, while he was pressed more sharply, he not only did not put on a sordid and obsolete garb after the manner of defendants, nor humbly implore the mercy of the judges, but since by chance, the years having rolled round, it was the very day on which he, in the Second Punic War, the most perilous and most grave of all, had put on the final hand, remembering his own virtus and felicity, and by the confidence of conscience borne aloft, he set the conquering laurel upon his head; and having attested that on that day suits and wranglings should be abstained from on account of the anniversary honor of that day on which he once had contended well and happily with Hannibal and the Carthaginians, and that thanks ought rather to be rendered to the gods and prayers offered that they might always give to the Roman people leaders like himself, with the accusers and judges deserted in the Curia, the whole people favoring and accompanying him, he went round the Capitol and the temples of the gods after the manner of a triumphing general, no less glorious as a defendant among citizens than he had been a triumphator over enemies.

Rem notissimam narro, tuis licet ab auctoribus non tractatam. Nec cuiquam dubium esse potest quin inaniter effusa laudatio turpiter sonuisset, nisi eam natura rerum et quedam quasi veri necessitas extorsisset. Si leonem latratibus excitatum dixi, si me omnia preter virtutem et bonam famam solere contemnere arroganter tibi videor locutus, falleris ut in multis.

I narrate a most well-known matter, although not handled by your authors. Nor can it be doubtful to anyone that praise poured out inanely would have sounded disgracefully, unless the nature of things and a certain, as it were, necessity of truth had extorted it. If I said that a lion was roused by barkings, if I seem to you to have spoken arrogantly that I am wont to contemn all things except virtue and good reputation, you are mistaken, as in many things.

Neque enim insolenter me locutum noveris, sed fidenter, ut te ipsum, vel gravi rugitu expergefactus, agnosceres. Quid enim putas, aut quid ais? Nonne iam, precor, erubesceres, nisi ruborem tuus ille letheus et immedicabilis pallor excluderet?

For know that I have not spoken insolently, but confidently, so that you yourself, even awakened by a grave roar, might recognize yourself. For what do you think, or what do you say? Would you not now, I pray, blush, if that Lethean and incurable pallor of yours did not shut out the blush?

Nonne iam, tacitus saltem ac pallidus, recognoscere incipis—quod dixisse tibi iterum videor insolenter—quantum inter ingenium et ingenium, quantum inter calamum et calamum intersit? Profecto autem ille, quem michi adsumpsisse videor, virtutis amor ac laudis non otiose iactantie est, sed eo pertinet, ut scias me ab ea quam michi obiectabas adulatoris infamia remotum, cum cesset illa cupiditas que tuam et multorum linguas docuit adulari. "Sed hec turpiter, quamvis vere, proprio ex ore sonuerunt". Iam responsum habes: tunc id vere diceres, quando nulla iusta causa sed inanis tantum glorie studio dicerentur.

Are you not now, silent at least and pale, beginning to recognize—what I seem to have said to you insolently again—how much difference there is between talent and talent, how much between pen and pen? Indeed, moreover, that love of virtue and of praise, which I seem to have assumed to myself, is not of otiose vaunting, but tends to this: that you may know me removed from that infamy of a flatterer which you were objecting to me, since that desire has ceased which taught your tongue and the tongues of many to flatter. "But these things, shamefully, although truly, have sounded from your own mouth." You have your answer now: you would say that truly then, when they were said not for any just cause, but only from the pursuit of empty glory.

Nunc non magis pro mei nominis, quam pro ipsius defensione veri, dicta ferre debebis equanimiter, et tibi parcere quod in me arguis, Cato ultime, gravissime morum censor. Adde quod ego non michi scientiam aut gloriam esse, sed earum cupiditatem, neque me virtutem aut bonam famam habere dixi, sed optare vel—quod minus est—non spernere. Quid hic, oro, tam superbum notas, nisi quia tibi res insueta est aliquid preter pecunias optari vel amari?

Now you ought to bear the words equanimously, not so much for the defense of my name as for the defense of truth itself, and to spare yourself what you accuse in me, Cato, ultimate, most grave censor of morals. Add that I said not that knowledge or glory are mine, but the cupidity of them; nor that I have virtue or good fame, but that I desire them or—what is less—that I do not spurn them. What here, I pray, do you mark as so proud, unless because to you it is an unwonted thing that something other than monies be desired or loved?

Accingere quicquid potes calumnie: preter desiderium et affectum boni nichil michi tribuo, quibus qui caret sibi et aliis inutilis vivit, si tamen dicendus est vivere qui optimarum sensu rerum eget, pessimarum passionibus abundat. Accedit quod et hec et siquid in me laudabile aut siquid penitus boni est, quamvis id tibi, doliture invide, in oculos ingesserim ut doleres, teste tamen conscientia, non inde me sed auctorem omnis boni Deum laudo, neque in me ipso glorior, sed in illo ad quem omnia refero preter defectus erroresque meos, quos michi imputo. Scit ipse me verum loqui.

Gird yourself with whatever you can of calumny: apart from desire and affection for the good I attribute nothing to myself; and whoever lacks these lives useless to himself and to others—if indeed he is to be said to live who lacks the sense of the best things and abounds in the passions of the worst. Moreover, both these and, if there is anything laudable in me or anything good to the very core—although I have thrust it into your eyes, envious one destined to grieve, so that you might be pained—yet, with conscience as witness, I praise not myself on that account but God, the Author of all good; nor do I glory in myself, but in Him to whom I refer all things, except my defects and errors, which I impute to myself. He Himself knows that I speak true.

Ecce ut in Psalmo centesimo quadragesimo quarto ait Augustinus: "Inventum est quomodo et me laudare possim et arrogans non sim". Verum ut de poetis, quibus ut canis ad lunam latras, aliquid immisceam, apud Virgilium Eneas, de se interrogatus, inter cetera quid ait? Sum pius Eneas fama super ethera notus. Idem apud Homerum respondisse novimus Ulixem. Ad hoc responsum num tu atque alii, qui nichil de vobis loqui verum simul ac magnificum potestis, vel superbe dictum ab Ulixe atque ab Enea, vel turpiter fictum ab Homero ac Virgilio clamaretis.

Behold, as Augustine says in Psalm 144: "It has been found how I may both praise myself and not be arrogant." But, so that I may mix in something about the poets, at whom you bark like a dog at the moon: with Virgil, when Aeneas was asked about himself, among other things what does he say? I am pious Aeneas, known by fame above the aether. We know that Ulysses answered the same in Homer. At this reply, would you and the others who can say nothing about yourselves that is at once true and magnificent cry out either that it was said proudly by Ulysses and by Aeneas, or shamefully fabricated by Homer and by Virgil?

Sed doctiores excusant, quia scilicet ut ignorantem alloquens laude propria pro inditio sit usus, et fuerit ea sibi necessitas, non voluptas. Quid autem? Nonne ego etiam ignoranti loquor, ignoranti se, ignoranti me, ignoranti omnia?

Sed the more learned excuse it, namely that, as one addressing an ignorant person, he made use of his own praise as an indication, and that this was for him a necessity, not a pleasure. But what then? Do I not also speak to one ignorant—ignorant of himself, ignorant of me, ignorant of all things?

Equidem si vel te vel me vel aliquid boni nosses, nunquam me nil tibi dicentem, aut dicere cogitantem, nullam tui notitiam habentem aut habere cupientem, tam importunis—ut repetam quod te premit—latratibus excitasses. Cuius te hodie puto peniteat, sed tumor animi retrahere pedem vetat. Anxius itaque ridiculusque luctator, alienam—quod michi forsan credis incognitum—in tuis responsiunculis opem queris; piget hinc cepisse; pudet inde desinere: ita tergiversaris et incertus heres, atque—ut est in antiquo proverbio—auribus lupum tenes.

Indeed, if you had known either yourself or me or anything good, you would never have roused me—saying nothing to you, or thinking to speak, having no acquaintance with you or wishing to have it—with such importunate—let me repeat what presses you—barkings. I think you repent of this today, but the tumor of spirit forbids you to draw back your foot. An anxious and ridiculous wrestler, you seek alien help in your little responses—which you perhaps suppose unknown to me; it irks to have begun from this side; it shames to cease from that: thus you tergiversate and, an uncertain heir, and—as in the ancient proverb—you hold the wolf by the ears.

Unum hoc loco preterire noluerim quod inter superbias meas ponis: indignum te michi visum qui in meis opusculis scribereris. Vide autem, queso, ne inter tuas potius numerandum sit, si tibi contrarium videatur. Scripsi aliqua, nec desino aut unquam desinam, dum hic digitus calamum feret.

I would not wish in this place to pretermit one thing which you set among my prides: that you seemed to me unworthy to be written of in my little opuscules. But see, I beseech, lest it ought rather to be numbered among your own, if the contrary should seem to you. I have written some things, nor do I cease nor shall I ever cease, so long as this finger shall bear the pen.

Sed, omissis aliis, ne me rursum de me ipso magnifice loqui dicas, scribo de viris illustribus. Que non ausim dicere: iudicent qui legent; de quantitate pronuntio: haud dubie magnum opus multarumque vigiliarum et, si non ab auctore, certe a subiecta materia nominandum. Nichil ibi de medicis nec de poetis quidem aut philosophis agitur, sed de his tantum qui bellicis virtutibus aut magno reipublice studio floruerunt, et preclaram rerum gestarum gloriam consecuti sunt.

But, omitting other things, lest you say that I am again speaking magnificently about myself, I write concerning illustrious men. Which I would not dare to call them: let those who read judge; as to the magnitude I pronounce: without doubt a great work and of many vigils, and, if not by the author, certainly to be named from the subject-matter. Nothing there is treated about physicians, nor even about poets or philosophers, but only about those who have flourished by military virtues or by great zeal for the republic, and have attained the very illustrious glory of achievements.

Illic, si tibi debitum locum putas, dic ubi vis inseri: parebitur; sed verendum est ne quos ex omnibus seculis illustres, quantum hac ingenii paupertate licuit, in unum contraxi adventu tuo diffugiant, teque ibi solo remanente, mutandus libri titulus, nequeDe Viris Illustribus sedDe Insigni Fatuo inscribendum sit. Si audire me velles, petendum potius ab Apuleio madaurensi ut in libro philosophantis asini locum habeas, vel orandus Plautus ut alicubi inAmphytrione te collocet, ubi sillogismos tuos explicans probes Birriam nichil esse, magnoque animo contemnas quod in meis locus tibi desit opusculis, cum et alibi aptius esse possis, et ego nullum in tuis operibus locum queram.

There, if you think a place is owed you, say where you wish to be inserted: it shall be obeyed; but it is to be feared lest those illustrious men from all the ages, whom I have gathered into one, as far as this poverty of wit allowed, scatter at your arrival, and you alone remaining there, the title of the book must be changed, and it be inscribed not On Illustrious Men but On the Notable Fool. If you were willing to hear me, it should rather be sought from Apuleius of Madaura that you may have a place in the book of the philosophizing ass, or Plautus should be entreated to place you somewhere in Amphitryon, where, expounding your syllogisms, you may prove Birria to be nothing, and with great soul you may contemn the fact that in my little works a place is lacking for you, since both elsewhere you could be more fitly, and I shall seek no place in your works.

Illud quoque locus hic exigit: quam certe sit tutum de veritate tecum colloqui, quamque tranquillum, vide. Stantibus enim scriptis obstrepere et insidiari non pudet, quid faceres inter verba volantia? Quid est autem quod inter multa dixisti, me senectutem detestari?

This too the place here demands: see how surely it is safe to hold colloquy with you about truth, and how tranquil. For with the writings standing, you are not ashamed to clamor against and to lie in wait; what would you do amid flying words? And what is this, moreover, that among many things you have said, that I detest old age?

Nichil hoc falso falsius. Nemo me reverentior senectutis, nemo qui etatis illam partem pluris faciat, qui eam equiori animo complectatur, si iam adest, si appropinquat, expectet. Sed ita demum apud me venerabilis est senectus, si ab honestis progressa primordiis gloriosum habet aliquid preter rugas.

Nothing could be more false than this falsehood. No one is more reverent of senescence than I, no one who sets that part of age at a higher value, who embraces it with a more even mind—if it is already present, if it is approaching, let him await it. But old age is venerable with me only thus: if, having progressed from honorable beginnings, it has something glorious besides wrinkles.

In libroSapientie, siqua tibi talium cura esset, hanc sententiam invenisses: "Senectus" inquit "venerabilis est". Tecum sentiebat, nisi addidisset: "non diuturna neque numero annorum computata". Ecce, iam desentire incipit. Quid ergo? "Cani sunt autem" inquit "sensus hominis, et etas senectutis vita immaculata". Cato ille senex famosissimus, qui etatis huius apud Tullium patronus ac laudator inducitur, dum senectutem operosam semperque aliquid agentem dixisset, addidit: "Tale scilicet quale cuiusque studium in superiore vita fuit". Et iterum: "In omni oratione" inquit "mementote me eam senectutem laudare que fundamentis adolescentie constituta sit". Si hunc, philosophe, reprehendis, et me reprehende; secum enim sentio, nec contrarium dixi.

In the bookWisdom, if you had any care of such things, you would have found this sentence: "Old age," he says, "is venerable." He felt with you, unless he had added: "not long-continued nor computed by the number of years." Behold, now he begins to dissent. What then? "But the hoary hairs," he says, "are the senses of a man, and the age of old age is an immaculate life." That most famous old man Cato, who is introduced by Tully as the patron and praiser of this age, when he had said that old age is industrious and always doing something, added: "Such, to wit, as was each one’s pursuit in his earlier life." And again: "In the whole speech," he says, "remember that I praise that old age which has been established upon the foundations of adolescence." If you, philosopher, criticize him, criticize me too; for I am of the same mind with him, nor have I said the contrary.

Prorsus mutare scripta mea non potes, quippe nec ego ipse qui condidi; postquam in publicum exierunt, mei iuris esse desierunt. Quid igitur dixi? "Delirare sepius solent senes". Hinc calumnie radix.

You cannot altogether change my writings, since not even I myself who composed them can; after they have gone out into the public, they have ceased to be under my jurisdiction. What then did I say? "Old men are wont more often to be delirious." Hence the root of the calumny.

Sed procede; noli subsistere; lege quod sequitur: "Non quidem omnes, sed quorum iuvenilis etas vilibus curis et obsceno artificio acta est". Id forte verbo tu verum negas, facto autem probas esse verissimum. Itaque deum testor me nichil aliud quam te unum, dum id scriberem, cogitasse. Qualis enim senex esse poterit qui mentiendo, blandiendo, fallendoque consenuit?

But proceed; do not subsist; read what follows: "Not indeed all, but those whose juvenile age was spent in vile cares and in obscene artifice." That perhaps in word you deny to be true, but in deed you prove to be most true. And so I call God to witness that I thought of nothing other than you alone while I was writing that. For what sort of old man can he be who has grown old in lying, flattering, and deceiving?

Stultorum senum ingens copia est. Scis quare: quia sapientum iuvenum immensa penuria; qui autem inter vitia senuerunt, quo ad metam propius accedunt, eo magis insaniunt. Hos ego sepius delirantes dixi, nec mirum si ex his in quibus usque in finem vivitur senectus, ultima vite pars, plus impressionis accipit quam relique, et si densiores in imum sordes suo more descendunt.

There is an enormous abundance of foolish old men. You know why: because there is an immense penury of wise young men; but those who have grown old among vices, the nearer they approach the goal, the more they go insane. These I have more often called raving, and it is no wonder if, among those in whom old age is lived right up to the end, the last part of life receives more impression than the rest, and if the thicker dregs, in their wonted way, sink to the bottom.

Propter eandem causam, qui in virtute per omnem vitam delectati sunt, in senectute mirabiles retroacti temporis fructus legunt; et tum maxime felices sunt, dum esse desinunt, ut incipiant esse perenniter. Hos autem constat esse rarissimos, horumque est illa quam dicis venerabilem senectutem. Reliqui vero, qui medium locum tenent, ut plus minus ve in hanc aut in illam partem inclinati vixerunt, sic in senectute meliores aut peiores fiunt.

For the same cause, those who have taken delight in virtue through their whole life, in old age reap the marvelous fruits of time gone by; and then they are happiest, while they cease to be, so that they may begin to be perennially. But it is established that these are the very rarest, and theirs is that old age which you call venerable. The rest, however, who hold the middle place—inasmuch as they have lived inclined more or less to this side or that—thus in old age become better or worse.

Itaque mille varietates et morum infinita distantia, nec senum modo sed iuvenum, quorum omnium naturas bene, nisi fallor, et Aristotiles inRethoricis et in Arte Poetica descripsit Horatius. Hec michi nunc senum distinctio probatur, que si tibi non placet, scribe aliam, summe philosophorum, quam in marmoribus incidamus. Certe, ut ad stultos senes redeam, nunquam tu prima etate, quanquam semper temeritate notabili fueris, ausus fuisses garrire ista tam stolide, etsi in animo habuisses: solet enim adolescentie familiaris esse verecundia.

Therefore a thousand varieties and an infinite distance of manners, not of old men only but of youths as well, the natures of all of whom, unless I am mistaken, both Aristotle inRhetorics and Horace in the Art of Poetry described well. This distinction of old men now commends itself to me; if it does not please you, write another, O supreme of philosophers, which we may engrave in marbles. Certainly, to return to foolish old men, never in your first age, although you have always been of notable temerity, would you have dared to prattle these things so foolishly, even if you had had them in mind: for modesty is wont to be familiar to adolescence.

Crede igitur michi, nil stulto turpique sene molestius, cui et stultitia puerilis superest et senilis accessisse videtur autoritas.

Believe me, therefore, nothing is more troublesome than a stupid and base old man, to whom both a puerile stupidity remains, and a senile authority seems to have been added.

Sed ego iam hinc ordinem tuum amplius non sequar, quippe qui nullo modo michi videor ordinatius dicturus, quam si longissime discesserim ab ordine libri illius quem michi serio, ut asseris, remisisti, ut aperte conicerem qualis tibi repentinus ac tumultuarius stilus esset si lucubratus ac serius talis est. Pessimum quidem in primis hominum genus, summoque studio declinandum, quibus est stultitie mixta calliditas. Quia vero cum huiuscemodi adversario michi negotium sciebam, satis, ut puto, nequam tibi iustam mordendi materiam loquendo tribuerem, circumspexi.

But from this point I will no longer follow your order, since I by no means seem to myself likely to speak more orderly than if I were to depart as far as possible from the order of that book which you, as you assert, remitted to me in earnest, so that I might openly conjecture what your sudden and tumultuary style would be, if the lucubrated and more serious is such. The worst, indeed, among the foremost kinds of men, and to be shunned with the highest zeal, are those in whom cleverness is mixed with stupidity. And since I knew I had business with an adversary of this sort, I was, as I think, sufficiently circumspect, lest by speaking I should furnish you, you good-for-nothing, with just material for biting.

Crebro igitur dixi non me medicine detrahere—sed tibi loquor improprie: nichilo detrahi nichil potest; sed intelligitur quid velim —: protestationem humilem ac veram, superbe mendax, reicis; credo non aliam ob causam nisi ut indignitate ipsa exacuas et irrites ad dicendum quod dixisse nolim. Nunquam tamen efficies ut odio turpium pulcra condemnem; quinetiam medicinam ipsam michi feceris cariorem, quod tu eam dehonestas ac polluis. Scio, ut dixi, non inutile artificium, auxilioque caduci corporis inventum.

Frequently, therefore, I have said that I do not detract from medicine—but I speak improperly to you: from nothing nothing can be detracted; but it is understood what I mean —: you, proudly mendacious, reject a humble and true protestation; I believe for no other reason except that by the indignity itself you whet and provoke me to say what I would not wish to have said. Never, however, will you bring it about that, out of hatred for the base, I condemn the fair; nay rather you will have made medicine itself dearer to me, because you dishonor and pollute it. I know, as I said, that it is not a useless art, and that it was invented as a help for the caducous body.

Quid hoc prohibet, illudque simul verum esse te cum tuis falso illam violare cognomine? Sophista ridicule, equitator arguitur, equum laudas: extra propositum versaris. Sed nullum excipio?

What does this forbid, and that at the same time to be true: that you, together with your own, violate her with a false cognomen? Ridiculous sophist, the rider is arraigned, you praise the horse: you are turning aside outside the proposition. But do I make no exception?

imo aliquos. "Et quos?" inquies. Ad tribunal pretoris urbani res agatur: quis me ad hoc coget respondere, si nolim?

nay, some. "And whom?" you will say. Let the matter be conducted before the tribunal of the urban praetor: who will compel me to answer to this, if I am unwilling?

Non est nunc aliis gratificandi locus: tecum michi res est. Novi mores tuos, quos si tu eque nosses, odio tibi esses. Si scribam quod sentio, compatriotis aut amicis meis me blanditum dices; nichil est enim quod non simile sibi fingat vilis ac venalis animus: qualem se novit, tales alios opinatur, qua nulla inter homines cecitas maior.

There is no place now for gratifying others: my business is with you. I know your manners, which, if you knew them equally, you would be odious to yourself. If I write what I feel, you will say that I have fawned upon my compatriots or my friends; for there is nothing that a vile and venal spirit does not imagine to be like itself: such as it knows itself, such it opines others to be, than which there is no greater blindness among men.

Mensura vestra fatui cunta metimini: nec gigantem nanus edificans nec formica cogitat elephantem. Aliquot, ni fallor, medicos veros novi, et ingenio et ea que in omnium artium arte ponenda est discretione pollentes, quibus, ut arbitror, eo molestior es quo te pressius intuentur, et professionem suam tua non ambigunt ignorantia deformari. Esto autem: nullos norim medicos, nullos exceperim; quid vetat esse aliquos ignotos michi, presertim studiis longe aliis vacanti, et sanitatem corporis debenti non medicis, sed nature?

By your fatuous measure you measure all things: nor does a dwarf, when building, conceive a giant, nor does an ant imagine an elephant. Several, unless I am mistaken, true physicians I have known, excelling both in native talent and in that discernment which is to be placed in the art of all arts; to whom, as I judge, you are the more vexatious the more closely they look at you, and they do not doubt that their profession is deformed by your ignorance. But grant this: that I know no physicians, that I have made no exceptions; what forbids that there be some unknown to me, especially I who am free for studies far other, and who owe the health of my body not to physicians, but to nature?

Utcunque se res habeat, nichil ego aut adversus medicinam, aut adversus ministrum eius locutus inveniar, licet—ut soleo—cuiuslibet artificii corruptores lingua forsan liberiore percusserim, quorum in turba te latitantem et incognitum vulneravi. Parce, oro, philosophe: non te, sed ignorantiam persequebar; eamque non omnem. Calcanda est enim ignorantia superborum, humilium sublevanda.

However the matter stands, I may be found to have spoken nothing either against medicine or against its minister, although—as I am wont—I perhaps struck with a somewhat freer tongue the corruptors of any craft, and in their crowd I wounded you, lurking and unknown. Spare me, I beg, philosopher: not you, but ignorance I was persecuting; and not all of it. For the ignorance of the proud is to be trampled, that of the humble to be lifted up.

Si in hac insectatione publica singulariter es lesus, veniam merui, quia ignorans feci. Gaudes nunc, superbe, quasi affusus supplicem. Rideo potius ineptias tuas: ignorantium infamiam ad te trahis, cum tibi doctissimus videaris.

If in this public invective you are singularly wounded, I have merited pardon, because I did it in ignorance. You rejoice now, proud man, as if poured out as a suppliant. I rather laugh at your ineptitudes: you draw to yourself the infamy of the ignorant, while you seem to yourself most learned.

Imo vero ignorantie tibi conscius extreme, quicquid ignorantibus obicitur tibi merito dictum putas et quod dissimulando fieri poterat alienum, impatientia tuum facis. Quid vero si paucos medicos, quid si paucissimos dicam? Non hoc ad artis infamiam, sed ad gloriam spectat.

Nay indeed, being conscious to yourself of extreme ignorance, you think that whatever is objected to the ignorant is said deservedly to you, and what could by dissembling have been made alien, you make your own by impatience. But what if I say few physicians—what if I say the very fewest? This looks not to the infamy of the art, but to its glory.

Nonne debuerat generosus animus, difficultate non territus sed accensus, ad ipsum nomen gloriose paucitatis assurgere, seque in partem rare laudis accitum credere? Sed certe id non omnibus datum est, et paucissimorum prorsus ingeniorum ea raritas est amica. Quam ob rem ubi nobilis exultasset spiritus, plebeius ingemuit.

Should not a noble spirit, not terrified by difficulty but enkindled, rise up to the very name of glorious paucity, and believe himself summoned into a share of rare praise? But surely that is not given to all, and that rarity is friendly to the minds of the very few indeed. Wherefore, where a noble spirit would have exulted, a plebeian groaned.

Cur? queso. An et hic fallor?

Why? I beg you. Or am I even here mistaken?

An mentior? Profecto non solum hodie, sed semper raros ingeniosos, rarissimos sapientes fuisse nemo est qui dubitet, nisi qui nunquam oculos vel in etatem suam intenderit, vel ad antiqua reflexerit. Stulte—nolo enim qui sis excidat—stulte, inquam, et insane, vix ulla unquam etas vel ingeniorum vel virtutum fuit egentior quam nostra, sive id culpis hominum accidit, sive fato—si tamen eo nomine uti licet, et non rectius Dei voluntas seu providentia dici debet in sermone catholico—sive denique, quod tu fabulam putas, mundus, iam senescens et ad extremum vergens, more senescentis hominis piger ac frigidus, in sua operatione lentescit.

Am I lying? Indeed, not only today, but always, the ingenious have been rare, the wise most rare—no one doubts this, except one who has never turned his eyes either upon his own age or back to antiquity. Fool—for I do not wish who you are to slip from mind—fool, I say, and insane, scarcely has any age ever been more indigent either of talents or of virtues than ours, whether this has happened through the faults of men, or through fate—if, however, it is permitted to use that name, and not more rightly it ought to be called the will or providence of God in Catholic discourse—or finally, what you think a fable, that the world, now growing old and verging toward the end, after the manner of an aging man, sluggish and cold, grows sluggish in its operation.

Et tamen hac ipsa etate nulla ingeniorum penuria prestabit, ut tuo ingenio locus fiat. Frustra te contentionibus implicas, frustra te ingeris duello non tuo, quasi aut ego—quod nunquam cogitavi medicinam verbis aggrediar, aut ipsa non a quolibet opprimi malit, quam a te defendi, qui eam et exercendo violas, et opprimis defendendo. Incassum ergo niteris: nullus usquam fame tue locus est.

And yet, in this very age, no scarcity of talents will suffice to provide that there be room for your talent. In vain you entangle yourself in contentions, in vain you thrust yourself into a duel not yours, as though either I—which I have never conceived—would assault medicine with words, or she herself would not rather be oppressed by anyone whatsoever than be defended by you, you who both violate her by practicing and oppress her by defending. To no purpose, therefore, you strive: there is nowhere any place for your fame.

Nemo te clamoribus tuis noscet, nisi quos, elusos verbis inanibus aut peregrinis medicaminibus infectos, tui memores in perpetuum effecisti.

No one will recognize you by your clamors, except those whom, deluded by inane words or infected with foreign medicaments, you have made mindful of you in perpetuity.

Duo hic, antequam ad maiores illos tue criminationis insultus venio, leviter exufflanda sunt, que dixisse me fingis an somnias: nonnunquam contra verum medicos certare, eosque non semper curare. Utrunque enim magnis sudoribus excusas. Sed ubi, precor, id dixi?

Two things here, before I come to those greater assaults of your crimination, must be lightly blown away, which you pretend that I have said—or are you dreaming them: that physicians sometimes contend against the truth, and that they do not always cure. For you excuse both with great sweats. But where, I pray, did I say that?

Excute epystolam meam, quod—puto—propter veritatis odium graviter facis. Certe ego, illam relegens, horum nichil invenio. Et de medicis quidem alias, de te michi nunc sermo est, hostis Ypocratis, pestis egrorum, dedecus medicorum, de te michi nunc sermo est.

Shake out my epistle, which—I think—you handle harshly on account of a hatred of truth. Certainly I, rereading it, find none of these things. And as for physicians, indeed, that is for another time; my discourse now is about you, enemy of Hippocrates, plague of the sick, disgrace of physicians—my discourse now is about you.

Dico igitur, si non dixi, non te contra veritatem interdum de industria vel iocandi experiendique studio certare, in quo stultissime gloriaris, sed sola semper ingenii cecitate; neque te interdum non curare, quod cupide profers quasi clipeum inscitie pestilentis, sed passim sanos in morbum, egros in mortem agere. Hoc dico. Ad hoc michi respondeas velim, hoc rethorice, serve tue, patrocinio excuses.

I say therefore, if I have not said it, that you do not at times contend against truth on purpose or from a zeal for joking and experimenting—in which you most foolishly glory—but solely and always from the blindness of your wit; nor that you sometimes do not treat, which you greedily proffer as a shield of pestilent ignorance, but that you everywhere drive the hale into sickness, the sick into death. This I say. To this I would have you respond; this defend rhetorically—slave, you—excuse it by patronage.

Si enim negas, contentione dimissa populum testem voco. Nota quippe negantibus, ut veritas ingerenda, sic subtrahenda est verbose altercationis occasio. Scio quid nunc cogitas: popellus infelix, et consilii semper inops, frustra tot malis admonitus ad te redit.

If indeed you deny it, with contention dismissed I call the people as witness. Indeed, for those denying, just as truth is to be thrust in, so the occasion of verbose altercation is to be withdrawn. I know what you are now thinking: the wretched populace, and ever destitute of counsel, admonished in vain by so many evils, returns to you.

Quem igitur ignorantie tue in testimonium adduco? Nempe non alium, neque sententiam muto: utrunque verum est. Inscitiam tuam populus novit expertus; idem a te poscit auxilium.

Whom, then, do I bring forward as a witness of your ignorance? Surely no other, nor do I change my opinion: both are true. The people have come to know your ignorance by experience; the same demand aid from you.

Gaude, stulte insolens: iam non medicus tantum, sed Deo simillimus evasisti. De quo scriptum est in Psalmo: "Cum occideret eos, querebant eum". Ille quidem suscitare poterat; et tu potes, ut dicis. Quid enim sonat aliud quod inter inanes ridiculasque iactantias effudisti: "vestra sepe opera homines velut a mortuis suscitatos"? Quantum abfuit quin te deum faceres?

Rejoice, insolent fool: now you have become not only a physician, but most like unto God. Of whom it is written in the Psalm: "When he slew them, they sought him." He indeed could resuscitate; and you can, as you say. For what else does that sound like which, amid inane and ridiculous vauntings, you poured forth: "by your works men have often been as if resuscitated from the dead"? How little was lacking before you made yourself a god?

Sed expecta: ego te ante huius ludi finem in concilio deorum ponam et divinitate tua dignum, si potero, nomen inveniam. Nunc propositum sequor. Impune occidis, ergo, cum suscites.

But wait: before the end of this game I will place you in the council of the gods and, if I can, I will find a name worthy of your divinity. Now I follow my proposition. You kill with impunity, then, since you resuscitate.

Sed omissis prophanis et fine carentibus nugis tuis, cur hoc populus faciat, si me roges: facit hoc prudenter ut reliqua. Sapientis est verbum: "Stultorum infinitus est numerus". Eorum vero que a talibus fiunt, frustra ratio inquiritur. Si penitus causam petis, illa vera est quam affert amicus medicorum, Plinius—quem tu spernis ignotum—et quam ego olim posui in epystola illa ad Clementem papam unde tota ista lis oritur.

But with your profane and endless trifles set aside, if you ask me why the people do this: they do this prudently, as they do the rest. It is a word of the wise: “The number of fools is infinite.” But as for the things that are done by such men, a rationale is sought in vain. If you seek the cause to the very depths, it is that true one which the friend of physicians, Pliny—whom you spurn as unknown—alleges, and which I once set forth in that epistle to Pope Clement whence this whole controversy arises.

"In hac" enim ait "sola artium evenire, ut unicuique se medicum profitenti statim credatur, cum sit periculum in nullo mendacio maius". Mox ex persona populi loquens: "Non tamen" inquit "illud intuemur, adeo blanda est sperandi pro se cuique dulcedo". Hec est causa que te populo, quem interimis, forte commendat, notissimosque defectus tuos cogit interim oblivisci, dum ab ardenter optantibus inconsulteque sperantibus salus queritur, ubi mors est. Tanta est spei humane pertinacia, sic in animis miserorum regnat oblivio, qua fretus multos ante diem in Tartarum premisisti, qui si redeant illi veram de te potuerint ferre sententiam! Sed inde quidem tutus es: irremeabilis est regio.

"In this," he says, "alone of the arts it happens that to anyone professing himself a physician belief is forthwith given, since in no mendacity is the danger greater." Soon, speaking in the person of the people: "Yet," he says, "we do not regard that, so alluring is the sweetness of hoping for oneself to each." This is the cause which perhaps commends you to the people whom you are putting to death, and compels them meanwhile to forget your most well-known defects, while by those ardently desiring and incautiously hoping, salvation is sought where death is. So great is the pertinacity of human hope, so does oblivion reign in the minds of the wretched, relying on which you have sent many before their day down to Tartarus, who, if they should return, would be able to bring a true judgment about you! But from there indeed you are safe: it is an irremeable region.

Nolo tamen speres latere superstites: notus es publice et, puto, doctos frustra tentabis; ceterorum strages minime flenda est. Quod si forte doctos aliquot turbe miscueris, et idcirco dicas illos a mortuis suscitatos, quoniam, ut ait Cicero, hec nostra "que dicitur vita mors est", et quia huius vite finis melioris vite principium est bonis, plane verus esto, me plaudente, philosophus. Sed absit ut tale aliquid cogitare valeas aut loqui.

I do not, however, want you to hope to lie hidden from the survivors: you are known publicly and, I think, you will try the learned in vain; the slaughter of the rest is by no means to be wept. But if by chance you should mix some learned men into the crowd, and therefore you say that they have been resuscitated from the dead, since, as Cicero says, this of ours "which is called life is death", and because the end of this life is for good men the beginning of a better life, be plainly true, I applauding, philosopher. But far be it that you should be able to think or to speak anything of the sort.

Illud itaque verius: omnes qui evadunt tribuis tibi, omnes qui pereunt nature, ut semper habeas unde glorieris et gaudeas; miseris autem tuis nunquam desit unde tristentur et lugeant.

That, therefore, is truer: you credit to yourself all who escape, you credit to nature all who perish, so that you may always have something whereof to glory and to rejoice; while for your wretched ones there is never wanting something over which to be saddened and to mourn.

Quid nunc dicam ad reliqua? Multas tremulas sententias in me vibras, multa levium verborum tela contorques. Quis non metuat cum tanto hoste concurrere?

What now shall I say to the rest? You brandish many quivering sentences against me, you hurl many missiles of light words. Who would not fear to clash with so great an enemy?

Nichil, scito, nisi verborum tuorum fetores metuo. Si tibi improprie locutus videor, quod verborum dixerim fetores, Cesari parces Augusto quem sic loqui solitum scimus. Dicis in primis me logica carere.

Know this: I fear nothing except the stenches of your words. If I seem to you to have spoken improperly, because I said “stenches of words,” you will spare Caesar Augustus, whom we know to have been accustomed to speak thus. You say, first of all, that I lack logic.

Non credo michi rethoricam aut grammaticam interdicas, que logice nomine continetur, quamvis et id iure tuo posses, summum totius specimen barbarismi, sed eam solam, in qua te longe precellere sillogismi tui ostendunt, michi subtrahis dyaleticam, quam logicam vocas. "En crimen o iudices!". Quod si fateri libeat, possim illustres philosophos proferre hanc ipsam qua carere arguor dyaleticam irridentes, eademque possim apud Ciceronem ostendere clarissimam philosophorum sectam, veteres perypatheticos, caruisse. Sed, o stulte, non hac careo: verum scio quid ei, quid ceteris liberalibus artibus dandum sit; didici a philosophis nullam earum valde suspicere.

I do not believe you forbid me Rhetoric or Grammar, which you include under the name “Logic,” although you could do even that by your right, being the highest specimen of total Barbarism; but that one thing alone, in which your syllogism shows you to excel by far, you withdraw from me—Dialectic, which you call Logic. “Behold the crime, O judges!” And if it should please me to confess, I could bring forward illustrious philosophers deriding this very Dialectic which I am charged with lacking, and likewise I could show in Cicero that the most renowned sect of the philosophers, the ancient Peripatetics, did without it. But, O fool, I do not lack this: rather, I know what is to be granted to it, and what to the other Liberal Arts; I have learned from the philosophers to look up to none of them very much.

Equidem, ut eas didicisse laudabile, sic in eisdem senescere puerile est. Via sunt nempe, non terminus, nisi errantibus ac vagis quibus nullus est vite portus. Tibi nobiliorem terminum non habenti, terminus est quicquid occurrit.

Indeed, just as to have learned them is laudable, so to grow old in the same is puerile. They are a way, to wit, not a terminus, except for the errant and the vagrant, for whom there is no harbor of life. For you, not having a nobler terminus, whatever occurs is a terminus.

In summo te felicitatis gradu situm reris, quotiens unum forte fragilem sillogismum, et nichil ex nichilo concludentem, multa cerebri vertigine tota insomni nocte texueris. Tunc in corde tuo dicis, insipiens: "Non est Deus, neque est altius aspirandum. Quid enim scimus?

You deem yourself situated on the highest grade of felicity, whenever by chance a single fragile syllogism, concluding nothing from nothing, you have woven with much vertigo of the brain through an entire sleepless night. Then in your heart you say, fool: "There is no God, nor is there anything higher to be aspired to. For what do we know?"

Plato et Aristotiles, magni viri, de mundo de anima de ydeis litigant; Democritus innumerabiles mundos facit; Epycurus deum nullum et mortalem animam; hanc Pithagoras in girum ducit; sunt qui eam contrahant ad suum corpus, sunt qui eam spargant in corporibus animantum, sunt qui celo reddant, sunt qui circa terras exulare cogant, sunt qui inferos asserant, sunt qui negent, sunt qui unamquanque per se, sunt qui simul omnes animas creatas putent; fuit et qui mirabilius quiddam dicere auderet, siquidem unitatem intellectus attulit dux noster Averrois". Hec tecum dicis, si tamen nosti hec. Et addis: "Quis inter ista discernat? Quid michi autem nescio quis Cristus comminatur, quem ipse Averrois diffamavit impune, quod nemo unquam poetarum fecit, imo vero nemo mortalium?". Multa quidem a multis et scribuntur et scripta sunt nec ullus erit finis.

Plato and Aristotle, great men, litigate about the world, about the soul, about the Ideas; Democritus makes innumerable worlds; Epicurus [says] no god and a mortal soul; this one Pythagoras leads in a circuit; there are those who contract it to their own body, there are those who scatter it among the bodies of living beings, there are those who give it back to heaven, there are those who compel it to exile around the lands, there are those who assert the underworld, there are those who deny it, there are those who [hold] each one by itself, there are those who think all souls were created at the same time; and there was one who would dare to say something more wondrous, since our leader Averroes brought forward the unity of the intellect." These things you say with yourself, if indeed you know these. And you add: "Who can discern among these? What does some I-know-not-who Christ threaten me with, whom Averroes himself defamed with impunity, a thing which none ever of the poets did, nay indeed no mortal?" Many things indeed by many both are being written and have been written, nor will there be any end.

Scribendi enim, ut quibusdam placet, insanabilis egritudo est, et velut animi febris quedam ossibus insidens; atqui nemo unquam, vel ante vel multo minus post temporalem Cristi originem, de Cristo nisi summa cum reverentia loqui seu scribere aliquid ausus est; eorum quoque qui hereses et contraria dogmata peperere, non ipse tantorum princeps hostium, Maometus deterrente, scilicet omnium linguas ac calamos nominis maiestate. Itaque quidam Deum sed non hominem, alii hominem sed non Deum, et hominem quidem perfectissimum, ineffabilem, incomparabilem, virgineo natum partu. Qui minus illi tribuunt, prophetam dicunt, preter hunc unum canem, qui non ad lunam, ut vulgo dicitur, sed rabido ac spumanti ore, contra ipsum solem iustitie latrat, summam libertatem et eximium ratus ingenium, si in illud sacratissimum atque adorandum regibus ac gentibus nomen audeat quod nulla prorsus impietas, nulla unquam temeritas ausa est.

For writing, as it pleases some, is an incurable sickness, and as it were a certain fever of the mind settling in the bones; and yet no one ever, either before or much less after the temporal origin of Christ, dared to speak or to write anything about Christ except with the highest reverence; even of those who begot heresies and contrary dogmas—not even the very prince of so great enemies, Muhammad—the majesty of the Name deterring, namely, all tongues and pens. And so some [said he was] God but not man, others [said he was] man but not God—and indeed a most perfect man, ineffable, incomparable, born by a virginal birth. Those who ascribe less to him call him a prophet, except this one dog, who barks not at the moon, as is commonly said, but with rabid and foaming mouth against the very sun of justice, deeming it highest liberty and exceptional genius if he should dare against that most sacred Name, to be adored by kings and nations, what no impiety at all, no rashness ever has dared.

Hunc vos colitis, hunc amatis, hunc sectamini, non aliam ob causam nisi quia Cristum, veritatem vivam, adversamini atque odistis. Et quoniam blasphemare quem mundus adorat publice non audetis, hostem eius sacrilegum ac blasphemum paulominus adoratis. Livoris ac malivolentie mos inertis, ut cui detrahere metuas, detrahentibus plaudas.

This one you worship, this one you love, this one you follow, for no other cause except that you oppose and hate Christ, the living truth. And since you do not dare publicly to blaspheme him whom the world adores, you almost worship his sacrilegious and blasphemous enemy. It is the habit of livid envy and malevolence, of the inert/cowardly, that the one from whom you fear to detract, you applaud the detractors.

Hec hactenus; nec ignoro graviter te laturum, quod tuo detraham semideo. Fer autem equo animo: Deo ille meo detrahit; non suo—fateor—nec tuo, sed meo, et omnium quos alterius vite spes et amor tuto tramite dirigit ad felicem metam. At tu, miser, erroneus post ydolum tuum confragosis anfractibus delectare, venturus ad finem impietati debitum, ad quem tuus venit Averrois.

Thus far these things; nor am I unaware that you will bear it grievously, that I detract from your demigod. But bear it with an even spirit: he detracts from my God; not his own—I admit—nor yours, but mine, and of all those whom the hope and love of the other life guides by a safe path to a happy goal. But you, wretch, erring, go on taking delight in pursuing your idol along craggy anfractuous windings, destined to come to the end owed to impiety, to which your Averroes has come.

Interim illi fide, et innitere, et—quod omnes soletis—dicito: "Quis resistet illi ingenio? Quis nudam veritatem teget inter tot armata mendacia? Quid autem tanto viro catholici simplices respondebunt, qui, si ad contentionem ventum fuerit, sillogismorum cumulis obruentur?

Meanwhile, have faith in him, and lean upon him, and—what you all are accustomed to—say: "Who will resist that genius? Who will veil naked truth amid so many armed lies? And what will simple Catholics answer to so great a man, who, if it shall have come to contention, will be overwhelmed by piles of syllogisms?

Ecce ego, qui nudiustertius nichil eram, iam magnus esse incipio: iam sillogismos facio, iam dyaletica mea est. Ad quid aliud natus eram? Habeo quod petebam: iam disputare non vereor, collocutoremque meum, si libet, asinum probo". Crede autem michi: multo facilius te ipsum.

Behold I, who the day before yesterday was nothing, now begin to be great: now I make syllogisms, now dialectic is mine. For what else was I born? I have what I was seeking: now I do not fear to dispute, and I prove my interlocutor, if it pleases, to be an ass." But believe me: far more easily yourself.

Inter hec ergo, male nate homuncio, senuisti, nec pudet vivere nichil in vita aliud agentem. Discite, miseri, non spernere Cristum: sepe ille vobis quis esset et quid posset ostendit. O infelix!

Amid these things, then, ill-born homunculus, you have grown old, nor are you ashamed to live, doing nothing else in life. Learn, wretches, not to spurn Christ: often he has shown you who he was and what he could do. O unhappy one!

Vilem tibi metam, dyaleticam, statuisti, ad quam tamen mira viatoris insania, cum nunquam propinquaveris, pervenisse te putas. Sed perveneris, sed a tergo liqueris Crisippum. Quid inde tibi nisi miserum pudendumque?

You have set up for yourself a vile goal, dialectic, to which, however—by a marvelous insanity of the traveler—you think you have arrived, though you have never even approached. But grant you have arrived; grant you have left Chrysippus behind your back. What comes to you from that except something miserable and shameful?

Quid enim stultitia peius? Et que stultitia maior quam totos dies inter puerilia volutari senem; dumque sero domum redeas, nichil scire; atque has ineptias non ante dimittere, quam tibi conclusiunculas meditanti raptim mors improvisa concluserit? Illam certe premeditari, contra illam armari, ad illius contemptum ac patientiam componi, illi si res exigat occurrere, et pro eterna vita, pro felicitate, pro gloria brevem hanc miseramque vitam alto animo pacisci, ea demum vera philosophia est, quam quidam nichil aliud nisi cogitationem mortis esse dixerunt.

For what is worse than stupidity? And what stupidity is greater than for an old man to wallow whole days among puerile things; and though you return home late, to know nothing; and not to dismiss these inanities before unexpected death has swiftly closed up your little conclusions while you are meditating them? To premeditate that, surely; to arm oneself against it; to be composed for contempt of it and for patience; to encounter it, if the matter require; and, for eternal life, for felicity, for glory, to bargain with a high spirit to part with this brief and wretched life—this at last is true philosophy, which some have said is nothing else than a meditation on death.

Que philosophie descriptio, quamvis a paganis inventa, cristianorum tamen est propria, quibus et huius vite contemptus et spes eterne et dissolutionis desiderium esse debet. Que si tu, qui te tumido vocas ore philosophum vel semel in etate tam longa, senex delirantissime, cogitasses nunquam aut te philosophum, dicere ausus esses, aut ibi gressum vite figeres ubi nunc figis, aut artificium tuum quod verbis attollis, rebus opprimens, te ipsum parva pecunia tam turpiter venditares. Philosophi enim, si nescis, pecunias spernunt: philosophiam venalem facere non potes.

Which description of philosophy, although invented by pagans, is nevertheless the proper possession of Christians, for whom both contempt of this life and hope of the eternal and a desire for dissolution ought to be. Which, if you—who with puffed-up mouth call yourself a philosopher—had even once, in so long an age, most delirious old man, reflected upon, you would never either have dared to call yourself a philosopher, or fix the step of your life where you now fix it, or—crushing by deeds the craft which you exalt in words—have so shamefully sold yourself for a small sum of money. For philosophers, if you do not know, spurn monies: you cannot make philosophy venal.

Quis enim vendit quod non habet? Si eam haberes, non tu illam ideo venalem faceres, sed illa te venalem esse non sineret. Nunc nec ipsa te honestat, nec tu eam, sed nomen eius turpi avaritia dehonestas.

For who sells what he does not have? If you possessed it, you would not therefore make it venal, but it would not allow you to be venal. As it is, neither does it honor you, nor do you honor it, but you dishonor its name by base avarice.

Audis me, sophista ventose—parce, queso, logice nobilis, parce, si te sophistam voco: res ipsa me cogit; ubi enim res video, verbis contrariis fidem non habeo —: cornutum michi enthimema perducito; admove ad eculeum: cogere poteris fortassis ut fatear; ut assentiar, nunquam coges: quomodo ego te philosophum credam cum mercennarium mechanicum sciam? Repeto libenter hoc nomen, quia novi quod nullo magis ureris convitio; non casu, sed sciens sepe te mechanicum voco, et, quo gravius doleas, non primum. Percontare qui mechanica literis mandaverunt: ab illis digito tibi monstrabitur locus tuus.

You hear me, windy sophist—spare me, I beg, noble logician, spare me, if I call you a sophist: the matter itself compels me; for where I see the facts, I do not put trust in words to the contrary—: lead me through a horned enthymeme; set me to the rack: you may perhaps be able to force me to confess; to assent, you will never force: how am I to believe you a philosopher when I know you to be a mercenary mechanic? I gladly repeat this name, because I know that by no insult are you more scorched; not by chance, but knowingly I often call you mechanic, and, that you may grieve more grievously, not for the first time. Inquire of those who have committed mechanics to letters: by them your place will be pointed out to you with a finger.

Tu tamen respuis, et philosophus vis videri; quod ut assequaris—ludus risu comico prosequendus—non semel methodi vocabulo usus es. O callidum ingenium! Ad optatum compendio pervenisti: iam philosophum te alii forte dicent; ego enim non si singulas lineas methodis multis infarcias, philosophum te putabo. Inest quidem, fateor, sepe etiam stultorum animis glorie quedam preceps et inconsulta cupiditas: hanc tibi detrahere non possum.

You, however, spit it out, and wish to seem a philosopher; which, that you may attain— a sport to be pursued with comic laughter— you have more than once employed the term “method.” O cunning ingenium! By a shortcut you have reached what you desired: now others perhaps will call you a philosopher; but I, not even if you stuff each single line with many methods, will think you a philosopher. There is indeed, I confess, often even in the minds of fools a certain precipitous and ill-considered cupidity of glory: this I cannot take away from you.

Est enim voluntas indomita precipueque dementium. Id scito certissime: nec esse te philosophum, nec videri. Proinde omnium sophismatum et totius logice auxilium implora: michi prius upupam quam philosophum te probabis.

For the will is untamed, and especially that of the demented. Know this most certainly: that you are not a philosopher, nor do you even seem one. Therefore implore the aid of all sophisms and of all logic: you will prove yourself to me a hoopoe sooner than a philosopher.

Miraris, indocte, et "Quid michi" inquis "atque upupe simile est?". Nil profecto similius. Volucris galeata est, cristatique verticis, et que pueris aliquid videatur; re autem vera impurissima est avis, victusque fedissimi. Nolo aliquid obscenum loqui, non quidem propter te, qui non horres earum rerum mentionem quarum odoribus delectaris, sed propter eos qui legent ista vel audient.

You marvel, untaught one, and you say, "What is there similar to me and the hoopoe?" Nothing indeed more similar. It is a bird helmeted and of a crested crown, and one which seems something to boys; but in the reality it is a most impure bird, and of a most filthy diet. I do not wish to speak anything obscene, not indeed on account of you, who do not shudder at the mention of those things whose odors you take delight in, but on account of those who will read or hear these things.

Sciscitare aliquem qui naturas rerum noverit. dicet tibi avis illius cibos. Inde te moresque tuos inspice, teque ipsum noli faller—nulla enim pernitiosior, nulla capitalior fraus est, quam que proprium fallit auctorem —: videbis te eisdem quibus illam rebus ali.

Inquire of someone who knows the natures of things; he will tell you the foods of that bird. From that, inspect yourself and your morals, and do not deceive yourself—for no fraud is more pernicious, none more capital than that which deceives its own author—: you will see yourself nourished by the same things as that bird.

Oro iam, upupa: noli philosophari; citius philosophabitur asellus. Certe preclarus platonicus Apuleius, cuius supra memini, qui, accepto veneno, asinum factum se, ut ait Augustinus, "aut indicavit, aut finxit", in eo statu philosophatum se iocando commemorat; philosophantem upupam nulla habet historia. Eia, upupa, fac quod soles: rimare tumulos—cetera sileo —; philosophiam linque philosophis.

I beg now, hoopoe: do not philosophize; sooner will a little ass philosophize. Certainly the very illustrious Platonist Apuleius, whom I mentioned above, who, having taken poison, declared himself made into an ass, as Augustine says, "either indicated, or feigned", recounts in jest that in that state he philosophized; no history has a hoopoe philosophizing. Come now, hoopoe, do what you are wont: rummage the tombs—of the rest I am silent —; leave philosophy to philosophers.

Putabas te philosophum: fallebaris. Philosophus—quod ipsum nomen ostendit—sapientie amator: tu pecunie servus es. Sentis logice quam sint ista contraria: sine magno apparatu conclusum arbitror esse te aliud quam putabas.

You thought yourself a philosopher: you were mistaken. A philosopher—which the very name shows—is a lover of wisdom: you are a slave of money. You perceive, logically, how contrary these things are: without great apparatus I judge it concluded that you are other than you supposed.

Quid autem in somniis philosophando non audeas, qui colorem medici negando perstringere oculos, vel excusando rationem hebetare non sis veritus? In primis pallorem negas: ita nec oculi nobis sunt, nec speculum tibi. Deinde, si pallor sit, illum reipublice imputas; nec excusasse contentus, gloriari incipis, quasi philosophicum sit pallere.

But what would you not dare, by philosophizing in dreams, you who have not feared, by denying the physician’s color, to strike the eyes, or by excusing to dull reason? First of all you deny pallor: thus we have no eyes, nor you a mirror. Then, if there be pallor, you impute it to the republic; and not content with having excused it, you begin to boast, as though it were philosophical to be pale.

Quam dulce, Deus bone, verum philosophie nomen est doctis, cum falsum tibi tam dulce sit, ut inter multa ludicra te philosophice coloratum dicas! Certe pallorem amantibus magister amorum tribuit; unde est illud:

How sweet, good God, is the true name of philosophy to the learned, when the false is so sweet to you that, among many amusements, you declare yourself philosophically colored! Certainly the master of loves assigns pallor to lovers; whence is that line:

Palleat omnis amans: hic est color aptus amanti

Let every lover grow pale: this is the color apt for a lover

et illud alterius:

and that of another:

Tinctus viola pallor amantium.

The pallor of lovers, tinged with violet.

Sed vester longe alius pallor, et, ut statim audies, aliunde proveniens. Hunc pallorem non ego, non unus aliquis scriptorum veterum, sed res ipsa vobis tribuit, et omnium mortalium, et comune proverbium. Hunc tu negare vis, et quia non potes, ad philosophos transfers, quasi consorte vitium levaturus.

But your pallor is far different, and, as you will hear at once, proceeding from elsewhere. This pallor not I, not some single one of the ancient writers, but the thing itself assigns to you, and all mortals, and the common proverb. This you wish to deny, and because you cannot, you transfer it to the philosophers, as though, with a consort, you would lighten the vice.

At quia philosophorum princeps utriusque lingue preclara facie fuisse vulgatum est, non tamen hec magnifacio. Sed quecunque fuerit philosophorum facies, tu ne te rursum ingeris, impudentissime hominum, tu ne michi totiens philosophorum cetibus excludendus occurris? Respondebo igitur rursum tibi quod cuidam tui generis respondit facundissimus quidam vir: "Barbam" inquit "ac pallium"—addam ego, si libet, et egritudinem et pallorem—"video: philosophum non video". Elegans plane responsio.

But although it has been broadcast that the prince of the philosophers was of both tongues with a very distinguished face, yet I do not magnify these things. But whatever may have been the face of the philosophers, is it you who thrust yourself in again, most impudent of men? is it you who, to be so often excluded from the coteries of philosophers, present yourself to me? I will therefore answer you again what a most eloquent man answered to a certain fellow of your kind: "A beard," he said, "and a pallium"—I will add, if you please, even sickness and pallor—"I see: a philosopher I do not see." A plainly elegant response.

Quid enim ad philosophiam habitus corporis aut color? Habitus colorque—ut ita dicam—animi requiritur. Tu de philosopho preter opinionem tuam propriam ac ridiculam nichil habes.

What, indeed, have the habit of the body or color to do with philosophy? It is the habit and the color—so to speak—of the mind that is required. You have concerning the philosopher nothing beyond your own opinion, your own and ridiculous.

Non famam certe; non aspectum, quamvis palleas; non incessum: ille fatuum potius quam philosophum representat. Male tutus esses inter canes, si tam bene lepus aut cervus quam fatuus videreris. Postremo, eorum qui certius probant philosophum, nichil habes: non vitam, non animum, non mores, non ingenium, non linguam.

Certainly not fame; not aspect, although you grow pale; not gait: that presents a fool rather than a philosopher. You would be far from safe among dogs, if you looked as much like a hare or a stag as you look like a fool. Finally, of the things which more surely prove a philosopher, you have nothing: not life, not spirit, not morals, not ingenium, not language.

Vide quam nullo modo sim passurus ut philosophi nomen usurpando commacules. Persuasisti autem tibi, ut intelligo, prorsus te esse magnum aliquid. Bene est.

See how by no means am I going to allow you to stain by usurping the name of philosopher. You have, however, persuaded yourself, as I understand, that you are altogether something great. Well and good.

Satis est tibi quidem ut gaudeas, nobis ut rideamus. Sin etiam ut credamus vis efficere, facto est opus: philosophie pars nobilior in rebus est. Quando te contemptorem rerum caducarum videro, cultoremque virtutum, studiosum vere laudis, pecunie negligentem, inhiantem celestibus, a latrinis divitum exulantem, tunc credere potero quicquid voles.

It is enough for you indeed that you rejoice, for us that we laugh. But if you also wish to bring it about that we believe, a deed is needed: the nobler part of philosophy is in deeds. When I shall see you a contemner of perishable things, and a cultivator of virtues, studious of true praise, negligent of money, gaping after celestial things, banishing yourself from the latrines of the rich, then I shall be able to believe whatever you wish.

"Porro enim"—ut Platonem sequens ait Augustinus—"si sapientia Deus est per quem facta sunt omnia, sicut divina autoritas veritasque monstravit, verus philosophus est amator Dei". Tu igitur, amens vage, intra cubiculum tuum redi; ibi philosophum illum quere, quem tam temerarie profiteris: nusquam invenies. Verum ista celestis et tibi hactenus inaudita philosophia est. Agamus itaque iuxta vetus proverbium: "Pingui Minerva"; sic enim pingue tuum poscit ingenium.

"Moreover indeed"—as Augustine, following Plato, says—"if Wisdom is God through whom all things were made, as divine authority and truth have shown, the true philosopher is a lover of God." You then, you mad vagrant, return within your chamber; there seek that philosopher whom you so rashly profess: nowhere will you find him. But this is a celestial philosophy, and to you hitherto unheard of. Let us act then according to the old proverb: "With a fat Minerva"; for thus your fat genius demands.

Si comunia illa terrene philosophie aut siquid eorum prestiteris, dignus esto qui iuxta Platonem sedeas, Aristotilem doceas, Socratem celebres, cum Xenophonte contendas. Nunc vero inops omnium qui philosophum faciunt, qua fronte philosophicum nomen tibi, sive—ut cepto heream—venerandum nocturnisque contractum chartis philosophici oris arrogas pallorem? Tuus nempe diurnis pelvibus contractus et marcidus pallor est, quem si tibi vel amicitie affectus, vel pauperum miseratio, vel quam tu fingis reipublice caritas aspersisset, posset non modo non infamis, sed gloriosus etiam videri.

If you should have accomplished those commonplaces of terrestrial philosophy, or any of them, be worthy to sit beside Plato, to teach Aristotle, to celebrate Socrates, to contend with Xenophon. But as you are now, destitute of all the things that make a philosopher, with what face do you arrogate to yourself the philosophical name, or—to stick with my begun conceit—the venerable pallor of a philosophical countenance, contracted by nocturnal sheets? Yours, to be sure, is a pallor contracted and withered by daytime basins, which, if either the affection of friendship, or compassion for the poor, or that love of the commonwealth which you feign had sprinkled upon you, might seem not only not ignominious, but even glorious.

Nunc modici fames auri per omnes cloacas miserum trahit, et talem facit, ut tu te ipsum si videas, horrere merito possis ac fugere. Noli ergo reipublice, sed cupiditatibus tuis ascribere quod talis es; neque studium infamare, sed vitam tuam. Proculdubio enim, acutissime philosophe, veram rei causam in aperto positam non vidisti.

Now a modest hunger for gold drags the wretch through all the sewers, and makes you such that, if you should see yourself, you could deservedly shudder and flee. Do not therefore ascribe to the republic, but to your own cupidities, that you are such; nor defame study, but your life. For without doubt, most acute philosopher, you have not seen the true cause of the matter set forth in the open.

Et vis videre quid in imo viscerum ac fibrarum lateat? Quod est ante oculos non vides! Ostendam tibi, ego qui non sum medicus et logica careo, palloris tui causam, quam veram esse senties vel invitus.

And do you wish to see what lies hidden in the lowest depths of the viscera and fibers? What is before your eyes you do not see! I will show you, I who am no medic and am devoid of logic, the cause of your pallor, which you will perceive to be true even against your will.

Is per loca atra, livida, fetida, pallida, undantes pelves rimaris, egrotantium urinas aspicis, aurum cogitas. Quid hic igitur miri est si tot circum pallidis, atris ac croceis ipse quoque sis pallidus, ater ac croceus? Et si grex ille quondam providentissimi patriarche colorem traxit obiectu virgarum variarum, quid novi accidit si tu quoque?

You, through black, livid, fetid, pallid places, you pry into sloshing basins, you behold the urines of the sick, you think of gold. What, then, is wondrous here if, surrounded by so many pale, black, and saffron things, you yourself also are pale, black, and saffron? And if that flock once of the most provident patriarch drew color by the presentation of various rods, what new has happened if you too?

Expectas ut ab auro dicam. Imo vero ab obiectis. Multum distuli, et libentius tacerem; sed materia verum nomen exigit, quod si sepe in Literis Sacris est, semel in his scriptum tolerabitur.

You expect that I will speak about the gold. Nay rather, about the objections. I have long deferred, and I would more willingly be silent; but the material demands the true name, which, if it is often in the Sacred Letters, will be tolerated, written once in these.

Ab obiectis inquam stercoribus et colorem et odorem traxeris et saporem.

From the dung set before you, I say, you have drawn both color and odor and savor.

III

Aut ego fallor, Ypocras et Aristotiles secunde, aut in hoc certamine, quod tecum, convitiis tuis cogentibus, suscepi, prima iam levis armature tue acies fusa est. Venio nunc ad armatos et graves sillogismorum cuneos, in quibus, velut in equitatu electo, totam victorie spem reponis, ut hic quoque quid possis appareat; ubi illud primum occurrit, quod unum dementie tue sufficiens argumentum erat, quando, digressus a medicine laudibus, que sunt multe, nisi tu eas non tam loquendo quam rudendo minueres, subito furore correptus, sine ulla causa irruis in poetas, et more tuo nota atque ignota permiscens, iterum cogis ut rideam. Ante omnia quidem possem calumniam tuam paucis verbis eludere.

Either I am mistaken—Hippocrates and Aristotle favoring me—or in this contest, which I undertook with you, your insults compelling me, the first battle-line of your light-armed troops has already been routed. I come now to the armed and weighty wedges of syllogisms, in which, as in a chosen cavalry, you place your whole hope of victory, so that here too it may appear what you can do; where this first occurs, which alone was a sufficient proof of your dementia: when, having digressed from the praises of medicine—which are many, unless you diminish them not so much by speaking as by braying—you, suddenly seized by frenzy, without any cause rush upon the poets, and, mixing things known and unknown after your manner, you compel me to laugh again. Before all things, indeed, I could parry your calumny with a few words.

Poetas impetis: quid ad me? Poete respondeant, vel—quod est rectius—contemnant. Non enim aut tu tanti es, ut tibi sit magnopere resistendum, aut poesis auxilio meo eget, aut ego me poetam facio. Neque enim

You assail the poets: what is that to me? Let the poets respond, or—which is more correct—let them contemn you. For neither are you of such weight that one must greatly withstand you, nor does poesy need my aid, nor do I make myself a poet. Nor indeed—

tali me dignor honore

I deem myself worthy of such an honor

ut est apud Virgilium; et, si tu me dicas, aut alii poetam forte dicere voluerint, nichil tamen omnino michi tecum poetice rei est. Sed quoniam hoc in aliis meis ad te literis capere nequivisti, et ingenio fatigato nonnunquam diverticula huiuscemodi et cum stultis quoque colloquia grata sunt, insistam non moleste, audiamque quicquid ineptire libuerit. Illud primum quero, cum lingua illa temeraria et pigra et viscosa et farmacis delibuta multa ructaveris in poetas, quasi vere fidei adversos vitandosque fidelibus et ab Ecclesia relegatos: quid de Ambrosio, Augustino et Ieronimo, quid de Cypriano, Victorinoque martire, quid de Lactantio ceterisque catholicis scriptoribus sentias; apud quos nullum pene mansurum opus sine poetarum calce construitur, cum contra fere nullus hereticorum poeticum aliquid opusculis suis inseruerit, seu ignorantia, seu quod ibi suis erroribus consonum nichil esset.

as it is in Virgil; and, if you should call me, or others perchance should wish to call me, a poet, nevertheless I have nothing at all with you of the poetic business. But since you were unable to grasp this in my other letters to you, and since, when the wit is wearied, sometimes diversions of this kind and even colloquies with fools are pleasing, I will not take it amiss to press on, and I will listen to whatever ineptitudes it has pleased you to indulge. This first I ask: when, with that temerarious and sluggish and viscous tongue, smeared with poisons, you have belched forth many things against poets, as though truly adversaries of the faith, to be shunned by the faithful and banished from the Church: what do you think about Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome, about Cyprian and Victorinus the martyr, about Lactantius and the other catholic writers; among whom scarcely any work destined to endure is built without the poets’ mortar, whereas, conversely, almost none of the heretics has inserted anything poetic into his little works, whether from ignorance, or because there was nothing there consonant with their errors.

Quamvis enim deorum nomina multa commemorent, quod temporum qualitatem gentiumque potius quam suum iudicium secutos fecisse credendum est, quod ipsum et philosophi fecerunt, qui, ut inRethoricis legimus, deos esse non arbitrantur, tamen poetarum clarissimi unum omnipotentem, omnia creantem, omnia regentem, opificem rerum Deum in suis operibus sunt confessi. Respondebis autem nescire te quid apud catholicos agatur, quippe qui GalieniTerapenticam tantum legas, quam non legisse me dicis. Ad quod illud Marii, ducis eximii, responsum accipe: "Neque literas grecas" inquit "didici: parum placebat eas discere, quippe que ad virtutem doctoribus nichil profuerant". Certe si te tua illaTerapentica vel meliorem vel doctiorem vel saltem corpore saniorem effecisset, dolerem me eas literas non legisse.

Although indeed they commemorate many names of gods, which it is to be believed they did by following the quality of the times and of the nations rather than their own judgment—which same thing even the philosophers did, who, as we read in the Rhetorics, do not think that gods exist—nevertheless the most renowned of the poets have confessed in their works one omnipotent God, creating all things, ruling all things, the artificer of things. You will reply, however, that you do not know what is done among the Catholics, inasmuch as you read only Galen’s Therapeutics, which you say that I have not read. To this receive that reply of Marius, an outstanding leader: “Nor did I learn Greek letters,” he says; “it pleased me little to learn them, since they had profited their teachers nothing toward virtue.” Certainly, if that your Therapeutics had made you either better or more learned, or at least healthier in body, I would grieve that I had not read those letters.

Nunc dum te intus et extra contueor, multum vel inditio vel fortune mee gratulor, per quam ab ea lectione remotus sum, que te talem fecit, si talis michi futura erat qualis est tibi. Sed ad poetas redeo. Que sit poetice utilitas et quis finis interrogas.

Now, while I behold you within and without, I greatly congratulate either my judgment or my fortune, by which I was removed from that reading which made you such, if such was going to be for me as it is for you. But I return to the poets. You ask what the utility of the poetic art is and what the end is.

Larga quidem, nec inamena forte, nec inutilis respondendi materia. Poteram, si non tibi, saltem vero satisfacere, et pauca tibi, non ut intelligeres, sed quia quesieras, verba proicere; sed non sinis, et, more lymphatici festinans, questionem ipse tuam precipitanter absolvis, aliis quidem pluribus et unctioribus verbis, sed hac plane sententia, finem poetice statuens valde mirabilem: mulcendo fallere. Non sunt vates unguentarii: mulcere et fallere vestrum est.

Ample indeed, and perhaps not unpleasing, nor useless, material for responding. I could, if not satisfy you, at least satisfy the truth, and cast a few words to you—not so that you might understand, but because you had asked; but you do not allow it, and, hastening in the manner of a lymphatic, you yourself precipitately resolve your own question, with words indeed more numerous and more unctuous, but with this plain sententia, setting a very marvelous telos of poetics: to deceive by soothing. Poets are not unguent-sellers: to soothe and to deceive is your business.

Sed his satis supra responsum puto.

But on these matters I think a more than sufficient response has been given above.

Quo, deinde, quo philosophus noster ruit? Poesim non necessariam probat sillogismo terribili. Pudet inserere: nichil in meis literis velim tam frivolum inveniri.

Where, then, where does our philosopher rush? He proves poesy not necessary by a terrible syllogism. I am ashamed to insert it: I would wish nothing so frivolous to be found in my letters.

Verte eum, tu qui multis hunc mensibus fabricatus es, probabitque contrarium. Malo tamen nichil immutes, perficiasque quod intendis: hoc volo, hic tecum sentio, ipsique tecum sentiunt poete. Quid enim aliud vult Flaccus inArte Poetica, clarissimis quidem verbis, sed que tibi barbarica viderentur, ideoque illa non inserui?

Turn it about, you who have fashioned this over many months, and it will prove the contrary. I prefer, however, that you change nothing, and that you bring to completion what you intend: this I will, herein I agree with you, and the poets themselves agree with you. For what else does Flaccus want in the Art of Poetry, indeed in most clear words, but which would seem barbarous to you, and therefore I did not insert them?

Ceterum, ut in re ipsa tecum sentio, sic in causis effectibusque dissentio; nec solus ego, sed veritas. Neque enim propter causam quam tu putas non necessaria poesis est; neque ex eo quod non necessariam fatemur sequitur quod tu putas. Locus requirere videtur, ut repetam eam que michi ante multos annos fuit cum quodam dyaletico sene siculo similem questionem, gravissime quidem sed tamen aliquanto tolerabilius delirante.

Moreover, as in the very matter I agree with you, so in the causes and effects I dissent; nor I alone, but truth. For neither is poesy not necessary on account of the cause which you suppose; nor from the fact that we admit it to be not necessary does that which you suppose follow. The occasion seems to require that I repeat the similar question which I had many years ago with a certain Sicilian dialectical old man, raving most gravely indeed, yet somewhat more tolerably.

Ille enim, stili conscius, scribere non audebat; tu ad omnem stultitiam promptus ac preceps, auderes ipsum verbis invadere Ciceronem, aut ipsum scriptis lacerare Demosthenem; modo aliquid videri posses, quamvis imparia, temptare certamina, prerupte temeritatis homullule, non timeres. Abstinebat ille igitur scriptis: hoc saltem verecundie inerat; multa tamen ad unius amici mei aurem quotidie murmurabat, que ad me usque huc ipsius amici calamo preferebantur. Inter multa quidem hoc erat, quod ex te nunc audio: minime necessariam poesim.

For he, conscious of his pen, did not dare to write; you, ready and headlong for every stupidity, would dare to invade Cicero himself with words, or to lacerate Demosthenes himself with writings; so long as you could seem to be something, you would not fear, though the contests were unequal, little fellow of precipitate temerity. He therefore abstained from writings: this at least of modesty was in him; yet he murmured many things daily into the ear of one friend of mine, which up to this very point were conveyed to me by the calamus of that friend himself. Among many things indeed was this, which I now hear from you: that poetry is by no means necessary.

Quod cum nemo presentium negasset, conclusit ille enthimemate claudicante et rauco, ut illum prorsus ex verbis aut scolarem aut preceptorem tuum suspicer, et ait: "Ergo ignobilis et indigna". Idem vel dicis certe, vel cogitas. Quid enim aliud sibi vult operosa illa et futilis et ante medium fessa deductio? Sed quod uni fatuo dicitur, sufficiet multis.

And when none of those present had denied this, he concluded with an enthymeme limping and hoarse—so that from his words I straightway suspect him to be either your scholar or your preceptor—and said: “Therefore ignoble and unworthy.” The same thing you either surely say, or you think. For what else does that elaborate, futile, and weary-before-the-middle deduction intend for itself? But what is said to one fatuous man will suffice for many.

O insane! Igitur putas necessitas artium nobilitatem arguat. Contra est; alioquin nobilissimus artificum erit agricola; sutor quoque et pistor et tu, si mactare desieris, in precio eritis.

O insane one! Therefore you think that the necessity of the arts argues nobility. The contrary is the case; otherwise the farmer will be the most noble of artificers; the cobbler too and the baker, and you, if you cease slaughtering, will be in esteem.

Absit! Nulla vos necessitas in precio ponet, nulla faciet non esse mechanicos. Nescitis quod servus domesticus sepe quo vilior eo magis necessarius?

Far be it! No necessity will set you at a price, none will make you not be mechanics. Do you not know that a domestic slave is often, the cheaper he is, the more necessary?

Clibanarius et lanista quam necessarii sunt, quam viles! Citius philosophie scolis et militari cingulo, quam macello et balneis, sit caritura plebecula! Ite nunc, dyaletici senes, et ex necessitate nobilitatem arguite, si videtur; nisi forte aliud sentitis in rebus vita sensu et ratione carentibus, temptate hic etiam, si libet, vestre artis effectum.

How necessary the clibanarius and the lanista are, how base! Sooner will the plebeian rabble be in want of the schools of philosophy and the military belt (cingulum) than of the butchers’ market (macellum) and the baths! Go now, you dialecticians, old men, and from necessity argue nobility, if it seems good; unless perhaps you feel otherwise about things lacking life, sense, and reason—try here too, if you please, the effect of your art.

Asinus magis est necessarius quam leo, gallina quam aquila: ergo nobiliores; ficulnea magis necessaria quam laurus, mola quam iaspis: ergo nobiliores. Male concluditis, falsum dicitis, pueriliter loquimini: quod nature vestre et moribus et studio convenit, non etati. Ydiote procaces, in ore semper habetis Aristotilem, qui credo in ore vestro quam in inferno esse tristius ducat, et puto dextram suam oderit, qua illa scripsit que, paucis intellecta, per ora multorum ignorantium volitarent.

The donkey is more necessary than the lion, the hen than the eagle: therefore nobler; the fig-tree more necessary than the laurel, the millstone than jasper: therefore nobler. You conclude badly, you speak falsely, you speak puerilely: which befits your nature and your morals and your study, not your age. Saucy idiots, you always have Aristotle on your lips, who, I believe, would deem it sadder to be on your lips than in hell; and I think he would hate his right hand, with which he wrote those things which, understood by few, would flutter through the mouths of many ignorant people.

Ille certe vestram conclusiunculam non probabat, ubi ait: "Necessariores quidem omnes, dignior vero nulla". Locum non signo: nam et famosissimus locus est, et tu aristotelicus insignis.

He certainly did not approve your little conclusion, where he says: "All indeed are more necessary, but truly none more worthy." I do not mark the passage: for both the passage is most famous, and you are a distinguished Aristotelian.

Quod vero poesim inter liberalia non admittis, potes id quidem, philosophie atque artium dominus, iure tuo, sed te Homerus ac Virgilius precantur, ut eos saltem a mechanicis non excludas, cum—quod dissimulare non potes—sis et ipse mechanicus. Hoc tantum refert: quod philosophiam tuam esse tu dicis, mechanicum te esse dicunt alii. An in ordine vestro poetas non recipis?

But as to your not admitting poetry among the liberal [arts], indeed you can do that, master of philosophy and of the arts, by your right; yet Homer and Virgil beseech you that you at least not exclude them from the mechanics, since—what you cannot dissimulate—you yourself are a mechanic as well. This alone is of consequence: that you say the philosophy is yours; others say that you are a mechanic. Or do you not receive poets into your order?

Si eos etiam inde repuleris, durus eris. Verum, ut omittam iocos, numera liberales artes: nunquid ibi non dico medicinam, que alibi habitat et inter mechanicas sexta est, sed ipsum philosophie nomen invenies? Sepe inter magna non poni cuiusdam eximie magnitudinis argumentum est.

If you even repel them from there as well, you will be harsh. But, to leave jokes aside, count the liberal arts: will you there—not to mention medicine, which dwells elsewhere and is the sixth among the mechanical arts—find even the very name of philosophy? Often not being set among the great is an argument of a certain eximious magnitude.

Dabo tibi illustre exemplum ex historiis. Audires, credo, libentius fabellas, quas post cenam ante focum de orco et lamiis audire soles, sed annis certe iam non puer, si potes, adsuesce melioribus. Apud Titum Livium Hanibal ipse, vir profecto in sua arte doctissimus, dum interrogatus quos fuisse bellorum duces omnium gentium clarissimos extimaret, Alexandrum Macedonie regem primo, Pyrrum Epyrotam secundo, et—quod eius de qua multa dixi fidutie non superbie fuit—se se tertio nominasset, admonitus ubi Africanum, a quo victum eum esse constabat, preterisset, ita certe respondet, ut appareat eum non oblivione vel invidia, sed ad singularem laudem inter magnos maximum, sive inter maximos incomparabilem siluisse, et Africanum "e grege" aliorum "imperatorum"—ut ipsius Livii verba ponam—"velut inextimabilem secrevisse". De qua re multa dici possent; sed intelligenti satis, non intelligenti autem nimis est dictum.

I will give you an illustrious example from the histories. You would, I believe, more gladly hear little tales which after dinner before the hearth you are wont to hear about Orcus and Lamiae, but since by years you are now certainly no longer a boy, if you can, grow accustomed to better things. In Titus Livy, Hannibal himself, a man assuredly most learned in his art, when asked whom he esteemed to have been the most illustrious generals of all the nations, named Alexander, king of Macedonia, first, Pyrrhus the Epirote second, and—this was of his self-confidence, about which I have said much, not of pride—himself third; when reminded where he had passed over Africanus, by whom it was agreed he had been defeated, he certainly answers in such a way that it appears he kept silence not from forgetfulness or envy, but for singular praise, as the greatest among the great, or among the greatest incomparable, and that he had set Africanus “out of the herd” of the other “commanders”—to use Livy’s own words—“as if inestimable.” Concerning which many things could be said; but for the intelligent enough has been said, for the not-intelligent too much has been said.

Ad omnes quidem eas nugas, ad quas Aristotilem trahere vis invitum, non respondeo. Pudet enim me tui: nimis in propatulo ignorantiam habes; sed fidentissime unum dicam: nescire te quid sit tragedia, aut quid de tetrametris in iambicos transisse, cum tamen turpe sit docto viro proferre quod nesciat. Redi ad cor: fateberis me verum dicere.

As to all those trifles, to which you wish to drag Aristotle unwilling, I do not respond. For I am ashamed for you: you have your ignorance too much in the open; but most confidently I will say one thing: that you do not know what tragedy is, or what it is for tetrameters to have passed into iambics, although it is disgraceful for a learned man to proffer what he does not know. Return to your heart: you will confess that I speak true.

Hoc michi satis est. Dicas licet in publico me mentitum, scis tu te nichil horum intelligere, neque hoc tibi ad crimen obicerem, modo ne, te talibus implicando, et te ipsum perderes et egros tuos occideres, quia a te non tragedias, non tetrametra, non iambicos exigunt, sed salutem, quam si haberent—puto—sillogizando corrumperes. Quis enim sine dolore capitis audiat quid est quod hinc arguis?

This is enough for me. You may say in public that I lied, but you know that you understand nothing of these things, nor would I object this to you as a charge, provided only that, by entangling yourself with such matters, you do not both ruin yourself and kill your sick, because from you they demand not tragedies, not tetrameters, not iambics, but health, which—if they had it, I suppose—you would corrupt by syllogizing. For who, without a headache, would listen to what it is that you argue from this?

Dicis scientiam esse firmam et impermutabilem, nec mentiris; et addis poeticam uti metris et nominibus que pro tempore variantur; hinc infers consortio scientiarum sive artium excludendam. O ydiota, omnium tediosissime quos unquam audierim, quid hic contra poeticam singulare? Que scientia sine verbis?

You say that science is firm and immutable, and you do not lie; and you add that poetics uses meters and names which vary with time; hence you infer that it is to be excluded from the consortium of the sciences or arts. O idiot, most tedious of all whom I have ever heard, what is there here unique against poetics? What science is without words?

Et in quibus verbis non tantundem usus potest? An non audisti quod in ipsa, de qua loquimur,Arte Poetica scriptum est?

And in what words can usage not prevail equally? Or have you not heard what is written in that very Art of Poetry of which we are speaking?

Multa renascentur que iam cecidere, cadentque
que nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus
quem penes arbitrium est et ius et norma loquendi.

Many things will be reborn which have already fallen, and the vocables
which are now in honor will fall, if usage so wills,
in whose power is the arbitrament and the right and the norm of speaking.

Pauca exempli causa ponenda sunt; non tibi quidem, cervicose nescie, sed lectori. Romulus, Romane Urbis conditor, Quirinus dictus est. Cur?

A few things are to be set down for example’s sake; not for you indeed, stiff‑necked nescient, but for the reader. Romulus, founder of the Roman City, was called Quirinus. Why?

Quia hasta in preliis utebatur, que Sabinorum linguaquiris dicitur. Cesar Augustus, cum supremo vite tempore statua eius fulmine disiecta esset, in qua scriptum erat Cesar, et prima litera cecidisset, remanentibus quattuor sequentibus, consuluit aruspices quid sperandum sibi. Illi autem dixerunt, centum diebus victurum et non amplius: quod ea litera significaretur quam fulmen excusserat; ipsum vero post mortem in deorum numerum referendum: id enim significare quod remanserat, quoniam lingua Tuscorum,esar deus diceretur.

Because he used a spear in battles, which in the Sabines’ tongue is called quiris. Caesar Augustus, when at the last time of his life his statue—on which “Caesar” had been written—was shattered by lightning, and the first letter had fallen, the four following remaining, consulted the haruspices what he might hope for himself. But they said he would live for 100 days and no more: because that letter which the lightning had struck out signified this; while he himself after death should be referred into the number of the gods: for that is what what had remained signified, since in the tongue of the Tuscans esar means “god.”

Percurre nunc Tusciam ac Sabinam, quere ostiatim quid estesar, quid estquiris: arabice te locutum credent. Mille sunt talia, que sciens sileo; omnium una ratio est: mutantur verba, manent res, in quibus scientie fundate sunt. Sed Aristotiles, grecus homo, mutationem poetarum forte suorum aliquam reprehendebat, qualia multa hodie videmus in theologis nostris.

Run now through Tuscany and the Sabine land, inquire door-to-door what esar is, what quiris is: they will think you have spoken in Arabic. There are a thousand such things, which I knowingly keep silent; one rationale is common to all: the words are changed, the things remain, upon which the sciences are founded. But Aristotle, a Greek man, perhaps was reproving some mutation of his own poets, such as many we see today in our theologians.

Hec autem apud latinos poetas mutatio nulla est. Quis enim nostrorum a Virgilii calle descivit, nisi fortasse Statius Pampinius, qui Thebaydi sue imperat ut virgilianamEneydem sequatur et vestigia semper adoret? Lege, miser, et relege locum illum aristotelicum—tertioRethorice—unde male tornatum sillogismum elicis; neque hoc aut illud verbum excerpas, nichil intelligens, ut videaris Aristotilem legisse, sed totum locum excute.

But this mutation among the Latin poets is none. For who of our men has deviated from the path of Virgil, unless perhaps Statius Pampinius, who commands his Thebaid to follow the Virgilian Aeneid and always to adore its footsteps? Read, wretch, and read again that Aristotelian passage—the third of the Rhetoric—from which you draw a badly-turned syllogism; and do not excerpt this or that word, understanding nothing, so that you may seem to have read Aristotle, but shake out the whole passage.

Invenies—si tamen intelliges—hominem illum ardentis ingenii et complecti omnia cupientem, de eloquentia, oratoria, et poetica, et quid inter eas intersit, et de his que utrique vitanda sunt, et utriusque vitiis atque defectibus, more suo multa disseruisse; de his autem que tu somnias, nichil penitus cogitasse, unde concludens ait: "Manifestum est quod non omnia, quecunque de elocutione dicere est, pertractandum est nobis, sed quecunque de tali qualem dicimus"—hoc est de oratoria; de hac enim inRethoricis agitur —; et sequitur ratio: "De illa autem" inquit "dictum est in his que de poetica".

You will find—if indeed you understand—that that man, of ardent genius and eager to embrace all things, on eloquence, oratory, and poetics, and what difference there is between them, and on those things which are to be avoided by each, and on the vices and defects of each, in his own manner has discoursed many things; but about those matters which you dream, he has thought absolutely nothing, whence, concluding, he says: "It is manifest that not all the things whatsoever there are to say about elocution are to be treated by us, but whatever things about such a kind as we are speaking of"—that is, about oratory; for about this inRethoricis it is handled—; and the rationale follows: "About that other," he says, "it has been said in those works which are about poetics."

Ab Aristotile desertus, rursus ad Boetium fugis, relativorumque ope subniteris. Quod ita ridiculum est, ut michi iam non magis ebrius quam freneticus videaris. Quo enim tua hec impertinens et absurda relatio?

Deserted by Aristotle, you flee back to Boethius, and you support yourself by the aid of relations. This is so ridiculous that you now seem to me not so much drunk as frenzied. For to what end is this impertinent and absurd reference of yours?

Ubi, undique victus, ac consternatus animo, et oblitus tui,—quis non risu pereat?—ad inimicum tandem fugiens, minime latinis quidem aut congruis, sed maternis atque vulgaribus verbis, ydiota rudissime, Priscianum in auxilium tuum vocas. Magna profecto necessitas est, que cogit ut ab hoste etiam poscas auxilium. Sed certe post eam quam, naufragi more, palpitando arripis relationem, longeque post "scenicas" illas "meretriculas" abire iussas, "veris" inquit seu "meis"—hoc est philosophicis—"Musis, eum curandum sanandumque relinquite". Hoc est igitur quod dicebam, quodque extra omnis relationis tue terminos sedet: nulla ibi est relatio, sed penitus diversa sententia est.

Whereupon, beaten on every side, and dismayed in spirit, and forgetful of yourself—who would not perish with laughter?—fleeing at last to an enemy, by no means with Latin or fitting words, but with mother-tongue and vulgar words, most boorish idiot, you call Priscian to your aid. Truly great is the necessity that compels you to beg help even from a foe. But surely after that “relation” which, like a shipwrecked man, you snatch at by groping, and after those “scenic” “little harlots” ordered to go far away, “to the true,” he says, “or ‘my’”—that is, to the philosophical—“Muses, leave him to be cared for and healed.” This, then, is what I was saying, and what sits outside all the bounds of your entire “relation”: there is no relation there, but a wholly different judgment.

Frustra te digito occultas: male tegitur omnis ignorantia, nisi inter indoctos. Hec ne inter indoctos quidem bene tegitur? Hanc enim quis non grammatice limen ingressus puer agnosceret?

In vain you hide yourself with a finger: all ignorance is ill covered, unless among the unlearned. Is this not even among the unlearned well covered? For what boy, having entered the threshold of grammar, would not recognize this?

Sed ei qui philosophiam tam temere violavit, cur non liceat incestare grammaticam? Verte te ipsum quocunque libet: Muse poetarum sunt; quod nemo quidem dubitat. At—quod, insane, non respicis—philosophia suas illas Musas, et earum merito suum dixit Euripidem; Lucanum quoque familiarem suum non erubuit confiteri.

But for him who has so rashly violated philosophy, why should it not be permitted to defile grammar? Turn yourself whichever way you please: the Muses are the poets’—which indeed no one doubts. But—what, madman, you do not regard—philosophy has those Muses of hers, and by their merit declared Euripides to be her own; she did not blush to acknowledge Lucan too as her familiar.

Quod nisi ita esset, nunquam Aristotiles, paulo te minor philosophus, librum de poetica edidisset, quem, ut auguror, non vidisti, ut scio, non intellexisti, nec intelligere potuisti. Nunquam aut Homerum poetam Aristotiles idem exposuisset, aut Cicero transtulisset, aut clari quidam scriptores magnis illum philosophis pretulissent; nunquam aut tragedias Anneus Seneca tanto studio dictasset, aut Solon ille, princeps Grecie sapientum, carminibus delectatus, tam cupide post Athenis conditas leges et etate iam provecta, fuisset poeticam executus. Cui studio si vacare quantum instituerat in illa civilis dissensionis intemperie licuisset, "opinor", ut Timei platonici verbis utar, "non minorem Hesiodo vel Homero futurum fuisse". Nimis multa de re certa, tibi licet inopinabili et ignota, et in qua perdi operam non dubito.

If it were not so, Aristotle— a philosopher a little inferior to you— would never have published a book On Poetics, which, as I surmise, you have not seen; as I know, you have not understood; nor could you have understood. Nor would Aristotle likewise have expounded the poet Homer, nor would Cicero have translated him, nor would certain famous writers have preferred him to great philosophers; nor would Annaeus Seneca have dictated tragedies with such zeal, nor would that Solon, the prince of the sages of Greece, delighted with songs, so eagerly, after the laws had been established at Athens and his age already advanced, have pursued poetics. And if it had been permitted him, in that intemperance of civil dissension, to have leisure for this study as much as he had purposed, “I suppose,” to use the words of the Platonic Timaeus, “he would have been no lesser than Hesiod or Homer.” I have said far too much about a matter that is certain, however unlooked-for and unknown to you, and on which I do not doubt I am wasting my effort.

Verum ego non tibi, sed lectori loquor, cui tam gratus fieri cupio, quam molestus tibi. Nichil sane horum omnium necessarium erat, si vel per te ipsum nosses, vel capere posses ab alio que de hac scenica parte poetice dicuntur a multis, et a me ipso iam in precedentibus tacta sunt, quantum ve inter illam et heroycam intersit. Nec enim negaverim, ut in vino fex et in oleo amurca, sic in rebus fere omnibus, etiam incorporeis, esse suam fecem.

But I speak not to you, but to the reader, to whom I desire to become as pleasing as I am troublesome to you. Truly none of all these things was necessary, if either you knew by yourself, or could grasp from another, the things that are said by many about this scenic part of poetics, and which have already been touched by myself in the preceding, and how much difference there is between that and the heroic. Nor indeed would I deny that, as in wine there is lees and in oil amurca, so in almost all things, even incorporeal ones, there is their own lees.

Itaque et philosophie quedam species et philosophi quidam vulgo habentur infames, ut Epycurus totusque epycureus ille grex: Aristippum, dico, Hermacumque et Metrodorum et Ieronimum illum senem, non hunc qui quartum inter doctores Ecclesie locum tenet. Quinet ex illustrioribus quidam in multis optimo iure carpuntur. Unde Paulus apostolus, verus Cristi philosophus, et post eum clarissimus eius interpres Augustinus, multique quos enumerare non est necesse, philosophiam laudatam ab aliis execrantur; cum tamen nulla unquam philosophia altior fuerit, aut esse possit, quam que ducit ad verum, qua nostri, celesti munere potius quam humano studio, ante omnium philosophorum vigilias ac labores eminentissime floruerunt.

Accordingly, both a certain species of philosophy and certain philosophers are commonly held infamous, as Epicurus and that whole Epicurean herd: Aristippus, I say, and Hermachus and Metrodorus, and that old man Hieronymus—not this one who holds the fourth place among the Doctors of the Church. Nay, even some among the more illustrious are in many matters most justly censured. Whence Paul the Apostle, the true philosopher of Christ, and after him Augustine, his most illustrious interpreter, and many others whom it is not necessary to enumerate, execrate the philosophy lauded by others; although nevertheless no philosophy has ever been higher, nor can be, than that which leads to the truth, in which our own, by a heavenly gift rather than by human study, before the vigils and labors of all the philosophers, have flourished most eminently.

Quid ergo? Quomodo hec sibi invicem adversa connectimus: philosophiam a philosopho reprobari? Laudatur philosophia, sed non omnis: laudatur verax, fallax carpitur.

What then? How do we connect these mutually adverse things: that philosophy is reprobated by the philosopher? Philosophy is praised, but not all of it: the veracious is praised, the fallacious is carped at.

"Illa vero non est philosophia, si fallax est". Non infitior id quidem, sed philosophie nomen habet falsum, quo nequis nos forte seduceret, fidelissimus ac previdentissimus Paulus admonuit: "Cavete" inquit "nequis vos decipiat per philosophiam et inanem seductionem, secundum elementa mundi". Quem secutus Augustinus, cum in libro celestis reipublice octavo hec ad literam scripsisset: "Deinde" inquit "ne quis omnes tales esse arbitraretur, audit ab eodem apostolo dici de quibusdam: quia quod notum est Dei, manifestum est illis; Deus enim illis manifestavit. Invisibilia enim eius, a constitutione mundi, per ea que facta sunt, intellecta conspiciuntur: sempiterna quoque virtus eius ac divinitas". Itaque, cum sepe Augustinus ipse, Paulum sequens, "philosophorum scripta plena fallaciarum et deceptionum" diceret, putas ne de omnibus loqueretur? Absit!

"But that is not philosophy, if it is fallacious." I do not deny that indeed, but it bears the false name of philosophy; lest anyone might perchance seduce us by it, the most faithful and most provident Paul admonished: "Beware," he says, "lest anyone deceive you through philosophy and empty seduction, according to the elements of the world." Augustine, following him, when in the eighth book of the celestial commonwealth he had written these things to the letter: "Then," he says, "lest anyone should think all such men to be of that sort, he hears it said by the same apostle about certain ones: because what is known of God is manifest to them; for God has manifested it to them. For his invisible things, from the constitution of the world, are seen, being understood through the things that have been made: his everlasting power also and divinity." Therefore, although often Augustine himself, following Paul, used to say "the writings of the philosophers are full of fallacies and deceptions," do you think he was speaking about all of them? Far be it!

Ibidem enim statim platonicum dogma commendat. Et eodem libro octavo Apostolum ipsum inducit Atheniensibus loquentem: "Cum rem magnam de Deo dixisset et que a paucis posset intelligi: quod in illo vivimus, movemur et sumus", adiecisse et dixisse: "sicut et vestri quidam dixerunt", et tamen eorundem rursus platonicorum sacrificia detestatur, "quoniam cognoscentes Deum non glorificaverunt aut gratias egerunt, sed evanuerunt in cognitionibus suis, et obscuratum est insipiens cor eorum; dicentes enim se esse sapientes, stulti facti sunt, et immutaverunt gloriam incorruptibilis Dei in similitudinem imaginis corruptibilis hominis et volucrum et quadrupedum et serpentum". Quorsum hec? Ut videas philosophie totius partem unicam laudari, eamque non integram, neque tam ferociter insultes.

For in the same place he immediately commends the Platonic dogma. And in that same eighth book he introduces the Apostle himself speaking to the Athenians: "When he had said a great matter about God, and one which could be understood by few: that in him we live and move and are," he added and said: "as also certain of yours have said," and yet he again detests the sacrifices of those same Platonists, "because, knowing God, they did not glorify or give thanks, but they became vain in their cognitions, and their foolish heart was darkened; for saying that they were wise, they were made fools, and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man and of birds and quadrupeds and serpents." To what end are these things? That you may see that a single part of the whole of philosophy is praised, and that not entire, and that you should not insult so ferociously.

Ad hanc enim formam et cetera rediguntur. Sed ut, omissis aliis, ceptum sequar, in ultimo agmine poetarum quidam sunt quos scenicos vocant, ad quos pertinet illud Boetii, et quicquid a quolibet contra poetas vere dicitur; et hi quidem ipsos inter poetas contemnuntur, qui quales essent Plato ipse declaravit in sua Republica, quando eos censuit urbe pellendos. Ut enim constet non de omnibus eum sensisse, sed de scenicis tantum, ipsius Platonis ratio audienda est ab Augustino posita: quia, scilicet, ludos scenicos "indignos deorum maiestate ac bonitate" censebat.

For to this form the rest also are reduced. But, so that, other things omitted, I may follow what I have begun: in the last rank of poets there are certain ones whom they call “scenic,” to whom pertains that saying of Boethius, and whatever is truly said by anyone against poets; and these indeed are despised even among the poets themselves—the sort of people Plato himself declared them to be in his Republic, when he judged that they should be expelled from the city. For, in order that it be evident he did not think this about all, but about the scenic only, Plato’s own rationale, set forth by Augustine, is to be heard: namely, that he judged the scenic games “unworthy of the majesty and goodness of the gods.”

In quo multos sui temporis notavit eius generis poetas. Ita enim fere accidit, ut vilia quelibet multa sint. Id tamen Platonis iudicium non modo heroycis atque aliis nil nocebat, imo vero multum proderat, quoniam, velut excussor poeticam ingressus in aream, valido verbi flabro grana discrevit a paleis.

In this he marked many poets of his own time of that genus. For it almost always happens that whatever is cheap and common is abundant. Yet that judgment of Plato not only did no harm to the heroic poems and the others, nay rather it profited much, since, like a winnower entering upon the threshing-floor of poetry, with a strong blast of speech he separated the grains from the chaff.

Quando autem Homerus apud illos, quando Virgilius apud nos, aut alii illustres scenicis ludis operam dederunt? Profecto nunquam, sed de virtutibus, de naturis hominum ac rerum omnium, atque omnino de perfectione humana, stilo mirabili et quem frustra tibi aperire moliar, tractaverunt. Nec tamen nichil in his ipsis reprehensibile dixerim, quippe cum et in philosophorum principibus multa videam reprehensa iustissime, hec sane non artis sed ingenii culpa est.

When, however, did Homer among them, when did Virgil among us, or other illustrious men, devote themselves to scenic games? Assuredly never; rather, they treated of virtues, of the natures of men and of all things, and altogether of human perfection, in a marvelous style—one which I strive in vain to lay open to you. Nor yet would I say that there is nothing reprehensible in these very men, since I see many things most justly reprehended even in the chiefs of the philosophers; this, to be sure, is the fault not of the art but of the genius.

Quis igitur nescit, aut quis negat quosdam ut philosophorum sic et poetarum in cogitationibus evanuisse? Aut quis miretur ante veritatis adventum licuisse aliquid errori, cum post agnitam veritatem quidam quoque catholici magni viri ita deviarint, ut ipsa veritas unquam acrius oppugnata non fuerit, quam ab eis fuit? Solet hoc interdum acutioribus ingeniis evenire, ut, dum penetrare volunt supervacua, nimium illud acumen in medio conamine retundatur, atque ita vel necessaria non attingat.

Who then does not know, or who denies, that certain men, as among philosophers so also among poets, have evanesced in their cogitations? Or who would wonder that before the advent of truth some license was allowed to error, since after truth was acknowledged some great men, even Catholics, have so deviated that truth itself has never been more sharply oppugned than it was by them? This is wont sometimes to befall keener wits, that, while they wish to penetrate the superfluous, that excessive acumen is blunted in the midst of the conation, and thus does not even attain the necessary things.

Siquis autem, veritatis amicus—sine qua nichil verum dici potest, quoniam, ut ait Augustinus, omne verum a veritate verum est—siquis ergo talis, pio instigatus affectu, ad ipsius veritatis ornatum Musarum presidio niteretur, et vel stilo clarissimo Cristi vitam vel sacrum aliud vel prophanum etiam, modo non vetitum, celebraret—quod nostrorum quidam fecerunt quamvis preter legem carminis nullo poetico artificio usi sint —, quis putas id melius posset implere? Responde michi, vir doctissime, oro te, et quid sis responsurus examina. An poeta talis, qualem tibi describo, et qualem esse posse, et forsitan esse non est incredibile, an Ypocras ipse, si viveret, vel medicorum unus, qui de urinis semper, non superficietenus ut tu, sed profundissime disputasset?

If someone, however, a friend of truth—without which nothing true can be spoken, since, as Augustine says, every true thing is true from Truth—if someone therefore of such a sort, instigated by a pious affect, should strive, with the presidium of the Muses, for the adornment of Truth itself, and should celebrate either in a most illustrious style the life of Christ or some other sacred thing or even a profane one, provided it be not forbidden—which certain of our own have done, although, beyond the law of song, they used no poetic artifice—who, think you, could fulfill it better? Answer me, most learned man, I beg you, and examine what you are about to answer. Whether a poet such as I describe to you, and such as it is possible to be, and perhaps it is not unbelievable that he exists, or Hippocrates himself, if he were alive, or one of the physicians, who would always have disputed about urines, not superficially as you do, but most profoundly?

Puto: nemo est, nisi omnino depuduit, qui in respondendo hereat. Noli ergo contemnere in aliis quod assequi non potes, qui miserrime impudentie mos est, sed venerare potius et mirare non tam scientificos aut scientiam ipsam, quam scientie largitorem, qui dona sua distribuit ut libet, et his quidem dedit numero, his autem singularitate precellere. Gloriare, si placet: neque enim obluctor et magis necessarios et plures esse medicos quam poetas.

I think: there is no one, unless he has completely de-shamed himself, who sticks in responding. Do not, therefore, contemn in others what you cannot attain—a most wretched custom of impudence—but rather venerate and admire not so much the scientific men or science itself as the Bestower of science, who distributes his gifts as he pleases, and to these indeed he has given to excel in number, but to those to excel in singularity. Boast, if it pleases: for neither do I contend against physicians being both more necessary and more numerous than poets.

Contra illi glorientur et minus necessarios et pauciores esse poetas quam medicos; quinetiam nullius generis ingeniosorum tantam semper fuisse raritatem, quanta poetarum excellentium fuit, preter oratores solos qui ex omnibus seculis paucissimi numerantur. De qua re in Oratore Ciceronis clarissime disputatum est. Illud in poetica singulare: quod cum in cuntis artibus mediocritas admittatur, in hac una secus est, quoniam, ut eleganter ait Flaccus,

On the contrary, let those men boast that poets are both less necessary and fewer than physicians; nay even, that of no kind of ingenious men has there ever been so great a rarity as there has been of excellent poets, except the orators alone, who from all the centuries are counted among the very few. On which matter it has been most clearly argued in Cicero’s Orator. This is singular in poetics: that, whereas in all arts mediocrity is admitted, in this one it is otherwise, since, as Flaccus elegantly says,

mediocribus esse poetis
non homines, non dii, non concessere columne.

to be mediocre as poets
neither men, nor gods, nor the columns have granted.

Que, meo iudicio, non ultima raritatis poetice ratio esse potest. Tibi vero, cum primum turba hominum et necessitate artificii gloriari ceperis, illud occurrat: multis quidem, sed ante alios agricolis, in hac gloria cedendum; illi vos utroque superant. Nolo autem indigneris quod vos et agricolas iuxta pono; fecit idem Aristotiles: "Non ex duobus medicis fit commutatio" inquit "sed ex medico et agricola". Audi ut, tanquam paria, verbis equat.

Which, in my judgment, can be no small reason for the rarity of poetry. But for you, when first you begin to boast yourself of the throng of men and the necessity of the craft, let this occur: to many indeed—but before others to farmers—in this glory it must be yielded; they surpass you in both. Nor do I wish you to be indignant that I place you and farmers side by side; Aristotle did the same: "An exchange is not made from two physicians," he says, "but from a physician and a farmer." Hear how, as though equals, he equates them by words.

Tacitus credo hec propter reverentiam Aristotelis passus sis. Illud impatientius feres, si ad propositum reversus, cepta peragero; et tamen loqui oportet. Urget enim veritas calamum reluctantem, nec stomacari conveniet, si de philosophis ac poetis dicta ad mechanicos traham.

Silently, I believe, you have endured these things on account of reverence for Aristotle. You will bear this more impatiently, if, returning to the proposition, I carry through what I have begun; and yet it is meet to speak. For truth urges the reluctant pen, nor will it be fitting to take offense if I draw sayings about philosophers and poets over to the mechanics.

Habent igitur et mechanici fecem suam. "Quenam vero ea fex est?" clamabis ad sidera. Dicam tamen: tu es fex ipsa mechanicorum.

Therefore the mechanics too have their own dregs. “And what, indeed, are those dregs?” you will cry to the stars. I will say nevertheless: you are the very dregs of the mechanics.

Vis hoc statim sine ambagibus probem? In fundo es; imo iaces: is proprius fecis est locus. Numera mechanicos: nullum sub te nisi theatricum videbis nec tamen ideo, sicut preceps oris tui nobilissimis artibus insultat audacia, sic ego quamvis humilibus insulto.

Do you wish that I prove this at once without circumlocutions? You are at the bottom; nay, you lie there: that is the proper place of the dregs. Count the mechanics: you will see none beneath you except the theatrical; and yet not on that account, just as the headlong audacity of your mouth insults the most noble arts, do I insult even the humble.

Scio enim necessitates hominum multiplices et graves, ut non immerito propheta idem et rex clamet ad Dominum: "De necessitatibus meis erue me". Et undecunque necessitatibus nostris veniens, auxilium a Deo est; cuius dona gratanter reverenterque suscipi debere quis nesciat? Sive ergo ille nobis per se ipsum sanitatem dederit, sive ad id expertus medicus, sive herbarum conscia tremula anus accesserit, et ars et arte quesita vel servata sanitas munera Dei sunt. Itaque contra medicinam nichil omnino: quod milies dixi et, ut video, non sufficit.

For I know the necessities of men to be manifold and grave, so that not without desert the same prophet and king cries out to the Lord: "From my necessities deliver me." And from wherever it comes to our necessities, it is aid from God; who does not know that whose gifts ought to be received gratefully and reverently? Whether therefore he has given us health through himself, or an experienced physician has come to that, or a trembling old woman, conscious of herbs, has approached, both the art, and the health sought by art or preserved by art, are gifts of God. Therefore, nothing at all against medicine: which I have said a thousand times and, as I see, it does not suffice.

Siquid autem contra medicos locutus videor, clamo et cupio me studiosum omne genus audiat: contra te tantum tuique similes dictum est, diceturque quod restat.

If, however, I seem to have spoken against physicians, I cry out and desire that every studious sort hear me: it has been said only against you and your similars, and what remains will be said.

Superest ut illi calumnie respondeam, qua obscuris delectari arguor, quasi notitiam rerum vulgo invidens debilioris ingenii; ad quod illud etiam affers: Deos humano generi invidere a poetis scriptum esse, sed ab Aristotile reprehensum. Ego quidem, ut pro me ipse loquar, nil cuiquam prorsus invideo, magisque vereor ne alienus michi livor officiat, quam ne me meus inficiat. Sed sub meo nomine notasti forsan invidiam poetarum.

It remains that I respond to that calumny, by which I am charged with delighting in obscurities, as if, begrudging to the vulgar the knowledge of things, I were of a weaker wit; to which you also add this: that it is written by the poets that the gods envy the human race, but that this was reprehended by Aristotle. I indeed, to speak for myself, envy absolutely nothing to anyone, and I rather fear lest another’s malice harm me than that my own should stain me. But under my name you have perhaps marked the envy of the poets.

Eo enim spectat quod de deorum invidia dixisti: tanquam minime mirum sit, inter eos precipue regnare illam, qui eam usque ad superos extulerunt. Qua in re, morem tuum non deserens, multum a veritate discedis. Nusquam fere vel minus invidie, vel innocentie magis, vel amicitie tantundem.

For what you said about the envy of the gods looks to this: as though it were by no means a marvel that that should reign chiefly among those who have lifted it even up to the upper gods. In this matter, not abandoning your wont, you depart greatly from the truth. Almost nowhere is there either less of envy, or more of innocence, or as much of friendship.

Non capit hic locus poetarum vitas. Quanta Virgilii integritas! quenam Statii urbanitas!

This place does not admit the lives of poets. How great Virgil’s integrity! What urbanity of Statius!

que facetie Nasonis! que fides Ennii! que Pacuvii gravitas!

what facetiae of Naso! what fidelity of Ennius! what gravitas of Pacuvius!

quis Vari candor! que Flacci discretio! que Persii pietas!

what candor of Varius! what discretion of Flaccus! what piety of Persius!

que modestia Lucani! que libertas atque constantia Iuvenalis! Longum est singulos attingere, nec oportet.

what modesty of Lucan! what liberty and constancy of Juvenal! It would be long to touch upon individuals, nor is it fitting.

Et sileo Grecos, sileo multos e principibus nostris huic studio deditos, atque in primis pyerii spiritus Augustum, quo nil clarius in temporalis imperii solio sol vidit. Hic michi quisquam nominare audeat invidiam? aut in tam altos animos tantorumque nominum splendorem, iners et nubilosus livor tentet ascendere?

And I am silent about the Greeks; I am silent about many among our princes devoted to this study, and above all Augustus of the Pierian spirit, than whom the sun has seen nothing more illustrious on the throne of temporal empire. Here would anyone dare to name envy against me? or would sluggish and cloudy malice attempt to climb upon such high spirits and the splendor of such great names?

Quod si forte stilus insuetis videatur occultior, non ea invidia est, sed intentioris animi stimulus, et exercitii nobilioris occasio. Quid vero philosophi? An non Aristotiles, et qui luculentissimus omnium habetur, Plato ipse, loqui posset apertius, ut sileam reliquos, atque ante omnes Heraclitum, qui agnomen ab obscuritate sortitus est?

But if perhaps the style seems more occult to the unaccustomed, that is not envy, but a stimulus to a more intent mind, and an occasion for a more noble exercise. But what of the philosophers? Could not Aristotle, and Plato himself, who is held the most lucid of all, speak more plainly, to be silent about the rest, and above all Heraclitus, who received an agnomen from obscurity?

Quid sermo ipse divinus, quem et si valde oderis, tamen aperte calumniari propter metum incendii non audebis? Quam in multis obscurus atque perplexus est! cum prolatus sit ab eo Spiritu qui homines ipsos mundumque creaverat, nedum, si vellet, et verba nova reperire, et repertis clarioribus uti posset?

What of the divine discourse itself, which, even if you should greatly hate it, nevertheless you will not dare to calumniate openly for fear of burning? How in many points it is obscure and perplex! since it was brought forth by that Spirit who had created men themselves and the world—let alone that, if He willed, He could both discover new words and use clearer ones once discovered.

Certe Augustinus, ingenio illo suo, quo se et multarum artium notitiam, et quecunque de decem cathegoriis philosophi tradunt, sine magistro percepisse gloriatur,Ysaie principium fatetur intelligere nequivisse. Unde autem hoc, nisi forte spiritum ipsum sanctum invidisse dicas, et non potius providisse legentibus? De qua obscuritate loquens Augustinus idem libroDe Civitate Dei undecimo: "Divini" inquit "sermonis obscuritas etiam ad hoc est utilis, quod plures sententias veritatis parit et in lucem notitie producit, dum alius eum sic alius sic intelligit". Idem in Psalmo centesimo vicesimo sexto: "Ideo enim" inquit "forte obscurius positum est, ut multos intellectus generet et ditiores discedant homines, qui clausum invenerunt quod multis modis aperiretur, quam si uno modo apertum invenirent". Idem in Psalmo centesimo quadragesimo sexto, de Scripturis Sacris agens: "Perversum hic" inquit "nichil est, obscurum autem aliquid est, non ut tibi negetur, sed ut exerceat accepturum". Et post pauca: "Noli" ait "recalcitrare adversus obscura et dicere: melius diceretur, si sic diceretur; quomodo enim potes tu sic dicere aut iudicare quomodo dici expediat?". Quem secutus Gregorius super Ezechielem: "Magne" inquit "utilitatis est ipsa obscuritas eloquiorum Dei, quia exercet sensum, ut fatigatione dilatetur et exercitatus capiat quod capere non posset otiosus.

Certainly Augustine, with that genius of his by which he boasts that he perceived without a teacher both knowledge of many arts and whatever the philosophers hand down concerning the ten categories, confesses that he was unable to understand the beginning of Isaiah. But whence is this, unless perhaps you say that the Holy Spirit Himself begrudged it, and not rather provided for readers? Speaking of this obscurity, the same Augustine in Book 11 of De Civitate Dei says: “The obscurity of the divine discourse is useful even for this, that it begets more meanings of truth and brings them into the light of knowledge, while one understands it thus and another thus.” Likewise in Psalm 126 he says: “Therefore perhaps it has been set down more obscurely, so that it may generate many understandings and men may depart richer—those who found something closed which could be opened in many ways—than if they had found it opened in one way.” Likewise in Psalm 146, speaking about the Sacred Scriptures, he says: “There is nothing perverse here, but there is something obscure—not to deny it to you, but to exercise the one who is to receive.” And after a little he says: “Do not kick against the obscure things and say, ‘It would be better said, if it were said thus’; for how can you speak thus, or judge how it is expedient to be said?” Following him, Gregory on Ezekiel says: “Of great utility is the very obscurity of the utterances of God, because it exercises the sense, so that by fatigue it may be dilated, and, being exercised, may grasp what an idle man could not grasp.”

Habet quoque adhuc maius aliud, quia Scripture Sacre intelligentia, que si in cuntis esset aperta vilesceret, in quibusdam locis obscurioribus tanto maiori dulcedine inventa reficit, quanto maiori labore castigat animum quesita". Non sequor omnia que ab illo et ab aliis in hanc sententiam scripta sunt. Que, si de scripturis illis recte dicuntur, que sunt omnibus proposite, quanto rectius de illis que paucissimis? Apud poetas, igitur, o nimium rudis, stili maiestas retinetur ac dignitas, nec capere valentibus invidetur, sed, dulci labore proposito, delectationi simul memorieque consulitur.

It has also yet another greater point, that the understanding of the Sacred Scriptures, which, if it were open in all things, would grow cheap, when found in certain more obscure places refreshes with so much the greater sweetness, as, when sought, it castigates the mind with so much the greater labor". I do not follow all the things that have been written by him and by others to this purport. Which, if they are rightly said about those Scriptures which are set forth to all, how much more rightly about those which to very few? Among the poets, therefore, O exceedingly untutored one, the majesty and dignity of the style are retained, nor is it begrudged to those able to grasp it; but, with sweet labor set forth, provision is made at once for delight and for memory.

Cariora sunt, enim, que cum difficultate quesivimus, accuratiusque servantur, et non capacibus providetur, dum ne frustra se atterant ipsa rerum facie, si sapiunt, a limine deterrentur. Unde fit ut hic repulsi, alias vias teneant, presertim postquam numerare ceperint, et hic quidem oblectationem animi, claritatem nominis lucri nichil aspexerint. Non est enim omnium studia ista sectari, sed eorum tantum, quibus et ingenium et natura et rerum vite necessariarum vel fortuna sufficientiam dederit, vel contemptum virtus.

For the things which we have sought with difficulty are dearer, and are kept more accurately, and provision is made for the non-capable, while, lest they wear themselves out in vain upon the very face of the matters, if they are wise, they are deterred from the threshold. Whence it comes about that, repulsed here, they take other ways, especially after they have begun to count, and here indeed—delight of mind, brightness of name—nothing of profit have they regarded. For it is not for all to sect these studies, but only for those to whom both ingenuity and nature, and either fortune has given sufficiency of the things necessary for life, or virtue a contempt of them.

Itaque alter ad agriculturam, alter ad navigationem, alter ad medicinam transit. Nam quid exempli causa eventurum putas, si caput illud ubi habitat ingenium tuum, se se ad poeticam applicuisset? Quantam in primis egestatem?

And so one turns to agriculture, another to navigation, another to medicine. For what, for example, do you think would have come about, if that head in which your ingenium dwells had applied itself to poetics? How great an indigence, to begin with?

Nichil enim hic venale, nullus fraudibus locus. Quot deinde passurum fuisse ludibria? Quot comitum iocos, priusquam cuius uxor esset Eneas apud Virgilium didicisset?

For nothing here is for sale, no place for frauds. How many mockeries then would he have had to endure? How many jests of his companions, before he had learned from Virgil whose wife Aeneas was?

Hec est quidem vera rei ratio, non quia latere expedit, de quo ruinosum et undique fatiscentem sillogismum extruis, sed quia nullum fallere, paucis placere propositum est. Pauci autem docti. Vis videre ita esse ut dico?

This is indeed the true reason of the matter, not because it is expedient to lie hidden, about which you construct a ruinous and on-all-sides-fissuring syllogism, but because the purpose is to deceive no one, to please the few. The few, moreover, are learned. Do you wish to see that it is so as I say?

Nempe tum demum auctor in precio est, cum amenis ex latebris dulcis sensus eruperit, nec est dubium non aliam ob causam tibi tuique similibus odiosam esse poeticam, nisi quia vobis inaccessibilis et ignota est. Quod, fateor, in lucro ponimus, non in damno. Noli igitur stilum reprobare ingenio pervium, memorie habilem ignoriantieque terribilem.

Indeed, only then at last is the author at a premium, when from pleasant hiding-places the sweet sense has burst forth; nor is there doubt that the poetic art is odious to you and to those like you for no other cause, except because it is inaccessible and unknown to you. Which, I confess, we place on the side of profit, not of loss. Do not, therefore, disapprove a style pervious to genius, apt for memory, and terrible to ignorance.

Nam et sanctum canibus dare et ante porcos proicere margaritas divino etiam eloquio prohibemur. Sane illa, quam memoras, poetica deorum invidia, altioris cuiusdam secretiorisque misterii est, quam putas; neque solum invidie deorum, sed fraudes, bella, libidines apud poetas sunt. Vicisti, cavillator acutissime: plus confiteor quam accuses.

For we are forbidden even by divine eloquence to give the holy to dogs and to cast pearls before swine. Indeed that poetic envy of the gods which you recall is of a certain higher and more secret mystery than you suppose; nor are there with the poets only the envies of the gods, but deceits, wars, lusts. You have won, most sharp-witted scoffer: I confess more than you accuse.

Sed cum dicaris animal rationale mortale, quamvis alterum tantum sis, si placet, querenda ratio rerum est.

But since you are called a rational mortal animal, although you are only the latter, if you please, the rationale of things is to be sought.

Primos nempe theologos apud gentes fuisse poetas et philosophorum maximi testantur, et sanctorum confirmat autoritas, et ipsum, si nescis, poete nomen indicat. In quibus maxime nobilitatus Orpheus, cuius decimoctavo civitatis eterne libro Augustinus meminit. "At nequiverunt quo destinaverant pervenire" dicet aliquis.

That the first theologians among the nations were poets, the greatest of the philosophers bear witness, and the authority of the saints confirms it, and the very name of poet itself, if you do not know, indicates it. Among whom Orpheus was most renowned, whom Augustine mentions in the 18th book of the Eternal City. "But they were not able to arrive where they had intended to reach," someone will say.

Fatebor. Nam perfecta cognitio veri Dei, non humani studii, sed celestis est gratie. Laudandus tamen animus studiosissimorum hominum, qui certe quibus poterant viis ad optatam veri celsitudinem anhelabant, adeo ut ipsos quoque philosophos in hac tanta et tam necessaria inquisitione precederent.

I will confess. For the perfect cognition of the true God is not of human study, but of celestial grace. Yet the spirit of the most studious men is to be praised, who indeed by whatever ways they could were aspiring to the wished-for loftiness of truth, to such a degree that they even preceded the philosophers themselves in this so great and so necessary inquisition.

Credibile est etiam hos ardentissimos inquisitores veri ad id saltem pervenisse, quo humano perveniri poterat ingenio, ut—secundum illud Apostoli supra relatum—per ea que facta sunt, invisibilibus intellectis atque conspectis, prime cause et unius Dei qualemcunque notitiam sortirentur; atque ita deinceps omnibus modis id egisse, ut—quod publice non audebant, eo quod nondum viva veritas terris illuxerat—clam suaderent falsos deos esse, quos illusa plebs coleret. Quod et philosophos postea fecisse in libroVere religionis ostendit. Quis enim nisi amens adulteros aut fallaces veneraretur deos?

It is credible also that these most ardent inquisitors of truth came at least to that which could be reached by human ingenium: that—according to that of the Apostle cited above—through the things which are made, the invisibles having been understood and beheld, they might obtain some sort of knowledge of the prime cause and of the one God; and thus thereafter they labored in all ways to effect this, that—what they did not dare publicly, because the living Truth had not yet shone upon the earth—they might covertly persuade that the gods whom the deluded plebs worshipped were false. And that the philosophers later did this, he shows in the book On True Religion. For who, unless out of his mind, would venerate adulterers or deceitful gods?

Aut quis penitus crederet deos esse, quorum ea flagitia audiret, que nec in hominibus tolerabilia iudicaret? Cui preterea dubium esse posset, quin peccata que humanitatem ipsam hominibus ereptura essent, eadem multo magis diis talibus preriperent deitatem? Belligerantes deos invicem Homerus et Virgilius fecerunt; propter quod Athenis Homerum pro insano habitum Cornelius Nepos refert.

Or who would utterly believe them to be gods, whose flagitious crimes he would hear of—crimes which he would judge not tolerable even in men? To whom, moreover, could it be doubtful that the sins which would snatch humanity itself from human beings would, much more, deprive such gods of deity? Homer and Virgil made the gods wage war against one another; on account of which Cornelius Nepos reports that at Athens Homer was held as insane.

Credo nimirum apud vulgus; docti autem intelligunt, si plures sunt dii, et discordare illos et bella inter eos esse posse, et necesse esse ut, altero victore, alter victus, atque ita nec sit immortalis nec omnipotens, consequenterque ne deus quidem; unum esse igitur Deum et non plures; vulgus autem falli. Et siquis interroget cur non potius palam vulgi vesaniam increparent, possum cum Augustino respondere: quod utrum timore an aliqua cognitione temporum fecerint, iudicare non est meum. Ego tamen, etsi sola timoris causa fuerit, non mirabor, cum videam Cristi quoque temporibus, ante Sancti Spiritus infusionem, ipsos etiam apostolos timuisse.

I, to be sure, believe among the vulgar; the learned, however, understand that, if there are many gods, both that they are at discord and that wars can be among them, and that it is necessary that, with the one victorious, the other conquered, he be neither immortal nor omnipotent, and consequently not even a god; therefore there is one God and not many; but the crowd is deceived. And if anyone should ask why they did not rather openly rebuke the madness of the crowd, I can answer with Augustine: that whether they did this from fear or from some cognition of the times, it is not mine to judge. I, however, even if it was solely for the cause of fear, shall not marvel, since I see that in the times of Christ also, before the infusion of the Holy Spirit, even the apostles themselves were afraid.

Enimvero quod a te de invidia deorum dicitur, eodem quo cetera referendum est, nec mirari conveniet, memorantem illud Psalmiste: "Omnes dii gentium demonia", et quod scriptum est: "Invidia diaboli mors introivit in orbem terrarum". Quenam igitur admiratio ista est, invidisse deos, qui nunquam sine invidia fuerunt? Quenam preterea poetarum culpa, rem veram, si intelligatur, salubremque narrantium? Aut quenam aristotelica illa reprehensio?

Indeed, as to what is said by you about the envy of the gods, it is to be referred to the same account as the rest, nor is it fitting to marvel, you recalling that of the Psalmist: "All the gods of the nations are demons," and that which is written: "By the envy of the devil death entered into the world." What, then, is this wonder, that the gods were envious, who were never without envy? What, moreover, is the blame of the poets, relating a thing true—if it be understood—and salutary? Or what is that Aristotelic reproof?

Si tamen ita est; neque enim michi nunc aut eius loci memoria recens, aut inter hos montes liber ipse methaphisicus est presens. Quomodo autem consentaneum sit, vel poetas in hac lingue libertate reprehendere, vel deorum invidiam excusare—in eo libro presertim in quo, principatuum pluralitate damnata, unus omnium princeps asseritur—non video; sed adducor ut credam te locum illum non melius intellexisse quam reliqua. Hoc ego nunc de poetis antiquis opinabile verisimillimumque protulerim: qui, si unum Deum crediderunt, hoc ne in illis accuses; si unum credentes, plures nominaverunt, seu etiam coluerunt, habes plane quod accuses.

If, however, it is so; for neither is the memory of that passage now fresh to me, nor is the Metaphysics itself at hand among these mountains. But how it should be consistent either to reprehend the poets in this liberty of language, or to excuse the envy of the gods—especially in that book in which, the plurality of principalities having been condemned, one prince of all is asserted—I do not see; rather I am led to believe that you did not understand that place any better than the rest. This I would now put forward about the ancient poets as an opinion both plausible and most verisimilar: who, if they believed in one God, do not for this accuse them; if, believing in one, they named several, or even cultivated them, you plainly have what to accuse.

Nec ego quidem illos excuso, sed comune cum philosophis crimen dico, quod, ut audisti, publici iudicii metus levat qui firmissima etiam interdum corda concussit. Vere autem plures deos tanta ingenia credidisse nunquam michi persuadebitur. Sed esto; crediderint: erraverunt—nichil est enim quod disceptator indoctus et pertinax non presumat —; non id certe poeticum, sed humanum fuerit, temporumque crimen vel ingenii, non artis, ut est dictum, neque quod, alio tempore atque alio ingenio et ampliori gratia, poetam esse pium disertumque prohibeat.

Nor indeed do I excuse them, but I declare a crime common with the philosophers, which, as you have heard, the fear of public judgment relieves, which has shaken even the most steadfast hearts at times. Truly, however, I shall never be persuaded that such great minds believed in many gods. But be it so; let them have believed: they erred — for there is nothing which an unlearned and obstinate disputer does not presume —; that certainly would have been not poetic, but human, and the fault of the times or of the talent, not of the art, as has been said, nor is it something which, at another time and with another talent and with ampler favor, would forbid the poet to be pious and eloquent.

Sed nonne ego poetas, adversus fragilem et inermem hostem dum defendere videor, offendo? Risus et silentium et contemptus poterant adversus tua tela sufficere: nullis opus erat verbis. Sed tacere non potui, ne ipse tecum forsan in aliqua cloaca—id enim tibi Capitolii instar est—inter egri ventris crepitus et raucas pelves—hee tube tue sunt, hic plaudentis conclamantisque favor exercitus—velut de musarum ruina et sacrorum studiorum excidio triumphares.

But do I not offend the poets, while I seem to defend them against a fragile and unarmed enemy? Laughter and silence and contempt could have sufficed against your missiles: there was no need of words. But I could not be silent, lest I myself perhaps with you in some sewer—that, indeed, is to you the likeness of the Capitol—amid the cracklings of a sick belly and the hoarse chamber-pots—these are your trumpets, here the favor of a clapping and shouting army—as though you were triumphing over the ruin of the Muses and the destruction of sacred studies.

"Ne respondeas stulto iuxta stultitiam suam, ne efficiaris similis ei". Hoc cum Sapiens dixisset, statim addidit: "Responde stulto iuxta stultitiam suam, ne sibi sapiens esse videatur". Primum me parumper tacitum tenuit, secundum coegit, ut loquerer; frustra quidem, ut puto. Si enim desieris tibi sapiens videri, incipies—quod impossibile arbitror—esse forte non stultus. Doctus fieri non potest, nisi qui se noverit atque oderit ignorantem: defectus proprii cum dolore notitia principium est profectus.

"Do not answer a fool according to his stupidity, lest you be made similar to him." When the Wise Man had said this, he immediately added: "Answer a fool according to his stupidity, lest he seem wise to himself." The first held me silent for a little while; the second compelled me to speak—indeed in vain, as I think. For if you cease to seem wise to yourself, you will begin—which I judge impossible—to be perhaps not a fool. No one can become learned, except the one who has come to know himself and to hate himself as ignorant: the knowledge of one’s own defect, together with pain, is the beginning of progress.

Et ad hos quidem sermones, non fame proprie periculum, non mei nominis offensa, quamvis gravis, tantum me, fateor, accendit, quantum hinc veri zelus, hinc tue loquacitatis inflammavit indignitas. Quantum enim ego tangebar, quicquid in poetas invectus eras, poteram—ut dixi—dissimulando transire. Nam nec michi poete nomen arrogo—quod scio quibusdam magnis viris multo studio non potuisse contingere, quamvis, si michi forsan ultro contigerit, non respuam, et ad id me olim iuveniliter aspirasse non negem—nec convitiis tuis presens hodierne lectionis mee studium tangebatur.

And indeed at these speeches, it was not, properly, the peril to reputation, not the offense against my name, although grave, that so inflamed me, I confess, as on this side the zeal of truth, on that the indignity of your loquacity set me ablaze. For however much I was touched, whatever you had inveighed against the poets, I could—as I said—have passed over by dissimulating. For I neither arrogate to myself the name of poet—which I know could not, despite much striving, befall certain great men, although, if perchance it should of its own accord befall me, I will not refuse it, and I do not deny that once in youth I aspired to it—nor was the present study of my reading today touched by your invectives.

Poteram, ut aiunt, de calumnia iurare me poetarum libros ante hoc septennium clausisse, ita ut eos inde non legerim, non quod legisse peniteat, sed quia legere iam quasi supervacuum videtur. Legi eos dum tulit etas; et ita michi medullitus sunt infixi, ut ne divelli quidem possint, et si velim. Ac ne me gloriari iterum graviter feras, non ea laus memorie sed etatis est.

I could, as they say, swear without calumny that I closed the books of the poets before this seven-year period, such that I have not read them since then—not because I regret having read, but because to read now seems, as it were, superfluous. I read them while age bore it; and they are so infixed in me to the marrow that they cannot even be torn away, even if I should wish. And lest you take it grievously that I boast again, that is not a praise of memory but of age.

Tener admodum illos edidici, expertusque sum in omnibus, fere, quod in vestibuloCivitatis Dei, de Virgilio loquens, Augustinus: "Quem propterea" inquit "parvuli legunt, ut videlicet poeta magnus, omniumque preclarissimus atque optimus, teneris ebibitus annis, non facile oblivione possit aboleri, secundum illud Horatii

Tender indeed I learned them by heart, and I have found in almost all respects what Augustine, speaking about Virgil, in the vestibule of City of God: "Whom for this reason," he says, "the little ones read, namely, that the great poet, the most illustrious of all and the best, having been drunk in in tender years, may not easily be able to be abolished by oblivion, according to that of Horace

quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem
testa diu".

with which, once it has been freshly imbued,
the jar will keep the odor for a long time".

Accedit quod in eisdem studiis agere senectutem, in quibus adolescentia acta est, minime michi magnificum videtur. Maturitas quedam, ut pomorum, ut frugum, sic studiorum ac mentium debet esse; eoque magis, quo turpior damnosiorque, multo est animorum acerbitas quam pomorum. Si ergo poetas hodie non lego, forsan interroges quid agam.

It is further added that to spend one’s old age in the same studies in which one’s adolescence was spent seems to me by no means magnificent. There ought to be a certain maturity—just as of fruits, just as of crops—so too of studies and of minds; and all the more, since the bitterness of spirits is much more disgraceful and more damaging than that of fruits. If, therefore, I do not read poets today, perhaps you ask what I am doing.

Solet enim stultitia aliene vite curiosa esse, sue negligens. Respondebo tibi prefatus, ne quod dicam superbie ascribas: "Melior fieri studeo, si possim". Et quia impotentiam meam novi, posco auxilium de celo et in Sacris Literis delector. Que si Victorino, pagano homini iam seni, Deo per illas alloquente, pectusque durissimum moliente, veram infuderunt fidem, cur michi, cristiano homini, non possunt vere fidei firmitatem et opera et amorem vite felicioris infundere?

For folly is wont to be curious about another’s life, negligent of its own. I will answer you with a preface, lest you ascribe what I say to pride: “I strive to become better, if I can.” And because I know my impotence, I ask for help from heaven and I take delight in the Sacred Letters. Which, if to Victorinus, a pagan man now aged—God through them speaking to him and softening a most hardened breast—they poured in true faith, why can they not pour into me, a Christian man, the firmness of true faith and works and the love of a happier life?

Queris quid agam. Nitor non sine multo labore preteriti temporis errata corrigere; quodsi michi contigerit, felix ero; sed adhuc, fateor, ab eo quo suspirat animus longe absum. Queris quid agam.

You ask what I am doing. I strive, not without much labor, to correct the errors of time past; but if it should befall me, I shall be happy; yet still, I confess, I am far from that for which my spirit sighs. You ask what I am doing.

Non poetas lego, sed scribo quod legant qui post me nascentur, et, raro plausore contentus, acies insanorum sperno. Et si votive successerit quod ago, bene est; alioquin voluntas ipsa laudabitur. Postremo, ut aliud nichil agam, maturescere saltem cupio, si nondum forte maturui.

I do not read poets, but I write what those who will be born after me may read, and, content with a rare applauder, I spurn the ranks of the insane. And if what I do succeeds according to vow, it is well; otherwise the will itself will be praised. Lastly, even if I do nothing else, I desire at least to mature, if perchance I have not yet matured.

Tu autem, "puer centum annorum", maledictus a Deo, et elementarius senex irrisus a Seneca, ibi senectutem agis, ubi pueritiam exegisti, et fluxos nunc etiam sillogismos filo marcente conglutinas, quos queat anus quelibet temulenta confringere; quicquid vero aliud quam puerile stramen redoluerit adversaris.

You, however, the “boy of a hundred years,” accursed by God, and the elementary old man mocked by Seneca, there you pass your old age where you spent your boyhood, and even now you glue together loose syllogisms with a withering thread, which any drunken old woman could shatter; but whatever is redolent of anything other than puerile straw you oppose.

Itaque libellos meos omelias vocas, quasi nomen infame meditatus, quod sanctissimis tamen atque doctissimis viris placuisse notum est. At minime mirandum si, quorum actus despicis, et verba contemnis. Omelia, porro, grece originis nomen est, quod latine dici potest sermo prolatus ad populum.

Therefore you call my little books homilies, as though having devised a disgraceful name, which nevertheless is known to have pleased most holy and most learned men. But it is not at all a wonder if you despise the deeds of those whose words you also contemn. Homily, moreover, is a name of Greek origin, which in Latin can be said a discourse delivered to the people.

Ego sane in his literis ad populum nichil, sed ad ignorantiam tuam loquor, si quo pacto possem, non dico illam tibi, sed illi superbiam extorquere. Quis autem, queso, peregrine lingue a te nunc notitiam requirebat, cum proprie sis ignarus? Sentis ut causam tuam ago, quo scilicet insolentem honesti nominis contemptum excuset ignorantia?

I indeed, in these letters, speak nothing to the people, but to your ignorance, if by any means I could, I do not say to wrest it from you, but to wrest pride from it. But who, I pray, was now requiring from you knowledge of a foreign tongue, since, properly speaking, you are ignorant? Do you perceive that I am pleading your cause, in order that ignorance may excuse the insolent contempt of an honorable name?

O semper scolastice literator, nunquam literatus aut magister—quis enim literatus ita scriberet?—lege philosophorum libros, vel interroga qui legerunt: quis unquam hunc scribendi morem tenuit? Inest quidem verbis illorum vis ingens sillogistica: sillogismus nunquam aut perraro; quippe, pueritiam pretergressi, loquuntur ut viri. Efficacior est autem dissimulata callide, quam inaniter ostentata subtilitas.

O ever scholastic literator, never literate nor master—for who that is literate would write thus?—read the books of the philosophers, or ask those who have read: who ever maintained this manner of writing? There is indeed in their words a vast syllogistic force: the syllogism itself never—or very rarely; for, having passed beyond boyhood, they speak as men. Moreover, a subtlety shrewdly dissimulated is more efficacious than one inanely ostentatiously displayed.

Sed et hic excusator, licet irrequisitus, adsum tibi: illi enim ut se, tu autem loqueris ut te decet.

But also here as an apologist, although unasked, I am present for you: for he speaks as it befits himself, whereas you speak as it befits you.

Ecce, iurgator improbe, extorsisti ut non tantum maledictis tuis, sed et cogitatibus responderem. Quedam sponte preterii. Misereor enim tui; nam quid superbo ignorante miserius?

Behold, shameless wrangler, you have extorted that I should respond not only to your maledictions, but even to your cogitations. Certain things I passed over of my own accord. For I pity you; for what is more miserable than a proud ignoramus?

Sed ne plene miserear, tu facis. Ita namque iactanter atque fastidiose miseria tua abuteris, ut nulla tibi miseratio debeatur. Quomodo vero dissimulem, aut quid illi faciam vanitati, qua probare niteris cuius contrarium apparet in te ipso, dumque tu loqui poteris, occultari nunquam poterit?

But you make it that I do not pity you fully. For you so vauntingly and fastidiously abuse your own misery that no commiseration is owed to you. How indeed shall I dissimulate, or what shall I do to that vanity by which you strive to prove that of which the contrary appears in your very self, and, so long as you are able to speak, it can never be concealed?

Quanta mechanici temeritas? Rethoricam prorsus in servitutem asseris. Iam non castigandus sed urendus es, nec verbis sed verberibus coercendus.

How great the rashness of the mechanic! You utterly claim Rhetoric into servitude. Now you are not to be chastised but to be burned, and to be restrained not by words but by lashes.

Nimis insanis, medice. Crede michi: medico eges. Mirum quod medicorum nullus est, qui curam tui suscipiat; puto sis omnibus odiosus, teque perditum velint omnes.

You are excessively insane, physician. Believe me: you need a physician. It is strange that there is none of the physicians who would undertake your care; I think you are odious to all, and that all wish you to be in perdition.

Medicine, inquam, rethoricam servam facis: de medicina viderimus. Certe ipse rethoricam in tuam servitutem aut amicitiam nunquam trahes. Quid autem probes et qualiter audiamus.

Medicine, I say, you make rhetoric a slave; as for medicine, we shall see. Surely you yourself will never draw rhetoric into your servitude or friendship. But what you prove, and how, let us hear.

"Per medicinam" inquis "et ethicam docemur recte vivere". Dii te perdant, fugitive! Male incipis. Medicine nichil comune cum ethica, sed multa contraria.

"Through medicine," you say, "and ethics, we are taught to live rightly." May the gods destroy you, fugitive! You begin badly. Medicine has nothing in common with ethics, but many things contrary to it.

Quid vero ad vivendum recte medicina, nisi quantum agricultura? Forte etiam longe minus. Nisi putas male vixisse olim Rome tot milia virorum fortium, per quos orbis terrarum domitus, virtus culta, vitia calcata sunt; qui tamen longum in evum sine medico vixerunt.

What indeed has medicine to do with living rightly, except as much as agriculture? Perhaps even far less. Unless you think that once at Rome so many thousands of brave men lived badly, by whom the orb of the lands was subdued, virtue was cultivated, vices were trampled; who nevertheless lived for a long age without a physician.

Vixerunt, fateor, male; non quia medicus temporalis, sed quia vivificator eternus illis defuit. Alioquin nulla gens melius, vel nisi male vivebat virgo illa mirabilis, que carnalem suo corpori medicinam nunquam adhibuerat. Cur autem, queso, medicinam ethice permisces?

They lived, I confess, badly; not because a temporal physician was lacking, but because the eternal Vivifier was lacking to them. Otherwise no nation lived better—unless that marvelous Virgin lived badly, who had never applied carnal medicine to her body. But why, I pray, do you mix medicine with ethics?

Tene te loco, neque fines tuos excesseris. Quamvis nec ethica prestare possit recte vivere, cum id potentioris alterius donum sit. Verum et longior operosiorque disputatio, nec propositi huius est.

Hold yourself to your place, and do not exceed your boundaries. Although not even ethics can provide right living, since that is the gift of a more powerful other. But that would also be a longer and more laborious disputation, nor is it the purpose of this work.

Prosequere igitur ludum tuum; ita, tamen, ut deinceps ethicam non molestes, sed memineris quid sutori terminos suos excedenti respondit pictorum famosissimus Apelles. Age res tuas ut medicus. "Per medicinam docemur" ais "recte vivere; non ut congrue loquamur vel ornate, sed potius congrue et ornate loquendi artes discimus, ut vivamus recte.

Therefore continue your game; thus, however, that henceforth you do not molest Ethics, but remember what the most famous of painters, Apelles, answered to the shoemaker when he exceeded his boundaries. Mind your own matters as a medic. “Through Medicine,” you say, “we are taught to live rightly; not that we may speak congruently or ornately, but rather we learn the arts of speaking congruently and ornately, so that we may live rightly.”

Sic non medicina ad has artes refertur, sed hee potius ad illam et propter illam sunt". Hinc concludis: "Serve igitur eius sunt". O male digesta conclusio! Sic iam longius feris quam minatus eras. Neque solum rethorica, sed omnes, quotcunque sunt, honeste artes, ipsa quoque philosophia et theologia, scientiarum omnium regina, tibi servient.

"Thus medicine is not referred to these arts, but these rather are referred to that one and are on account of that one". From this you conclude: "Therefore they are its servants". O badly digested conclusion! Thus now you go farther than you had threatened. And not only rhetoric, but all the honorable arts, however many there are, philosophy itself also and theology, the queen of all the sciences, will serve you.

O mechanice, si hoc michi probaveris: quod per medicinam recte vivere doceamur—omnes enim huc referuntur, et omnium unus est finis ultimus, non dico ut prestent recte vivere, sed ut ad recte vivendum adiuvent —, iure ergo illi servient, que id prestat, ad quod omnes relique aspirant. Certe ego nunc risu et verecundia impedior sillogismum tibi tuo parem mittere, quo probem te vilissime servum rei. Quod urbanius possum dicam: si quod alio spectat, et ad aliud refertur, et propter aliud est inventum, illi serviat oportet, ut tu vis.

O mechanic, if you shall have proved this to me: that through medicine we are taught to live rightly—since all are referred hither, and there is one ultimate end of all; I do not say that they ensure living rightly, but that they help toward living rightly —, by right, therefore, they will serve that which furnishes that to which all the rest aspire, as well. Certainly I am now hindered by laughter and by modesty from sending you a syllogism equal to your own, by which I might prove you, most worthless man, a slave of the thing. What I can say more urbanely, I will say: if something looks toward another, and is referred to another, and was invented on account of another, it ought to serve that one, as you wish.

Medicina autem tua pecuniam spectat et ad illam refertur et propter illam est. Conclude, dyaletice: ergo pecunie serva est. Bene tibi accidit; turpioris rei servum te facere meditabar; pudor obstitit.

But your medicine looks to money and is referred to it and exists on account of it. Conclude, dialectician: therefore it is the slave of money. You got off well; I was considering making you the slave of a more shameful thing; modesty stood in the way.

Sed, o gravis argumentator, quis te talia docuit? Assumis falsa notorie, et ea de quibus principaliter discordamus; quod magnum in argumentando vitium est. Primum enim, ut dixi, medicina ad recte vivendum nichil omnino, nisi quantum una mechanicarum corpori famulantium.

But, O grave arguer, who taught you such things? You assume things notoriously false, and those about which we principally disagree; which is a great vice in arguing. First, indeed, as I said, medicine contributes nothing at all to living rightly, except insofar as, as one among the mechanical arts ministering to the body.

Deinde quis illud diffinivit inter nos, de quo ab initio litigamus? Preter enim quod circa medicinam nobis infinita dissensio est, nonne alius scrupulus premit occultior? Equidem ut tibi plane concesserim quod medicine: ars nobilissima tuque preclarus medicus.

Then who has defined that between us, about which from the beginning we are litigating? For besides the fact that concerning medicine there is for us infinite dissension, is not another, more occult scruple pressing? Indeed, even granting you plainly, as to medicine: a most noble art, and you a very illustrious physician.

Illa, ut est mechanicarum penultima, sic omnium prima artium. Tu, ut non tantum ultimus, sed hostis es, sic medicorum omnium sis princeps. Liceat vobis passim cuiuslibet necessarie artis obsequio uti, et cuius utile obsequium fuerit, illa confestim vobis ancilla sit.

She, as she is the penultimate of the mechanical arts, so is the first of all arts. You, as you are not only the last but an enemy, so may you be the prince of all physicians. Let it be permitted to you everywhere to make use of the service of any necessary art, and whichever service shall be useful, let that forthwith be your handmaid.

Quid futurum arbitramur? Ancillabitur forsan astrologia, que celestium corporum notitia terrenis aliquam corpusculis opem ferat? Ancillabitur musica, que in hominum pulsu forte non inutiliter dimensiones temporum et intervalla consideret?

What do we think will come to pass? Will astrology perhaps be a handmaid, which, as a knowledge of the celestial bodies, might bring some aid to certain earthly bodies? Will music be a handmaid, which in the pulse of men perhaps not uselessly considers the dimensions of times and the intervals?

Que res, vobis quia necessaria esse posset, ideo prorsus incognita et neglecta est. Illam appetitis, quam nec consequi potest, et si possetis, deberetis nolle. Rethores esse vultis, ridente Tullio, indignante Demosthene, flente Ypocrate, populo pereunte.

The very thing which, because it could be necessary for you, is therefore utterly unknown and neglected. You desire that which cannot even be attained—and if you could attain it, you ought to be unwilling. You want to be rhetors, with Tully laughing, Demosthenes indignant, Hippocrates weeping, while the people are perishing.

Ne enim in singulis immorer, ad litis nostre summam venio. Si omnes, inquam, artes, quamvis nobiles, quamvis ingenuas, tuo humili et mercennario artificio servas facis, eo ipso quod utiles aut necessarie proposito tuo sunt—idque tibi nescio quo iure permittitur—nunquam profecto vel sic tibi rethorica serva fiet, quam constat ad id, quo te intendere oportet, non modo nil prodesse, sed obesse quam plurimum. Quid enim egro longa oratione opus est, cui fere verbum omne molestum est, nisi ut iubeatur bono animo esse, cureturque artis ope, si potest?

Lest I dwell on particulars, I come to the sum of our suit. If, I say, you make all arts, however noble, however ingenuous, into handmaids by your humble and mercenary craft, for the very reason that they are useful or necessary to your purpose—and this is permitted to you by I know not what right—never, assuredly, will rhetoric even so become your handmaid, since it is agreed that with respect to that at which you ought to aim, it not only profits nothing, but harms as much as possible. For what need has the sick man of a long oration, to whom almost every word is burdensome, except that he be bidden to be of good cheer, and be treated by the help of art, if it can be?

An forsan apothecariis persuadere propositum est, quibus pene maternis verbis sunt dictanda remedia? Unum est, quoniam factum tuum, quam possum, excusare disposui. Unum est quo in te alienum eloquentie studium excusem: si forte defectus tuos et medicine imperitiam, non dicam supplere, sed tegere putas eloquentia, et, cum aperte peremeris, ostendas culpam esse non tuam, sed egroti, sed astantium, sed nature; si, preterea, in morte manibus tuis ascita, vis superstites consolari.

Or perhaps it is your plan to persuade the apothecaries, for whom the remedies must be dictated in almost maternal words? There is one thing, since I have resolved to excuse your deed as much as I can. There is one point by which I excuse in you the alien pursuit of eloquence: if perchance you think that your defects and your inexpertise in medicine— I will not say to supply them, but to cover them—by eloquence; and that, when you have openly slain, you may show the blame to be not yours, but the patient’s, the bystanders’, Nature’s; if, moreover, in a death brought about by your hands, you wish to console the survivors.

Utrunque enim oratorum et rethorici opus est, fateor. Accusare, excusare, consolari, irritare, placare animos, movere lacrimas atque comprimere, accendere iras et extinguere, colorare factum, avertere infamiam, transferre culpam, suscitare suspitiones: oratorum propria sunt hec; medicorum esse non noveram. Sed si rethorica tibi servit, quicquid vero ancille tue est, tuum esse conceditur.

For both are indeed the work of orators and of the rhetorician, I confess. To accuse, to excuse, to console, to irritate, to placate minds, to move tears and also to compress them, to kindle angers and to extinguish them, to color the deed, to avert infamy, to transfer blame, to raise suspicions: these are proper to orators; I had not known them to belong to physicians. But if rhetoric serves you, whatever, in truth, is your handmaid’s is conceded to be yours.

Omnia hec, igitur, tua sunt, et quecunque alia oratoribus assignantur. Plusquam tibi permittitur, quam putabam. Potes enim occidere—mirum dictu!—et quem occideris accusare.

All these things, therefore, are yours, and whatever else are assigned to orators. More is permitted to you than I supposed. For you can kill—marvelous to say!—and accuse the one whom you have killed.

Sed quando hodie—nescio quomodo—de accusatore factus sum excusator tuus, quid te vetat, hoc tanto et tam capaci ingenio, ut philosophum et medicum, sic oratorem esse, atque actus oratorios exercere cum gloria? Nonne ita homo es tu, ut Cicero? Accusat ille Clodium ac Verrem et inInvectivis Catilinam, et inPhilippicis insectatur Antonium—magnos viros ac feroces, ad ultionemque promptissimos—et molem multorum criminum, ac reipublice ruinam illis opponit.

But since today—I know not how—from an accuser I have been made your excuser, what forbids you, with this so great and so capacious ingenium, to be, as a philosopher and a physician, so also an orator, and to exercise oratorical acts with glory? Are you not a man in the same way as Cicero? He accuses Clodius and Verres, and inInvectives Catiline, and inPhilippics he hunts down Antony—great men and fierce, and most prompt to vengeance—and he sets against them the mass of many crimes, and the ruin of the republic.

Tu defunctum unum nec loqui valentem nec ulcisci, cur non fidenter accuses, quod se ipse necaverit? Excusat item Cicero capitalium rerum reos: Deiotarum regem, Plancium, Quintum Ligarium, Milonem, mille alios; tibi cur te ipsum non liceat excusare? Consolatur ille se se in morte unice carissimeque filie: tu in illorum morte, de quibus nichil ad te, cur non possis alios consolari?

Why do you not confidently accuse a single deceased man—able neither to speak nor to avenge himself—on the ground that he killed himself? Cicero likewise excuses defendants in capital matters: King Deiotarus, Plancius, Quintus Ligarius, Milo, a thousand others; why should it not be permitted to you to excuse yourself? He consoles himself in the death of his only and most dear daughter: you, in the death of those who are nothing to you, why can you not console others?

Facile se ipsum excusat, quem non pudet; facile consolatur alium, qui non dolet. Et illud est certum: quod quisque promptius se, quam alium excusat. Contra autem quisque promptius alium consolatur, quam se ipsum.

He easily excuses himself, who is not ashamed; he easily consoles another, who does not grieve. And this is certain: that each person excuses himself more promptly than another. Conversely, however, each person more promptly consoles another than himself.

Si hec ergo te movent, stude in oratorum libris. Velis esse rethorice dominus: utilis est tibi, necessaria est, totum est: sine illa nullus es. Quotidie enim facis quo et excusator tibi sit necessarius, et consolator alteri. Sed, si es quod profiteris, non excusator tui, non consolator aliorum, imo medicus, si non vulgi plausum, sed—ut debes—egroti tui respicis salutem, quo pergis?

If these things, then, move you, apply yourself to the books of the orators. You may wish to be a master of Rhetoric: it is useful to you, it is necessary, it is the whole; without it you are nothing. For every day you do things on account of which both an excuser is necessary for you, and a consoler for another. But, if you are what you profess—no excuser of yourself, no consoler of others, nay rather a physician—if you regard not the applause of the crowd, but—as you ought—the health of your patient, whither are you going?

quid cogitas? quid agis? aut quid tibi rei est extra terminos tuos longe?

What are you thinking? What are you doing? Or what business have you far outside your own boundaries?

An non illud tibi semper conscientia ad aurem cordis immurmurat: "Iste, cum quo ludis, eger est". Tu te medicum dicis: quid opus est verbis? Cura, sepe tibi dixi, medice. Rethorica, quam servam tibi vis efficere, hostis tua est; postquam rethores ac poete esse voluistis, medici esse desiistis.

Or does not your conscience always murmur this into the ear of your heart: “That man, with whom you play, is a sick man.” You call yourself a physician: what need is there of words? Cure, I have often said to you, physician. Rhetoric, which you wish to make your slave, is your enemy; after you have wished to be rhetors and poets, you have ceased to be physicians.

Sed hec michi tecum vetus est querela. Cogita et recogita sillogismos tuos: inanes et vacuos invenies. Non probant quod volunt; et, si probarent, tibi dedecus, egris tuis damnum ac periculum probarent.

But this complaint of mine with you is old. Think and rethink your syllogisms: you will find them inane and empty. They do not prove what they want; and, if they did prove it, they would prove a disgrace to you, and for your sick patients a damage and a peril.

Proba potius rethoricam tibi incognitam, quam servam. Sed egros oculos lux serena prestringit, delectat videri quod esse nec expedit, nec licet. An autem solidum et universalem sillogismum recipis unius logica carentis?

Prove, rather, rhetoric unknown to you than as a handmaid. But a serene light bedazzles sick eyes; it delights to seem what it is neither expedient nor permitted to be. Or do you, moreover, accept a solid and universal syllogism from one lacking logic?

Siquidem, sicut anima rationalis, nisi rationem amiserit, corpori suo imperat, corpus autem illi servit, sic omnes artes, propter animam invente imperant propter corpus inventis; ille autem serviunt. Constat autem liberales propter animam, mechanicas propter corpus inventas. Conclude, dyaletice: ergo medicine rethorica serva est.

Since, just as the rational soul, unless it has lost reason, commands its own body, and the body serves it, so all the arts, invented on account of the soul, command those invented on account of the body; the latter, however, serve them. It is agreed, moreover, that the liberal (arts) were invented for the soul, the mechanical for the body. Conclude, dialectically: therefore rhetoric is the servant of medicine.

Habes, medice, quod optabas. Sed an ego tecum ludo, cum tu tamen sis iratus et iocosa conclusio in contrarium cadit? Dimoveantur ambages: dicam clare quod sentio, quamvis dentibus tuis fremas, et tabescas, et michi fortassis anceps farmacum mineris.

You have, physician, what you desired. But am I playing with you, when you are nevertheless angry and the jocose conclusion falls to the contrary? Let circumlocutions be removed: I will say clearly what I feel, although you gnash with your teeth, and waste away, and perhaps threaten me with a two-edged pharmakon.

Expediret tibi, sed multo magis egris tuis, ut mutus esses, non orator. Et quod natura non fecit, faceret homo aliquis reipublice amicus, linguamque precideret, sumpto forcipe de altari, linguam illam, insulso vix ore versatilem, qua superbis. Tum demum curare cogitares: nunc cogitas predicare; et quicquid predicas in nichilum finit.

It would be expedient for you, but much more for your sick, that you be mute, not an orator. And what nature did not do, let some man, a friend of the republic, do, and cut off your tongue, taking the forceps from the altar—the tongue scarcely movable in your insipid mouth, with which you are proud. Then at last you would think to cure; now you think to preach; and whatever you preach ends in nothing.

Fallor: imo vero, in tuam infamiam et in perniciem alienam. Certe non ad artis ignominiam, nec a casu, medicinam Virgilius mutam vocat, sed quoniam muta debet esse, non loquax. Vos autem eo rem deduxistis, impudentia vestra, ut de mutis parabolani dici merueritis.

Am I mistaken? Nay rather, to your infamy and to another’s ruin. Assuredly not to the art’s ignominy, nor by chance, does Virgil call medicine mute, but because it ought to be mute, not loquacious. You, however, have brought the matter to this point, by your impudence, that, as to the mute, you have deserved to be called Parabolani.

Hoc nomen, iure civili vobis impositum, nunquam cadet. Solebant medici veteres taciti curare: vos perorantes, et altercantes, et conclamantes occiditis. Hec medicina, hec rethorica vestra est; et cum nulla gens magis rethoricis floribus nuda sit, nulla minus illis indigeat, tamen rethorici, et oratores, et poete, et philosophi, et apostoli, ac suscitatores corporum dici vultis; et penitus nichil estis, nisi verba inania nugeque volatiles.

This name, imposed on you by civil law, will never fall away. The ancient physicians used to heal silently; you, perorating, altercating, and shouting aloud, kill. This is medicine, this is your rhetoric; and though no people is more bare of rhetorical flowers, none has less need of them, yet you wish to be called rhetoricians, and orators, and poets, and philosophers, and apostles, and raisers of bodies; and you are utterly nothing, except empty words and flighty trifles.

Olim quidem sine sillogismis curabantur et prope, ut tu nunc falso gloriaris, suscitabantur infirmi. Hinc, arbitror, fabule locus fuit, Hipolytum ab Esculapio suscitatum: quod eum ab extremis efficax medicus et velut a morte media revocasset. Nunc quanta mutatio!

Once indeed without syllogisms they were cared for, and almost, as you now falsely boast, the infirm were resuscitated. Hence, I suppose, there was room for the fable that Hippolytus was resuscitated by Aesculapius: because an efficacious physician had called him back from the last extremities and, as it were, from the very midst of death. Now what a change!

Sillogizantibus vobis, pereunt qui sine vobis vivere potuissent. Sepe iam nequicquam dixi: curate, medemini; eloquentiam his quorum est propria relinquite; vestra esse non potest. Et ut pro consilio consilium reddam tibi, sed aliquanto fidelius: tu me iubes in alienos fines irrumpere, ego te ad tuos redire moneo.

Syllogizing as you are, those perish who could have lived without you. Often already I have said in vain: care for, heal; leave eloquence to those to whom it is proper; it cannot be yours. And, that I may render counsel in return for counsel to you, but somewhat more faithfully: you bid me to break into others’ borders, I advise you to return to your own.

Tu michi consulis ut, mutato adhuc vite genere, medicus fiam—rem neque magnificam et pene impossibilem—ego tibi ne unquam rethorice studeas, ut tandem medicus esse incipias, quod diu te esse mentitus es. Tam decet ornatus medicum, quam asellum falere. Tibi sane ne hinc reprehendi posses, abunde provisum est. Quisquis te disertum dixerit, idem et nitidam suem, et volucrem testudinem, et candidum corvum dicat.

You advise me that, with my way of life even now changed, I should become a physician—a thing not magnificent, and almost impossible—while I advise you never to study rhetoric, so that at length you may begin to be a physician, which you have long pretended to be. Such ornament befits a physician as much as it does to deck out a little donkey. For you, to be sure, ample provision has been made that you could not be blamed on this score. Whoever should call you eloquent, let the same also call a sleek sow, and a winged tortoise, and a white crow.

In te ergo, non facundia, sed facundie studium male olet, et facundie inimica loquacitas. De aliis loquebar, dum dixi non esse medici ornatum: magis est mercatori necessarius, quamvis nec ille rethorice quidem studet, sed usu experientiam querit, ac promptitudinem colloquendi. Quam ob causam illud a te non sine certa ratione quesieram: cur non potius navigationi rethoricam subiecisses, si cogebas eam servire mechanice.

In you, therefore, not eloquence, but the zeal for eloquence smells ill, and a talkativeness inimical to eloquence. I was speaking about others, when I said that ornament is not the physician’s: it is more necessary to the merchant, although not even he studies rhetoric, but by use he seeks experience and a promptitude of conversing. For which cause I had asked you that thing not without definite reason: why you had not rather subjected rhetoric to navigation, if you were compelling it to serve mechanically.

Quem locum non intelligens—qui ignorantium mos est—non sine meo et multorum risu responsionem supervacuam diffinisti.

Not understanding that passage—which is the custom of the ignorant—you defined a superfluous response, not without my laughter and that of many.

Sciens gratissimam michi partem maledictorum tuorum ad ultimum reservavi, non quia tu quoque ultimam posuisses—de ordine enim tuo, de ingenio, de stilo quid sentiam audivisti—sed ut, prioribus exactis, in hac parte licentius immorarer, palamque omnibus fieret quam sis virtutis amicus, quam cupidus literarum, qui michi solitariam vitam velut probrum aliquod obiectas. De qua quidem duo mei libri extant, quos quoniam ad te nec pervenisse, nec perventuros esse confido, neu perveniant velim, de hoc ipso cogor aliquid hic etiam ignorantie tue loqui. Ita ne demens igitur et excors?

Knowing, I reserved for the last the most gratifying part to me of your maledictions, not because you too had put it last—for you have heard what I think of your order, your ingenium, your style—but so that, the former matters dispatched, I might dwell the more licentiously on this part, and it might become plain to all how much a friend of virtue you are, how desirous of letters, you who cast up to me the solitary life as though it were some reproach. Concerning which indeed two of my books are extant, which, since I am confident have neither reached you nor will reach you, nor would I wish them to reach you, about this very thing I am compelled here also to say something to your ignorance. Are you then mad and excordate?

Quos vituperare vis laudas! Non miror, quia et quos curare vis interficis, et—puto—quos interficere velles efficeres immortales. Tu michi ergo, vesane et omnis boni expers, inter acervos iurgiorum etiam solitudinem exprobrasti.

Those whom you wish to vituperate you praise! I do not marvel, since even those whom you wish to care for you kill, and—I think—those whom you would wish to kill you would make immortal. You therefore, madman and devoid of every good, amid heaps of wranglings, have even thrown solitude in my face.

Fecisti optime, quamvis pessima voluntate. Libenter crimen hoc fateor: sum solitudinis amicus; talem me genuit natura, accessit consuetudo nature emula, accessit studium et iugis cura. Magno nisu animi semper incubui, ut quantum fieri posset illa contemnerem, que te moribundum, marcidum, semianimem in urbibus captum tenent.

You have done most excellently, although with the worst will. I gladly confess this charge: I am a friend of solitude; such has nature begotten me; habit, emulous of nature, has been added; zeal and continual care have been added. With great exertion of mind I have always applied myself, so that, as far as might be done, I might contemn those things which hold you—moribund, withered, half-alive—captive in the cities.

Solitarius sum, fateor, imo profiteor, et solitarium esse iuvat, vixque ullam vite dulcedinem urbano in strepitu ac fragore percipio. Addam quod non postulas: vix de homine, presertim studioso, bene extimo, qui non, si absque intermissione honesti officii datum sit, cupide interdum e procellis civilium curarum in solitudinem velut in portum fugiat. "Habes igitur quod est accusatori maxime optandum" ut ait Cicero "confitentem reum"; neque confitentem modo, sed se se novorum insuper criminum coacervatione spontanea deferentem.

I am solitary, I confess, nay I profess, and it delights me to be solitary, and I scarcely perceive any sweetness of life in the urban din and crash. I will add what you do not ask: I scarcely esteem well of a man, especially a studious one, who does not, if it be granted to be without interruption of honorable duty, eagerly at times flee from the storms of civic cares into solitude as into a harbor. "You have therefore what is most to be desired by an accuser," as Cicero says, "a confessing defendant"; not confessing only, but even denouncing himself besides by a spontaneous coacervation of new charges.

Sed expecta, noli victorie letitia inflari: sepe probavit actor quod non probasse prestabat, et, facti victor, in iure succubuit. Probas, me fatente ac favente, quod intendis; sed an hinc in meum, an in tuum caput redundet infamia nondum probas. Proinde pedagogum tuum, senex puer, ut arcessas consulo.

But wait, do not be inflated by the joy of victory: often the accuser has proved what it were better not to have proved, and, a victor in the fact, has succumbed in the law. You prove, with me confessing and favoring, what you intend; but whether from this the infamy flows back upon my head or upon yours you have not yet proved. Therefore I advise that you summon your pedagogue, old boy.

Multis hic tibi sillogismis claudicantibus opus est, ut vel irrisor vite solitarie clarus sit vel sectator obscurus. Incipe, aude, noli trepidare! Logicus es, philosophia tua est, rethorica tibi servit, et—quod omnes titulos tuos transcendit—summus es medicus.

Many limping syllogisms are needed here for you, so that either the mocker of the solitary life may be renowned or the follower obscure. Begin, dare, do not tremble! You are a logician, philosophy is yours, rhetoric serves you, and—which surpasses all your titles—you are the supreme physician.

Confice ridiculum sillogismum, qui sepe mortiferum poculum confecisti, et si nescis melius, dic ita: "Quod nature adversatur malum sit necesse est, cum natura ipsa sit optima; solitarie autem vivens nature adversatur, secundum quam politicum animal est homo. Mala igitur solitudo". Ad hec: "Constat quod carere bonis est miserum; multa vero in urbibus bona esse certum est, quibus solitarius caret. Misera igitur solitudo". Adde, si placet: "Ut utilis est qui multis prodest, sic inutilis qui nulli.

Compose a ridiculous syllogism, you who have often concocted a mortiferous cup, and if you do not know better, say thus: "That which is adverse to nature must be evil, since nature herself is optimal; but one living solitarily is adverse to nature, according to which man is a political animal. Therefore solitude is evil." To this: "It is agreed that to be deprived of goods is miserable; indeed it is certain that many goods are in cities, of which the solitary man is deprived. Therefore solitude is miserable." Add, if it pleases: "As he is useful who benefits many, so he is useless who benefits none."

Habitator vero urbium, vir bonus, multis prodest, saltem exemplo; solitudo autem seu sancta rusticitas nulli nisi sibi soli prodest, teste Ieronimo. Inutilis ergo rustica solitudo". Vides ut periculosum est cum stulto multum colloqui. Ecce iam ipse ludens sensim ad ineptias tuas labor, et dum te emulari studeo, prope tui similis factus sum.

The inhabitant of cities, indeed a good man, benefits many, at least by example; but solitude, or holy rusticity, benefits no one except himself alone, with Jerome as witness. “Therefore rustic solitude is useless.” You see how dangerous it is to converse much with a fool. Behold, now I myself, jesting, little by little slide toward your ineptitudes, and while I strive to emulate you, I have become nearly similar to you.

Sed quoniam ex persona tua loquor, excuser; et fatebor ingenue: nulla arte, nullo studio, simulare possem usqueadeo stilum tuum, quin prima fronte discerneremur. Ita michi nescio quid terapenticum insibilas, quod e rostris perorantem Tullium facile possit expellere. Sillogismos autem tibi texui, ne a te texti farmacum oleant stomacumque subvertant.

But since I speak in your persona, let me be excused; and I will ingenuously confess: by no art, by no study, could I so simulate your style that we would not be discerned at first blush. So you hiss into me I know not what therapeutic thing, which could easily expel Tully perorating from the rostra. Moreover, I have woven syllogisms for you, lest the pharmacon woven by you should reek and overturn the stomach.

Ceterum hos ludos hasque tendiculas puerorum ridendo preterire magnificum, puerile dissolvere. Tamen quia cum pueris pueriliter et interdum—quod nutrices solent—bleso ore loquendum est, et hic parumper insistam.

Moreover, to pass by these games and these little snares of boys with laughter is magnificent; to resolve them is puerile. Yet because with boys one must speak in a boyish way and sometimes—just as nurses are wont—with a lisping mouth, I too will linger here for a little while.

An nature semper obsequendum, an vero nonnunquam valde etiam resistendum sit, non huius temporis est questio. Tu eam forte, philosophorum princeps, in aliquo tuorum voluminum ventilasti. Quem enim philosophie locum rear a tanto philosopho pretermissum?

Whether nature must always be obeyed, or indeed sometimes even strongly resisted, is not a question for this time. You perhaps, prince of philosophers, have ventilated it in some one of your volumes. For what locus of philosophy would I deem to have been pretermitted by so great a philosopher?

Sed sit nature obsequendum, sitque homo naturaliter animal politicum, nichil tamen politie obesse solitudinem studiosorum hominum, qui proculdubio rari sunt, sepe etiam multum prodesse compertum est, plusque unum solitarium conferre reipublice, quam centum qui latrinis aut tabernis ac lupanaribus obversentur. Neque enim solitudinem loquimur cuntis hominibus infensam, qualem Bellorophontis accepimus, qui universo generi humano odium indixerat, aut Timonis nesciocuius—obscurum enim nomen habet—qui ob id quod omnem amicitiam sperneret nullumque diligeret ab Atheniensibus lapidatus traditur. Non hanc solitudinem loquimur, sed tranquillam, et mitem, et ab hominum vitiis non ab humanitate semotam.

But grant that nature is to be obeyed, and that man is by nature a political animal; nevertheless the solitude of studious men—who are without doubt rare—by no means harms the polity, and it has often been found even to profit it much, and that one solitary contributes more to the commonwealth than a hundred who loiter about latrines or taverns and brothels. For we are not speaking of a solitude hostile to all men, such as we have received concerning Bellerophon, who had proclaimed hatred against the whole human race, or of some Timon—I know not which, for he has an obscure name—who, because he spurned all friendship and loved no one, is related to have been stoned by the Athenians. Not this solitude do we speak of, but a tranquil and mild one, removed from the vices of men, not from humanity.

Ecce nunc tu per vicos ruis ac plateas, et quasi ad currendum nati simus, me in solitudine sedentem inhumanum putas. Crede michi, si placet: plures te quotidie impellunt, plures melioresque me diligunt; et nisi gloriari tibi importune nimium videar, dicam quod multis est notum: tales ad me visendum viros in hanc solitudinem venisse, et propter me unum hic cupide fuisse, tales etiam misisse de longinquo ad cohortandum me noscendumque quid agerem, qui te, si ultro illos adeas, egre visuri sint, nichil dicturi, modicum responsuri. Sed transeo, ne te nimis affligam.

Behold, now you rush through lanes and squares, and as though we were born for running, you think me, sitting in solitude, inhuman. Believe me, if it please you: more people impel you every day, more and better love me; and unless I seem to you too importunately given to boasting, I will say what is known to many: such men have come into this solitude to see me, and have eagerly been here on account of me alone, such men have also sent from afar to exhort me and to learn what I was doing—who, if you were to approach them unbidden, would scarcely care to see you, would say nothing, would answer little. But I pass over this, lest I afflict you too much.

Hec autem non ut glorier, cum omnis honor in honorante sit, sed ut scias multos ruris amatores etiam in urbibus caros esse, multos habitatores urbium ipsis in quibus habitant urbibus odiosos. Ita non adversam solitudinem politie, meque, licet solitarium, et amare bonos noveris, et ab illis non minus amari quam si, ceno oblitus ac sudore, et nunc hac nunc illac more tuo discurrens, prehensarem homines, loquendo caput omnium obtunderem, nullum dormire sinerem, cuntis liminibus insultarem, et quem semel arripuissem tenerem, occideremque tenendo, ut ait Flaccus, non missura cutem nisi plena cruoris hirudo. In eo quidem quod bonis urbium carere solitarii videntur, nolo questionem antiquissimam renovare, que inter perypatheticos ac stoicos multis iam seculis fuit, eritque per secula, illis summum, his solum bonum dicentibus esse virtutem. Que si vera sententia est, quibus quantisque bonis careat solitaria vita, quisquis vera bona urbium numerat ac metitur intelliget.

But I say these things not that I may glory, since all honor lies in the one who honors, but that you may know that many lovers of the countryside are dear even in the cities, and that many dwellers of cities are hateful to the very cities in which they dwell. Thus, know that solitude is not adverse to the polity, and that I, although a solitary, both love good men and am by them no less loved than if, forgetful of supper and in a sweat, and now here now there running about in your manner, I were to seize people, by talking batter the head of everyone, allow no one to sleep, trample on everyone’s thresholds, and whoever I had once grabbed I would hold, and I would kill by holding— as Flaccus says, a leech that will not let go the skin unless gorged with blood. Indeed, as to this point, that solitaries seem to lack the goods of cities, I do not wish to renew the most ancient question, which has been between the Peripatetics and the Stoics for many ages now, and will be through the ages— the former saying that virtue is the highest good, the latter that it is the sole good. And if that opinion is true, whoever counts and measures the true goods of cities will understand by what and how great goods the solitary life is lacking.

Sed quia te, post Aristotilem, tempore, ingenio etiam, primum et cum additamento logice perypatheticum scio, concedam, ne de hoc ipso noviter litigandum sit, esse preter virtutem bona, quibus urbes abundare non negem, in quibus fornicem, balnea, macellum, mulsum, adipem, pulmentum, et que sunt similia numeratis. Verum his carere apud vere realiterque philosophantes non modo non miserum, sed magna etiam solitarie felicitatis accessio est, simul ut cum his vestris bonis et aliis careat urbanis malis. "Et quenam ista sunt?" inquies.

But because I know you, after Aristotle, in time and even in genius, to be foremost, and, with the additament of Peripatetic logic, a Peripatetic, I will concede, lest there be fresh litigating about this very point, that there are goods besides virtue, with which I do not deny cities to abound, among which you enumerate the brothel, the baths, the market, mulsum, fat, pottage, and things of the like sort. Yet to be without these, for those who truly and really philosophize, is not only not miserable, but even a great accession of solitary happiness, provided that along with these your goods one be without the other urban evils as well. "And what, pray, are those?" you will say.

Quis cunta dinumeret? Illis caruisse non est parum, que, si ad literam intelligas, non mediocris quemlibet fortune virum, sed David regem ex urbibus in solitudinem pepulerunt. Quenam vero hec?

Who could enumerate all things? To have lacked those is no small matter, which, if you understand it to the letter, drove not any man of mediocre fortune, but King David, from the cities into solitude. And what indeed are these?

Nempe iniquitas et contradictio in civitate, et labor in medio eius, et iniustitia, et non deficiens de plateis eius usura, et dolus. Iam quod sequitur responsione non eget. Sancta rusticitas sibi soli prodest: studiosa autem solitudo prodesse posse quamplurimis non negatur.

Surely iniquity and contradiction in the city, and labor in its midst, and injustice, and usury not failing from its streets, and deceit. Now what follows has no need of a response. Holy rusticity profits itself alone; studious solitude, however, is not denied to be able to profit very many.

Et ipse Ieronimus, qui hoc dixit, quantum solitudine delectatus et quantum ibi mundo utilis fuerit sciunt omnes. Sed quia non possunt omnes esse Ieronimi, etsi magnum nichil in solitudine geratur, tantum ut vivatur innocue, vitentur incentiva libidinum, quibus porticus civitatum ac theatra flammescunt, parum ne tibi forsitan videtur? Apud me multo quidem optabilius est solum salvari, quam perire cum multis.

And Jerome himself, who said this, how much he took delight in solitude and how greatly there he was useful to the world, all know. But since not all can be Jeromes, even if nothing great is accomplished in solitude, provided only that one live innocently and the incentives of lust be avoided, by which the porticoes of cities and the theaters blaze, does that perhaps seem little to you? For my part, it is much more preferable that a single man be saved than to perish with many.

Sed iam satis est; iam te egrum egris tuis linquere meditor: illi te conficient, tu illos. Caret solitudo multis vulgi voluptatibus, sed abundat suis: quiete, libertate, otio; quamvis verum sit quod ait Anneus: "Otium sine literis mors est, et vivi hominis sepultura", et profecto solitarius ydiota, nisi forte Cristus valde continue secum sit, quantolibet in spatio terrarum sine ullis vinculis vinctus est. Unde non miror id tibi vite genus invisum.

But now it is enough; now I am minded to leave you, a sick man, to your own sick: they will finish you off, and you them. Solitude lacks many of the crowd’s pleasures, but it abounds in its own: quiet, liberty, leisure; although what Anneus says is true: "Leisure without letters is death, and the sepulture of a living man," and indeed a solitary idiot, unless perhaps Christ is very continually with him, is bound without any bonds, however great the expanse of the earth. Whence I do not marvel that that kind of life is hateful to you.

Quid enim hic ageres, nisi numerare horas, et querere quando cenatum secundum regulas tuas, quando cubitum ires? Quem circumscribere, seu cum quo clamare posses? Nullus occurreret: tecum loqui nescires.

For what, indeed, would you do here, except to number the hours, and to ask when dinner would be taken according to your rules, when you would go to bed? Whom to overreach (circumscribe), or with whom could you shout? No one would meet you: you would not know how to speak with yourself.

Id enim est hominum paucorum, et tamen his eisdem in locis parva, fateor, seu verius nulla copia. Sed nonnullo nec parvo quidem amore literarum tam bene tamque predulciter michi est, ut si statum animi mei nosses, putem te horam, qua natus es, odio habiturum, que te in illam miseram et infelicem vitam proiecit, et propter pecunie parve spem permagnas rapit angustias. Quid ergo locutus es miserabilis senex?

For that belongs to a few men, and yet in these same places there is a small— I confess, or rather no— supply. But with no negligible, indeed no small, love of letters, it goes so well and so very sweetly with me, that, if you knew the state of my mind, I would think you would hold in hatred the hour in which you were born, which cast you into that wretched and unhappy life, and, for the hope of a little money, drags you into very great straits. What then have you said, wretched old man?

Quid in me damnasti? Amarunt solitudinem patriarche, prophete, sancti, philosophi, poete, duces imperatoresque clarissimi. Imo vero solitudinem quis non amat, nisi qui secum esse non novit?

What have you condemned in me? The patriarchs, the prophets, the saints, the philosophers, the poets, and the most illustrious leaders and emperors have loved solitude. Nay rather, who does not love solitude, except the one who does not know how to be with himself?

Odit solitudinem quisquis in solitudine solus est, timetque otium quisquis in otio nil agit. Quantum vero habet unde tristetur qui, ut gaudeat, turbam querit! Plane miser est qui felicitatem sperat a miseris.

Whoever is alone in solitude hates solitude, and whoever does nothing in leisure fears leisure. How much cause for sadness has he who, in order to rejoice, seeks a crowd! Plainly, he is miserable who hopes for felicity from the miserable.

O mendice medice, qui te, nature conscium, philosophum vocas, sic ubinam sit vera felicitas didicisti? Certe non opus est turbis confusisque clamoribus, non theatrico strepitu, non vulgo inter miserias plaudente, non quadrigis fundamenta quassantibus, non cruento foro, non nidore fumantium popinarum, et olentium acie coquorum atque aromata transmarina terentium, quos, vobis exceptis, nescio an efficacissimos omnium ministros mortis appellem. Nichil his omnibus est opus.

O beggar medic, you who, conscious of nature, call yourself a philosopher, so then where, pray, have you learned that true felicity lies? Surely there is no need of crowds and confused clamors, no need of theatrical din, nor of the mob applauding amid miseries, nor of four-horse chariots shaking the foundations, nor of the bloody forum, nor of the reek of smoking cookshops, and the stinking battle-line of cooks and of those grinding transmarine aromatics—whom, you excepted, I know not whether I should call the most efficacious ministers of death of all. There is no need of all these things.

Intus in anima est quod felicem et quod miserum facit. Hinc illud poeticum digne laudatur:

Within the soul is that which makes one happy and that which makes one wretched. Hence that poetic saying is worthily lauded:

nec te quesieris extra.

nor seek yourself outside.

Constat autem nunquam melius esse anime quam dum, amotis obstaculis viteque compedibus, in Deum atque in se ipsam libera tandem et expedita convertitur. Enimvero id, dum sumus in terris, nusquam melius quam in solitudine fieri posse, etsi tu non capias, fatebuntur experti. Illud quoque platonicum, ab Augustino relatum et laudatum, notissime verum est: "Non corporeis oculis"—ut verba etiam ipsa ponam—"sed pura mente veritatem videri.

It is agreed, moreover, that the soul is never better than when, the obstacles and the fetters of life having been removed, it turns to God and to itself, free at last and unencumbered. Indeed, while we are on earth, this can be done nowhere better than in solitude; although you may not grasp it, those who have experienced it will confess it. That Platonic dictum too, reported and praised by Augustine, is most notably true: "Not by corporeal eyes"—to set down the very words themselves—"but by a pure mind is truth seen.

Cui cum anima inheserit, eam beatam fieri atque perfectam; ad quam percipiendam nichil magis impedire quam vitam libidinibus deditam". Que sententia a Virgilio—quem tu spernis ut vespertilio aquilam, simia leonem—elegantissime sub allegorica nube reconditur; quem locum pretereo, ne cerebellum tuum mole rerum opprimam. Quam doctrinam ab Archita tarentino, magno in primis et preclaro viro, didicisse Plato ipse potuerat, dum illum pithagoreosque alios visendi discendique gratia in Italiam venisset. Ille enim, ut apud Ciceronem Cato meminit, nullam capitaliorem pestem quam corporis voluptatem hominibus dicebat a natura datam.

"When the soul has adhered to it, it becomes blessed and perfect; and for the attaining of it nothing hinders more than a life given over to lusts." Which sententia by Virgil—whom you disdain as a bat an eagle, as a monkey a lion—is most elegantly hidden under an allegorical cloud; which passage I pass over, lest I crush your little brain with the mass of matters. This doctrina Plato himself could have learned from Archytas the Tarentine, a great and most illustrious man, when he had come into Italy for the sake of seeing and learning from him and other Pythagoreans. For he, as Cato recalls in Cicero, used to say that no more capital pest than the pleasure of the body has been given to human beings by nature.

Deinde, enumeratis malis que ex voluptatis radice nascuntur, illud addebat: "Cum homini sive natura sive quis deus mente nichil prestabilius dedisset, huic divino dono nichil tam inimicum esse quam voluptatem. Nec enim, libidine dominante, temperantie locum esse, neque omnino in voluptatis regno virtutem posse consistere". Quibus ita se habentibus nec illud ambigitur: et quod beatam perfectamque animam fieri vetat summo studio vitandum, et virtutem in proprio non inimice sue regno esse querendam. Iam illud ne probari quidem est necesse: civitatem libidinum esse sentinam, omniumque ibi turpium voluptatum illecebras scaturire.

Then, the evils having been enumerated which are born from the root of pleasure, he added this: "Since to man, whether nature or some god had given nothing more excellent than the mind, nothing is so inimical to this divine gift as pleasure. For, with libido dominating, there is no place for temperance, nor at all can virtue consist in the kingdom of pleasure." With things being thus, neither is this in doubt: both that what forbids the soul to become blessed and perfect must be avoided with the highest zeal, and that virtue is to be sought in its own realm, not in that inimical to itself. Now this does not even need to be proved: that the city is the cesspool of lusts, and that there the enticements of all base pleasures bubble up.

Piget nunc, pudetque conclusiunculas infantiles tuo more subnectere. Tu, qui logicam spuis, facile consequentiam vides. At ne nimis urgeam, excusare nunc etiam iudicium tuum libet.

It irks me now, and it shames me as well, to subjoin infantile little conclusions in your manner. You, who spit upon logic, easily see the consequence. But lest I press too hard, I am now even disposed to excuse your judgment.

Profecto enim solitudinem odisse mechanici est. Facis, fateor, quod te decet. Ubi enim nisi inter turbas credulas fatuorum ingenioli tui mercimonium ostentares?

Indeed, to hate solitude is the mark of a mechanic. You do, I confess, what befits you. For where, if not amid the credulous throngs of fools, would you display the merchandise of your little wit?

Posses hic quidem esurire: totius anni mendacia una te luce non pascerent. Iure igitur locum fugis, moribus tuis adversum. Illud iniuste agis, quod inter studiosos literarum ac mechanicos non discernis.

You could indeed go hungry here: the mendacities of an entire year would not feed you in a single day. Rightly, therefore, you flee a place adverse to your morals. This you do unjustly, that you do not discern between the studious of letters and the mechanics.

Linque solitudinem his quibus nec falli nec fallere est animus, qui nec pauperiem timent nec divitias venerantur, sed utrinque paribus spatiis delectantur absistere, qui honestissimam voluptatem ex libris, ex ingenio, ex animi agitatione percipiunt. Tu autem, nullo prohibente, habita ubi te matutina muliercularum cohors in publico sedentem adeat, circumstrepat, interpellet. Tu pro tribunali, stricto pallido labello elatoque rugoso supercilio, suspirans examines quid ea nocte quis minxerit, et vix tandem quassanti capite sententiam feras: "Ille peribit, iste curabitur". Quam cum falsam finis ostenderit, apud te non prius mendacium quam excusatio sit inventa.

Leave solitude to those whose spirit is neither to be deceived nor to deceive, who neither fear poverty nor venerate riches, but take delight to stand apart at equal distances from both, who perceive the most honorable pleasure from books, from ingenuity, from the agitation of the mind. But you, with no one forbidding, dwell where a morning cohort of little women may approach you sitting in public, buzz around, interrupt. You, as on a tribunal, with a tight, pale little lip and a raised, wrinkled eyebrow, sighing, examine what each one urinated in the night, and only with difficulty at last, with shaking head, you deliver sentence: "That one will perish, this one will be cared for." And when the outcome has shown this to be false, with you an excuse is found sooner than the lie.

Sin vera forsan evaserit—fieri enim non potest, ut quisquam tam plenus mendaciorum sit, quin casu saltem veri aliquid multiloquio misceatur—exultes ac tumeas, ipsumque te putes Apollinem et Delphis oraculum processisse. Non es itaque totus amens: locum tibi aptissimum delegisti. Habitant reges in urbibus, presidesque terrarum et iudices, quique coercendis vulgi moribus presunt, quos reipublice necessitas excusat horum presentiam requirentis; habitant ibi aliquo gravi negotio detenti: hos proprie ius necessitatis absolvit; habitant ibi voluptuosi atque cupidinarii, quibus placet fornix et uncta popina, ut ait Flaccus; habitant ibi circumscriptores, mimi, fures, totumque id genus; ibi postremo habitant mechanici, quibus omnibus propositum unum: vel fallere vel lucrari.

But if perchance it should turn out true—for it cannot happen that anyone be so full of mendacities that at least by chance something of truth is not mixed into his multiloquy—you exult and swell, and you think that you yourself are Apollo and that an oracle has come forth from Delphi. You are not, therefore, wholly amens: you have chosen for yourself a most apt place. Kings dwell in cities, and the governors of the lands and judges, and those who preside over the coercion of the vulgus’s morals, whom the necessity of the commonwealth excuses as requiring the presence of these men; there also dwell those detained by some grave business: these the law of necessity properly absolves; there dwell there voluptuaries and the covetous, to whom the brothel and the greasy cookshop, as Flaccus says, are pleasing; there dwell there swindlers, mimes, thieves, and that whole tribe; there, lastly, dwell the mechanicals, to all of whom the one purpose: either to deceive or to make gain.

Tibi utrunque propositum est; quod intendis, alibi non potes: fuge igitur solitudinem, urbes ama. Quinetiam, siquid michi credis, illic tibi non suburbium elige, sed plateam. Quid multa?

Both aims are set before you; what you intend, elsewhere you cannot: flee therefore solitude, love cities. Nay moreover, if you credit me at all, there choose for yourself not a suburb, but the public square. Why say more?

Doctos ut scopulum cave, habita inter stultos. Venator nemora; piscator aquas; sequitur lupus indefensum gregem; circulator, mimus, fur, impostor divites, stultos, credulos insequitur: nichil sane circulatori gravius, quam ludum suum ab astante cognosci. Hinc—ne me omnino rusticum putes, quia rure habito—hinc illud venenum visceribus tuis sparsum, quod te quiescere non sinit.

Beware the learned as a reef; dwell among fools. The hunter [seeks] the woods; the fisherman the waters; the wolf pursues the undefended flock; the mountebank, mime, thief, impostor pursues the rich, the foolish, the credulous: nothing, surely, is more grievous to the mountebank than that his game be recognized by a bystander. Hence—lest you think me altogether rustic, because I live in the countryside—hence that venom scattered through your viscera, which does not allow you to rest.

Cum enim pontificem maximum hinc morbo, hinc quorundam fraude vel ignorantia circumventum cernerem, eum certe fideliter sed—ut res docuit—frustra premonui. Licet enim tunc evaderet, in eosdem tamen laqueos mox reversus, utilisque consilii vel immemor vel contemptor, totum se vobis tradidit. Ubi—quod sepe accidit—melior pars numero victa est, tuaque et ceterorum ignorantium prevalente sententia, intempestivis remediis et immodica—ut fertur—senilis sanguinis rapina, illum, si sineretur adhuc forte victurum, pontificali solicitudine liberastis.

For when I perceived the supreme pontiff on the one hand beset by sickness, on the other by the fraud or ignorance of certain persons, I surely forewarned him faithfully but—as the event taught—in vain. For although he escaped then, yet soon, having returned into the same snares, and either forgetful or a contemner of useful counsel, he wholly delivered himself over to you. Where—as often happens—the better party was conquered by numbers, and with your opinion and that of the other ignorant prevailing, by untimely remedies and by an immoderate—as it is said—rapine of senile blood, him, who perhaps, if he were allowed, would still be living, you freed from pontifical solicitude.

Ita brevi tempore caput mutavit Ecclesia, et antequam nos nostre contentionis, is—unde contentio orta erat—vite sue finem repperit, te iuvante. Hoc quenquam animadvertisse fers graviter? Sed certe non solus ego ludos vestros intelligo: quid soli michi irasceris?

Thus in a brief time the Church changed its head, and before we had settled our contention, he—the one whence the contention had arisen—found the end of his life, with you assisting. Do you gravely allege that anyone has taken note of this? But surely I am not the only one who understands your games: why are you angry at me alone?

An quia solus e cuntis ludo astantibus mutire ausus sum, ut qui fallebatur adverteret? Habes prope iustam iracundie causam, circulator: pulverem tuum funiculumque detegere, quinetiam spargere atque confringere volui, fateor; fecissemque, si michi creditum fuisset.

Or is it because I alone from among all those standing by at the show dared to mutter, so that the one being deceived might take notice? You have almost a just cause of anger, mountebank: I wished to uncover your powder and your little cord—indeed even to scatter and shatter them—I confess; and I would have done it, if I had been believed.

Unum tibi satis inculcare nequeo; nec enim decies repetiisse sufficiet. Si in me rabies tua, ignorantie sibi conscia, linguam urgebat, quid poete meriti, quorum nec aliquem noscis nec aptus natus es noscere? Ut sim ego poeta—quod tu potius dicis, et ego patior, quam credam—quid tamen ideo?

I cannot sufficiently inculcate one thing upon you; for not even to have repeated it ten times will suffice. If against me your rage, self-conscious of ignorance, was driving your tongue, what have the poets deserved, of whom you neither know any nor are by nature apt to know? Grant that I be a poet—which you rather say, and I endure rather than believe—what, then, on that account?

Non ego te carmine aut ullo poetico mucrone confixeram, sed pedestri solutoque sermone leseram, quodque maius impatientie tue signum fuerit, non ad te sed ad alterum transmisso. Neque enim de te, sed de ignorantibus atque discordibus, quorum tunc ego te principem nesciebam. Quotiens tibi iam dixi: frustra despumas in poetas, aerem verberas, in ventum furis.

I had not transfixed you with song or with any poetic blade, but I had injured you with pedestrian and unbound speech, and—which was a greater sign of your impatience—sent not to you but to another. For I was not speaking about you, but about the ignorant and the discordant, of whom I did not then know you to be the chief. How many times have I already told you: in vain you foam against the poets, you beat the air, you rage at the wind.

Neque enim poetice lesus es. O cerebrum plumbeum! Hoc non potes intelligere, cum philosophia et logica tue sint! Et miraris si te surdum cecumque, aut si saxeum vocem!

Nor indeed have you been wounded poetically. O leaden brain! You cannot understand this, when philosophy and logic are yours! And you marvel if I call you deaf and blind, or if I call you stony!

Quid tecum amplius quam cum aliquo ex his scopulis Sorgie impendentibus loqui iuvat? Nisi quod ille aliquid forte, tu nichil ad quesita respondes. Leserim ego te: quid poetica meruit?

What more does it avail to speak with you than with one of these cliffs overhanging the Sorgia? Except that that one perhaps would answer something; you answer nothing to the questions put. I may have injured you: what has poetry merited?

Sim poeta: telum illud veritatis quod, ut video, alte descendit in cor tuum, non loro poetico, sed nuda manu et verbis puris atque simplicibus missum erat. Philosophe ingens, quero a te: an si te musicus non cantu, sed verbis offenderet, vel Aristoxenum vel ipsam musicam condemnares? An siquis astrologus non quadrantem eneum, sed baculum tibi quernum in calvitium impegisset, malediceres Ptholomeo?

Grant that I am a poet: that missile of truth which, as I see, sank deep into your heart was launched not by a poetic thong, but by a naked hand and with words pure and simple. Mighty philosopher, I ask of you: if a musician offended you not with song but with words, would you condemn either Aristoxenus or music itself? Or if some astrologer had driven not a bronze quadrant but an oaken staff into your bald pate, would you curse Ptolemy?

An si te vel agricola non stiva sed saxo feriat, Hesiodum carperes aut Palladium? Vel piscator non hamo, sed gladio percutiat, Petro detrahes aut Andree? An ego, quia tu michi oles, Ypocratis vel Asclepiadis memoriam lacerabo?

Or if even a farmer should strike you, not with a plough-handle but with a stone, would you censure Hesiod or Palladius? Or if a fisherman should smite you, not with a hook but with a sword, would you detract from Peter or Andrew? Or shall I, because you are odious to me, lacerate the memory of Hippocrates or Asclepiades?

Satis est adversarium ferire, etiam ne, ob unius hominis odium, humanum omne genus oderis, multosque tibi hostes feceris, impar uni. Hec repetere visum est, ut, quod ingenio non potes, crebra saltem repetitione concipias te, dum me invaderes, iratum fuisse, dum poeticam lacesseres, furiosum: utrobique non modo mendicum literarum, sed omnis inopem rationis. Et cum poetis quidem deinceps, ut libet, michi iam parcere poteras: odii causa sublata est.

It is enough to strike the adversary; also do not, on account of hatred toward one man, come to hate the whole human race, and make many enemies for yourself, you who are unequal to one alone. These things seemed worth repeating, so that, what you cannot by ingenium, at least by frequent repetition you may conceive: that you, while you were attacking me, were angry; while you were provoking poetry, were furious—in both cases not only a beggar of letters, but destitute of all reason. And with the poets, indeed, henceforth, as you please, you could now spare me: the cause of hatred has been removed.

Hactenus enim ludum tuum volui impedire, nec potui; posthac impedire nec cogito nec oportet. Hunc enim pontificem habemus, qui—si verum audio—nugas tuas non pluris faciat quam sint, quique vel innata prudentia vel exemplo novo et insigni tales facile vitet insidias.

For thus far I wanted to impede your game, and I could not; hereafter I neither intend to impede nor is it proper. For we have this pontiff, who—if I hear the truth—does not rate your trifles at any higher price than they are worth, and who, either by innate prudence or by a new and signal example, easily avoids such snares.

Finis iam huius sermonis esse poterat et, ut arbitror, tempus erat; sed ubere ac pregnanti eloquio tuo retrahor: sic facete tantaque arte me detines, ut abire nequeam abs te. Quis enim tam mutus, ut illi ioco non respondeat, quo desponsasse me dicis fontem Sorgie? Clare philosophe, non locum hunc aut illum, sed tranquillitatem mentis ac libertatem sequor, quas tu nescis. Illas ego non tantum ad Sorgie, sed ad Nili fontem querere non gravabor.

An end of this discourse could already have been, and, as I judge, it was time; but I am drawn back by your rich and pregnant eloquence: thus wittily and with such art you detain me that I cannot depart from you. For who is so mute as not to answer that jest by which you say that I have betrothed myself to the fountain of Sorgie? Illustrious philosopher, I follow not this place or that, but the tranquillity of mind and liberty, which you do not know. Those I shall not hesitate to seek not only at the spring of Sorgie, but at the source of the Nile.

Ibo quo nec Alexander mittere, nec Cambises potuit pervenire. Non me rubicunda perusti zona poli, non epularum defectus impediet, que causa duplex cepto arcuisse legitur tantos reges. Solus et esuriens et adustus, si illas ibi esse noverim, ad tranquillitatem animi libertatemque perveniam.

I will go where neither Alexander could dispatch, nor Cambyses could arrive. The ruddy belt of the scorched sky will not hinder me, nor the lack of banquets, a twofold cause which is read to have kept such great kings back from their undertaking. Alone and hungry and sun-scorched, if I know them to be there, I shall attain to tranquility of mind and to freedom.

Scio tamen eas non in locis sed in animis inveniri; verum ad id conferre aliquid loca salubria et quieta non dubito. "Cur" inquies "asperiore loco habitas, cum mollioribus non veteris?". Si reddenda nunc etiam vite ratio est, necdum manum ferule subduximus. Dicam de multis unam causam legisse: nescio an intellexisse potes apud Senecam honestius Scipionem Literni exulasse quam Bais.

I know, however, that they are found not in places but in minds; yet I do not doubt that salubrious and quiet places confer something toward that. “Why,” you will say, “do you dwell in a harsher place, since you do not use softer ones?” If an account of life must even now be rendered, we have not yet withdrawn our hand from the ferule. Of many I will state one cause that I have read: I do not know whether you can gather from Seneca that Scipio lived in exile more honorably at Liternum than at Baiae.

Non est unam rem amantis contrariam sponte sequi. Non est igitur aut virtutem adepti, qualem me non esse lugeo, aut ad virtutem suspirantis, qualem me, si permiseris, non nego. Non est, inquam, ad virtutem aspirantis ultro degere ubi voluptas, inimica virtutis, imperet.

It is not the part of one who loves to, of his own accord, follow what is contrary to the thing loved. It is not, therefore, either of one who has attained virtue—such as I lament that I am not—or of one who sighs toward virtue—such as, if you permit, I do not deny that I am. It is not, I say, the part of one aspiring to virtue to dwell of his own accord where pleasure, the enemy of virtue, rules.

"Quid ergo? Nemo" inquies "bonus in urbibus?". Non dico id quidem; sed innumerabiles mali, a quibus non modo proficientem sed profectum quoque, si possit, securius sit abesse. Accedit quod nec ita rure relegatus sum, quin sepius quam vellem amicorum precibus ad urbem retrahar, sepe etiam sponte mea vager, vitans locorum alternatione fastidium.

"What then? No one," you will say, "is good in the cities?". I do not say that, indeed; but there are innumerable wicked men, from whom it is safer to be absent not only for one who is making progress but even for one who has already progressed, if it can be. Moreover, it is added that I am not so relegated to the countryside that I am not drawn back to the city more often than I would wish by the entreaties of friends; often too I wander of my own accord, avoiding fastidium by an alternation of places.

Facti mei causam audisti. O, si te nunc scisciter, vice versa, quid tu latrinas omnes ambire nunquam desinas, qualem michi expedies rationem? Dices te sanare rempublicam, quam egram, fateor, a te sanari posse nego, nisi quantum te spero quotidie multis illam dementibus, veluti corpus infectum damnosis humoribus, exhaurire.

You have heard the cause of my deed. O, if I were now to question you, vice versa, why you never cease to make the rounds of all the latrines, what sort of rationale would you set forth to me? You will say that you heal the republic—which, sick, I grant; that it can be healed by you I deny—except in so far as I hope that you, by daily drawing off from it many of the demented, are draining it, like a body infected with baneful humors.

Quem vero non curis exonerent impleantque letitia speculationes ille tue pulcerrime? Quarum prima est: an, in solitudine habitans, sim deus an bestia; diffinisque non deum. Sed audite, queso, philosophi, rationem: quia poetas sequor, ut dicit et non probat.

But whom indeed do those your most beautiful speculations, most fair one, not disburden of cares and fill with joy? Of which the first is: whether, dwelling in solitude, I am a god or a beast; and you define me as not a god. But hear, I beg, philosophers, the reason: because I follow the poets, as he says and does not prove.

Ergo, si poetas non sequerer, deus essem. Tu, igitur, qui nec poetam nec ipsum poete nomen intelligis, quis deorum es? Certe si ignorantia deum facit, tu non solum deus, sed deus deorum iure vocaberis. Quero autem quod apud Lucanum de Nerone scriptum est:

Therefore, if I were not to follow the poets, I would be a god. You, therefore, who understand neither a poet nor the very name of poet, which of the gods are you? Certainly, if ignorance makes a god, you will be called by right not only a god, but a god of gods. I inquire, moreover, what is written in Lucan about Nero:

quis deus esse velis?

which god do you wish to be?

Non respondes, perplexus es. Dabo tibi consilium: lege Varronis vel, quia illos non habes, Augustini libros, inveniasque tibi placitum aliquod dei nomen. Deus enim esse non prohiberis, quia poetas negligis. Magna ibi deorum copia et nominum multa varietas.

You do not answer; you are perplexed. I will give you counsel: read Varro’s, or—since you do not have those—Augustine’s books, and find for yourself some name of a god that pleases you. For you are not prohibited from being a god, since you neglect poets. There is there a great abundance of gods and much variety of names.

Si me rogas, quod in his paulo forsan exercitatior sum, tria tibi deorum nomina, utriusque sexus, excerpsi: esto vel Pallor vel Cloacina vel Febris. Hec te cito utinam, o stolidum caput, arripiat, ut et strepere desinas et tuo periculo experiaris quibus remediis abundes! O insensate, non sum deus, nisi forte eo modo quo, propter intelligentiam et actum Aristoteli videtur homo mortalis deus.

If you ask me, since in these matters I am perhaps a little more exercised, I have excerpted for you three names of gods, of either sex: be either Pallor or Cloacina or Fever. Would that these quickly seize you, O stolid head, so that you may both cease your clatter and, at your own peril, experience with what remedies you abound! O insensate, I am not a god, unless perhaps in that way in which, on account of intelligence and act, a mortal man seems a god to Aristotle.

Quod, si beatus essem, utique deus essem, iuxta illud philosophicum Severini: "Omnis beatus deus. Natura quidem unus; partecipatione vero quam plurimos esse nil prohibet", quod ab Augustino habuit Psalmo centesimo decimo octavo: "Non enim" inquit "existendo sunt homines dei, sed fiunt partecipando illius unius qui verus est Deus". Certe peccatis nostris effectum est ut, cum audissemus: "Ego dixi dii estis et filii Excelsi", omnes illud continuo tristius audiremus: "Vos autem sicut homines moriemini"; ac ne quis principatui potentieque fideret additum est: "Et sicut unus de principibus cadetis". Itaque, profundissime speculator, non sum deus, nec semideus quidem, qualem Lucanus Pompeium, Labeo describit Herculem, Romulum, et de philosophis Platonem. Nunquam miser in has insanias cecidisses, si aliquando cogitasses, quam grande negotium sit, licet excellentibus ingeniis, divinitatem non dicam assequi, sed etiam contemplari; si semel legisses illud preclare dictum a Platone, ab Apuleio relatum, et ab Augustino in libroDe Civitate Dei positum: "Deum esse summum omnium creatorem, ipsumque solum esse qui non possit, penuria sermonis humani, quavis oratione vel modice comprehendi; vix saltem sapientibus viris, cum se vigore animi, quantum licuit, a corpore removent ad intellectum huius Dei.

But if I were blessed, assuredly I would be a god, according to that philosophic saying of Severinus: "Every blessed one is a god. By nature indeed one; but by participation nothing prevents there being very many," which he had from Augustine on Psalm 118: "For" he says "by existing men are not gods, but they become so by participating in that one who is the true God." Surely by our sins it has come about that, when we heard: "I said you are gods and sons of the Most High," we all forthwith would hear that other thing more sadly: "But you shall die like men"; and lest anyone trust in principate and power it was added: "And like one of the princes you shall fall." Therefore, most profound observer, I am not a god, nor even a demigod, such as Lucan describes Pompey, Labeo describes Hercules, Romulus, and among the philosophers Plato. Never, wretch, would you have fallen into these insanities, if ever you had considered how great a business it is, even for excellent talents, not to say to attain divinity, but even to contemplate it; if you had once read that fine dictum by Plato, reported by Apuleius, and set by Augustine in the book On the City of God: "That God is the highest creator of all, and he himself alone is the one who cannot, through the poverty of human speech, be encompassed by any discourse even moderately; scarcely, at least, by wise men, when they, by vigor of mind, so far as it has been permitted, remove themselves from the body toward the understanding of this God."

Id quoque interdum, velut in altissimis tenebris, rapidissimo coruscamine lumen candidum intermicare". Quid tibi, medice, videtur? Quid de hac urina iudicas Platonis? certe Augustinus, magnus medicus animorum, sani hominis eam censet.

"That too, at times, as if in the deepest darkness, a candid light flickers with the most rapid coruscation." What seems to you, doctor? What do you judge of this urine of Plato? Certainly Augustine, the great physician of souls, deems it that of a sound man.

Quamobrem non sum deus, ut dixi, quippe nec idoneus contemplator Dei; non, si tam sapiens sim, quam tu tibi sapiens videris. Quid ergo? Opus exiguum Dei sum, cultorque utinam!

Wherefore I am not a god, as I said, since indeed I am not a fit contemplator of God; not, even if I be as wise as you seem wise to yourself. What then? I am a slight work of God—would that I were a worshiper!

Bestie vero titulum nemo, te vivente, merebitur.

But the title "Beast" no one, while you live, will merit.

Sed eloquentie tue nichil est arduum: nomen tuum michi tentas ingerere. Et quem non exhilaret urbanitas tua, dum me interrogas an sim leo, quia scilicet id, ut dicis, responsionis mee principium preferebat? Atqui, conviciator mordax et frivole, sive me leonem voces, non movebor, sciens quod in Scripturis Sacris—quarum non ignarus modo, sed hostis es—Cristus leo dicitur, sive me leonem neges, non irascar, memor quod in eisdem Scripturis diabolus leo est.

But for your eloquence nothing is arduous: you try to foist your name upon me. And whom would not your urbanity exhilarate, while you ask me whether I am a lion, since, as you say, that was the beginning of my response? But indeed, mordacious and frivolous reviler, whether you call me a lion, I shall not be moved, knowing that in the Sacred Scriptures—of which you are not merely ignorant, but an enemy—Christ is called a lion; or whether you deny me to be a lion, I shall not be angry, mindful that in those same Scriptures the devil is a lion.

O insulsi sales, auctorique suo simillimi! Quid ais? Non potes iocum tuum concludere, mime senex!

O insipid sallies, and most like their author! What say you? Can you not conclude your joke, old mime?

Iam nemo est qui aliud in te, nisi te, rideat. Explica lingue nodum, fac rideamus, dum egri interim tui plorant. Dic, age, dic secure, nil timueris: tuam auream eloquentiam expectamus.

Now there is no one who laughs at anything in you, except you. Explain the knot of your tongue; make us laugh, while your sick meanwhile weep. Say—come, say—securely; fear nothing: we await your golden eloquence.

Dic, rethorice imperator, dic, Galiene, Demosthenes, dic, bone Cicero et Avicenna; sum leo vel quid aliud? "Non es" inquit "leo sed noctua". Ridete omnes, plaudite, fabula acta est. Sed—heu!—non sacrarum tantum, verum omnium literarum nescie, an non saltem audisti—talia enim legisse non potes, quoniam extraTerapenticam tuam sunt—apud antiquos nostros ingeniosissimos—quod nemo ambigit—ac doctissimos quidem viros avem hanc Minerve consecratam, que apud illos sapientie dea est?

Say, emperor of rhetoric, say, Galen, Demosthenes, say, good Cicero and Avicenna; am I a lion or something else? “You are not,” he says, “a lion but an owl.” Laugh, all of you, applaud, the play is done. But—alas!—you, ignorant not only of sacred letters, but of all letters, have you not at least heard—for such things you cannot have read, since they are outside your Terapentica—among our most ingenious—none doubts it—and indeed most learned ancients, that this bird was consecrated to Minerva, who among them is the goddess of Sapience?

Miraris, ydiota? Peregrina sunt hec. Velles audire rei causam?

Do you marvel, idiot? These things are foreign. Would you like to hear the cause of the matter?

Occulta est avis, et volucrum stupor; nocte vigilat, inter tenebras videt, dormientibus cuntis volat. Mirari autem desines, si cogitare ceperis ex persona Cristi, qui verus sapientie Deus et ipse sapientia patris est, in Psalmo centesimo primo dictum esse: "Factus sum sicut nycticorax in domicilio". Vide autem quanti te faciam, philosophe. Quod ad irridendum studio conquisisti, ad irrisionem tuam et gloriam meam facili ludificatione conversum est.

The bird is hidden, and the stupor/marvel of the winged; it keeps vigil by night, sees amid the shadows, flies while all are sleeping. You will cease, however, to marvel, if you begin to consider that, in the person of Christ, who is the true God of Wisdom and himself the Wisdom of the Father, it was said in Psalm 101: "I have been made like a nycticorax in a dwelling." See moreover how highly I value you, philosopher. What you sought out with zeal for mocking has been turned, by an easy play, to your own derision and to my glory.

Videro qualiter upupam tuam, philosophie rethoriceque dominus, laudando, tuam vertes in gloriam. Disce iam, iurgator, vel mordere profundius, vel silere. Nunc, enim, me noctue rostro vides quam leviter vellicasti!

I shall see how you, lord of philosophy and rhetoric, by praising, will turn your hoopoe into your own glory. Learn now, wrangler, either to bite more deeply, or to be silent. Now, indeed, you see how lightly you have tweaked me with an owl’s beak!

Veneni multum, virium nichil habes, quando michi, ut crimen aliquod solitudinem obiciens, ex actu laudabili conflare infamiam voluisti. Providebo ne me veris probris possis attingere; eritque tibi livor tuus ad penam, michi tum ad laudem, tum etiam ad cautelam. Curabo ita vivere, ut boni gaudeant, tu medius crepes, sive in hac sive in alia solitudine, ut sors tulerit, sive in urbibus vivam, ubi vixi longe aliter ac tu, ubi nemo michi urinam suam, multi et magni secretum animi familiariter ostenderunt, contigitque—quod optabam—ut essem carus illustribus, vulgo ignotus.

You have much venom, no strength, since, by throwing solitude at me as though it were some crime, you wished to confect infamy out of a laudable act. I will take care that you cannot touch me with true reproaches; and your ill-will will be to you for punishment, to me both for praise and also for caution. I will take care to live in such a way that the good rejoice, you burst in the middle, whether in this or in another solitude, as lot shall have borne it, or whether I live in cities, where I lived far otherwise than you, where no one to me his urine, but many and great men familiarly showed the secret of their mind; and it befell—which I was wishing—that I was dear to the illustrious, unknown to the crowd.

Libet enim gloriari, sed in domino, cui semper tum pro multis, tum pro hoc nominatim gratias agam: quod me valde dissimilem tui fecit.

For I take pleasure to glory, but in the Lord, to whom I will always give thanks both for many things and by name for this: that he has made me very dissimilar to you.

Interea dum hic sum—quod quamdiu sit futurum nescio—illud ne tibi videor mentitus quod, superbie michi datum, in principio literarum tuarum, huc sciens distuli: me florentes silvas et solitarios colles ambire solitum, vel scientie cupiditate vel glorie? Repeto enim, non dubitans ne lateat, ut tu fingis; notum enim spero non modo quid agam, sed quid cogitem. Dixi, igitur, ut doleres, et repeto ut doleas, tantam diversitatem nostre sortis agnoscens.

Meanwhile, while I am here—which how long it will be I do not know—do I seem to you to have lied about this, which, assigned to me by pride, at the beginning of your letter I knowingly deferred to this point: that I am wont to go about flourishing forests and solitary hills, either by desire of science or of glory? For I repeat it, not doubting that it is not hidden, as you feign; for I hope it is known not only what I do, but what I think. I said it, therefore, that you might grieve, and I repeat it that you may grieve, recognizing so great a diversity of our lot.

Dum certe oculos tuos ille mestus atque horrens pelvium ferit aspectus, meos grata serenitas et agrorum ac nemorum letissimus viror lenit; dum auribus tuis irati ventris murmur intonat, meas suavis volucrum cantus et dulcis aque strepitus delectat; dum naribus tuis inclusus aer et aure tristioris flatus ingeritur, meas florum circumfusa diversitas et calcatarum odor mirus herbarum recreat atque permulcet; dum lingua hebes infelixque palatum tuum delibandis atris potionibus inviscantur, michi lingua in aliquo vel honesto colloquio vel salubri soliloquio detinetur; dum manus tua miserorum rimatur atque explicat purgamenta, mea aliquid scribit gratum posteris—ut spero—dum legetur: quod certe scio, gratum michi dum scribitur; et si nichil, enim, maius, at saltem oblivia temporum malorum multarumque gravium et inutilium curarum animo meo affert; denique, dum tu lucrum cogitas aut rapinam, ego illud meditor, ut si possim, ex alto pereuntia lucra despiciam, et, ut sepessime stomaceris, dum tu, captus vilis lucri cupidine, grabatulos ambis ac latrinas, ego illa sola cupidine quam audisti florentes silvas et solitarios colles lustro. Sentis quam me non peniteat dixisse quod totiens repeto et exaggero? Magnifice forsan et de me altius loqui videor, sed a quodam magnanimo literatoque viro didici "magnifice loquendum adversus ignorantes". Brutus hoc in epystolis suis ait: patere me uti testimonio hominis incogniti apud te, notissimi apud doctos, et quem Tullius ac Seneca cum veneratione suscipiunt.

While surely that mournful and bristling aspect of chamber-pots smites your eyes, a welcome serenity and the most joyous green of fields and groves soothes mine; while to your ears the murmur of an angry belly thunders, the sweet songs of birds and the sweet noise of water delight mine; while into your nostrils are thrust shut-in air and a breath of drearier exhalation, the surrounding diversity of flowers and the marvelous odor of trodden herbs refresh and fondle mine; while a dull tongue and unlucky palate of yours are glued up by tasting black potions, my tongue is held in some either honorable colloquy or healthful soliloquy; while your hand searches and unfolds the purgaments of the wretched, mine writes something pleasing to posterity—as I hope—so long as it shall be read: which, assuredly, I know to be pleasing to me while it is being written; and if nothing, indeed, greater, yet at least it brings to my mind oblivions of evil times and of many heavy and unprofitable cares; finally, while you think of profit or rapine, I meditate this, that, if I can, from on high I may look down upon perishing profits, and—so that you may most frequently take umbrage—while you, captured by the desire of paltry gain, make the rounds of pallets and latrines, I, with that sole desire which you have heard, traverse the flourishing forests and solitary hills. Do you feel how I do not repent of having said what I so often repeat and amplify? Magnificently, perhaps, and too loftily about myself I seem to speak, but from a certain great-souled and lettered man I learned, “one must speak magnificently against the ignorant.” Brutus says this in his epistles: allow me to use the testimony of a man unknown to you, most well-known among the learned, and one whom Tullius and Seneca receive with veneration.

Quanto ergo magnificentius atque altius loquendum adversus surdos? Alte locutus sum: sic oportuit ut audires. Hymnis quidem tuis carmen breve reddideram, sed iniuriam Musis hanc inferre nolui, ut eas insueto odore confunderem, tuumque ad limen cogerem, ubi se nunquam fuisse gloriantur.

How much more, then, ought one to speak more magnificently and more loftily against the deaf? I have spoken loftily: thus it was fitting that you should hear. To your hymns, indeed, I had rendered a brief song, but I did not wish to inflict this injury upon the Muses, that I should confound them with an unaccustomed odor, and compel them to your threshold, where they boast that they have never been.

Ecce multa michi que pene per dissuetudinem evanuerant ad memoriam reduxisti; gratiam habeo convitiis tuis. Exercent ingenium: bonum opus, nisi malo more pessimoque animo fieret. Hoc tibi examinandum linquo: ut libet, igitur.

Behold, you have brought back to my memory many things which had almost vanished through disuse; I am grateful for your insults. They exercise the ingenuity: a good work, unless it were done in evil manner and with the worst spirit. This I leave to you for examination: as you please, then.

Ego et tacere possum, et loqui audeo, insultusque tuos nec opto, nec horreo; nec dum aculeos deposui; quod a te quoque graviter acceptum, quam vere dixerim puto sentias, nisi prorsus obtorpuisti. Ita tamen hoc accipias velim: si non post annum, sed ad iusti temporis spatium in aciem redis. Absit, enim, ut ab unius tempus non extimantis pendeam semper arbitrio: tempus michi carum est, fugamque eius intueor.

I both can be silent, and I dare to speak, and I neither desire nor shudder at your onslaughts; nor have I yet laid down my stings; which, taken grievously by you as well, I think you perceive how truly I have said, unless you have altogether grown numb. Yet I would have you take this thus: if you return into the battle-line not after a year, but within a span of just time. Far be it, indeed, that I should always hang upon the arbitrament of one who does not esteem time: time is dear to me, and I look upon its flight.

Si ergo distuleris, tibi nichil, carte autem quod merebitur, que indignari non poterit, si illic posita fuerit, ubi auctor suus assidue cor, ingenium, manus, linguam, oculos, nares habet. Et tibi quidem in presens hec suffectura crediderim, ut aliquid in diem proximum reservemus.

If therefore you shall defer, for you nothing; but for the paper what it will have merited, which will not be able to be indignant, if it shall have been placed there where its author assiduously has his heart, wit, hands, tongue, eyes, nostrils. And for you indeed at present I would believe these things will suffice, that we may reserve something for the next day.

Tibi autem, lector, quisquis, otio abundans, in has forte literulas incidisti, pauca dicturus sum. Duo sunt quidem ad que perraro, nunquamque nisi invitus, venio: ad utrunque nunc iste mordacissimus convitiator me coegit. Gloriari et de seipso predicare vanum ac superbum, alteri detrahere iniuriosum et molestum est.

But to you, reader, whoever you are, abounding in leisure, who have perchance fallen upon these little letters, I am going to say a few things. There are indeed two things to which I come very rarely, and never except unwillingly: to each of them now this most mordacious reviler has driven me. To glory and to preach about oneself is vain and proud; to detract from another is injurious and vexatious.

Non audeo te rogare, ut mea legas opuscula. Altiorem tibi fertilioremque lecturam opto; sed hoc dicere audeo: si quicquid ab ineunte etate scripsi, et—ut puto—scribam, cum his conferatur, que michi detractor iste violentus extorsit, neque sermo tam fervidus, neque tantum in reliquis omnibus iurgiorum, neque decima vel proprie laudis vel aliene infamie pars legetur; nisi quod olim memini me alterius cuiusdam, et certe maioris emuli, quem in alio terrarum tractu atque alia etate perpessus sum, rabiem, invidie facibus accensam, coactum, similiter tribus aut quattuor epystolis contudisse. Sed ea contentio lege carminis iuveniliter actitata est.

I do not dare to ask you to read my opuscules. I wish for you a higher and more fertile reading; but this I dare to say: if whatever I have written from my earliest age, and—as I suppose—shall write, be compared with these things which this violent detractor has extorted from me, neither will there be read a discourse so fervid, nor so much of quarrels in all the rest, nor even a tenth part either of one’s own praise or of another’s infamy; except that once I remember that, having been compelled, I likewise crushed with three or four epistles the rage of a certain other, and assuredly greater, rival—whom I endured in another tract of the lands and in another age—his fury inflamed by the torches of envy. But that contention was conducted, under the law of poetry, in youthful fashion.

Hoc deerat iniurie: ut a sene iam senior soluta oratione lacesserer, utque in omni etate et in utroque stilo compellerer insanire. Unum me solatur: utrobique lacessitus sum. Putabam aliquando fugisse latebris invidiam: fallebar.

This was the one thing lacking to the injury: that I should be provoked by an old man, now yet more senior, with a loosened oration, and that I should be compelled to be insane in every age and in both styles. One thing consoles me: on both fronts I have been provoked. I was thinking at some time that I had fled envy into hiding-places: I was mistaken.

Illa me, ut video, vel subterraneis latitantem cavernis inveniet. Displicet persecutio, quamvis forte non inutilis, displicet invidia; sed invidie causa non displicet. Neque velim talis esse, in quem illa nil cogitet; at in quem nil audeat esse velim, nisi putem impossibile.

She, as I see, will find me even lurking in subterranean caverns. Persecution displeases me—though perhaps not un-useful—envy displeases me; but the cause of envy does not displease me. Nor would I wish to be such a one about whom she thinks nothing; but I would wish to be one against whom she dares nothing—unless I deem it impossible.

Ausa est in Cesares, in reges, in philosophos; penitusque paucis contigit—quod Salustius merito difficillimum dicit inter mortales—ut gloria invidiam superarent. Illud contra facillimum multis accidit, ut gloria invidiam irritarent. Unum miror: quod cum hec pestis inter pares unique studio intentos oriri soleat, michi semper unde non debuit orta est.

It has dared against the Caesars, against kings, against philosophers; and it has very rarely fallen to a few—which Sallust rightly says is most difficult among mortals—that glory should overcome envy. The contrary, most easy, has happened to many: that glory should irritate envy. One thing I marvel at: that, although this pestilence is wont to arise among peers and among those intent on one and the same study, in my case it has always arisen from where it ought not.

Deum testor: non libens ad respondendum olim veni, sed multo nunc magis invitus ad hec redeo, quamvis inter utriusque lingue principes interque sanctos viros—quod multo mirabilius est—quenam verborum certamina frequenter exarserint non ignorem. In immortalibus enim scriptis memorieque mandata sunt. Que probra, quas contumelias vel in Ciceronem Salustius non iacit, vel in eum ille non reiecit?

I call God to witness: not willingly did I once come to make a reply, but much more now unwilling do I return to these matters, although I am not unaware how frequently contests of words have flared up among the princes of both tongues and among holy men—which is much more marvelous. For they have been consigned in immortal writings and committed to memory. What reproaches, what contumelies did Sallust not hurl against Cicero, or did that man not hurl back against him?

vivum ipsis in verbis odium cernas. Non mitior, sed multo quoque acrior inter Eschinem ac Demosthenem, capitaliorque dissensio. Quis Ieronimi contentiones non audivit cum Rufino aquilegiensi?

you would discern living odium in the very words themselves. No milder, but even much sharper between Aeschines and Demosthenes, and more capital the dissension. Who has not heard Jerome’s contentions with Rufinus the Aquileian?

Quasdam quoque cum Augustino, lenius quanquam reverentiusque habitas, duras tamen atque mordaces. Verum hec et his similia in aliis quam in me libentius excusarem, sed cogor ubi nollem, et ad duo, michi in primis molestissima, per vim trahor. Quid enim—lector, oro te—quid est quod in me sponte glorier?

Certain ones also with Augustine, although conducted more mildly and more reverently, were nevertheless harsh and mordacious. But these things and the like I would more gladly excuse in others than in myself; yet I am compelled where I would not, and I am dragged by force to two matters, most burdensome to me above all. For what—reader, I beg you—what is there in me that I should of my own accord glory in?

Profecto, quamvis obtrectator meus quovis iusto extimatore rerum nichilo etiam, si dici liceat, minus sit, adeo ut stilus ipse meus, quodammodo frenum mordens, adversarii contemptu et ignobilitate superbiat, ego tamen, ut tibi verum fatear, meipso iudice, nichil sum, et siquid vel vere essem vel viderer michi—quorum alterum cupio, alterum abominor—an tamen ideo possem oblivisci illa sapientum pueris etiam nota consilia "Laudet te alienum, et non os tuum", et alius "Tollite inanem iactantiam; res loquentur tacentibus nobis"? Ex diverso autem, quid ego alterius nomen invadam? Iniuste agam, si honestum nomen; si infame, supervacue. Quod si forte de literis, ut fit, questio esset exorta—verum est enim non solum illud "Quot capita tot sententie", sed illud quoque "Cuiusque capitis multas esse sententias"; unde sepe accidit, ut de una eademque re aliud mane, aliud sero, imo et in eodem instanti nunc hoc nunc illud uni et eidem ingenio videatur—si ergo vel de scientiis inter se, vel de unius scientie terminis, vel de re qualibet dissensio incidisset, dicente uno quod alius non probaret, an statim ad iurgia veniendum et, quasi pugnando veritas quereretur, furore atque odio decertandum erat?

Assuredly, although my detractor, than any just estimator of things, be nothing, nay—even, if it may be said—less than nothing, to such a degree that my very style, in a certain manner biting the bit, grows proud by reason of the adversary’s contemptibility and ignobility, I, however, to tell you the truth, by myself as judge, am nothing; and if I were anything either truly, or seemed so to myself—of which alternatives I desire the one, I abominate the other—could I on that account forget those counsels of the wise known even to boys, “Let a stranger praise you, and not your own mouth,” and the other, “Remove vain vaunting; things will speak while we are silent”? On the other hand, why should I invade another’s name? I should act unjustly, if it be an honorable name; if infamous, superfluously. But if perchance about letters, as happens, a question had arisen—for it is true not only that “As many heads, so many opinions,” but also that “Each head has many opinions”; whence it often happens that about one and the same thing one thing in the morning, another in the evening, nay even in the same instant now this now that seems to one and the same ingenium—if therefore either about the sciences among themselves, or about the termini of one science, or about any matter whatever a dissension had fallen out, one saying what another did not approve, was it at once to be come to wrangling and, as if truth were sought by fighting, to contend with fury and hatred?

Cur non potius meminisse illius sententie decebat, que in libroDe finibus a Cicerone posita est, quam si legisti, parces nota repetenti, si minus, puto, non invitus leges? "Dissentientium" inquit "inter se reprehensiones etiam non sunt vituperande; maledicta, contumelie, iracundie, contentiones concertationesque in disputando pertinaces indigne philosophia michi videri solent". Et sequitur: "Neque enim disputari sine reprehensione, nec cum iracundia aut pertinacia recte disputari potest". Neque in disputando solum, sed etiam in atrocioribus causis doctrine huius meminisse profuerit. Hinc idem alibi: "Rectum est" inquit "etiam in illis contentionibus que cum inimicissimis fiunt, etiam si nobis indigna esse videamus, tamen dignitatem retinere, iracundiam pellere". Et sequitur: "Que enim cum aliqua perturbatione fiunt, ea nec constanter fieri possunt, neque his, qui assunt, probari". Sane, quod ad disputandum pertinet, Latinis iste non fuerat disceptandi modus; licet—ut Cicero idem ait—"sit ista in Grecorum levitate perversitas, qui maledictis insectantur eos, a quibus de veritate dissentiunt". Que cum michi iampridem nota essent, et animus, natura quietis appetens, a contentionibus abhorreret, nunquam sponte fueram ad talia discensurus, nisi iste, quem alloquor, superbus, invidus, preceps, temerarius et ignorans—ut brevi eum tibi circumlocutione describam—me nolentem, procacis ut ita dicam lingue sue manibus, ad hunc velut pulvereum ac strepentem iurgiorum campum ex arce tranquilli silentii detraxisset, ut quem delectet, porcorum more, ceno semper immergi, et cui ego nichil, sed omnis veritas, omnis virtus offensa sit.

Why was it not rather fitting to remember that sentence, which in the book De finibus has been set down by Cicero, which, if you have read, you will spare one repeating what is known; if not, I suppose, you will not unwillingly read? “The reprehensions,” he says, “of those dissenting among themselves are not even to be vituperated; revilings, contumelies, angers, contentions and contestations pertinacious in disputing are wont to seem unworthy of philosophy to me.” And it follows: “For neither can there be disputation without reprehension, nor can one dispute rightly with anger or pertinacity.” Nor in disputing only, but even in more atrocious cases, it will have been profitable to remember this doctrine. Hence the same man elsewhere: “It is right,” he says, “even in those contentions which are carried on with the most hostile enemies, even if we see things that seem unworthy for us, nevertheless to retain dignity, to drive out anger.” And it follows: “For the things which are done with some perturbation can neither be done consistently, nor be approved by those who are present.” Assuredly, as regards disputation, this was not the Latins’ mode of adjudication; although—as the same Cicero says—“there is that perversity in the levity of the Greeks, who with revilings pursue those from whom they dissent about the truth.” Since these things had long been known to me, and my spirit, by nature desiring quiet, abhorred contentions, I would never of my own accord have come down to such things, unless this man, whom I address—proud, envious, headlong, rash, and ignorant—to describe him to you with a brief circumlocution—had dragged me, unwilling, by the hands, so to speak, of his procacious tongue, down from the citadel of tranquil silence to this, as it were, dusty and clattering field of wrangles, a man whom it delights, after the manner of swine, to be ever immersed in filth, and to whom not I, but all truth, every virtue, is an offense.

Itaque, lector amabilis, a te veniam peto, si in volutabrum iniuriosi colloquii protractus, contra naturam moresque meos aliquid dixi, quod aures tuas leserit, sicubi gloriosus de me, deque illo mordacius quam velles effatus sum. Magnificentius, fateor, fuisset utrunque contemnere; sed rara patientia est, quam non penetret acutum convitium. Proinde, sique iacula primus ille contorserit in nomen meum—quod, quantulumcunque sit, augeri studeo, non minui—si preterea—quod molestius tuli—quot quantisque mendaciis aures veri avidas impleverit, quam denique importune sit et scurriliter debacchatus audieris, et quis ipse sit noveris, spero tecum ipse dicturus sis: "Gloriatus es necessario; detraxisti vere.

Therefore, lovable reader, I ask pardon from you, if, dragged into the wallow of injurious colloquy, I have said anything against my nature and my customs that has wounded your ears, if anywhere I have spoken vaingloriously about myself, and more mordaciously about him than you would wish. More magnificent, I confess, it would have been to contemn both; but it is a rare patience that a sharp invective does not penetrate. Accordingly, if that man was the first to hurl javelins at my name—which, however small it be, I strive to have increased, not diminished—if, moreover—which I bore more vexingly—with how many and how great lies he has filled ears eager for truth, how finally unseasonably and scurrilously he has raved you will have heard, and who he himself is you will have come to know, I hope you yourself will say to yourself: "You have gloried necessarily; you have detracted truly.

Primum excuso, secundum probo; nisi quia rem verbis equare nequivisti". Solebant equidem ingeniosi adolescentes ab insigni accusatione aliqua primum nomen auspicari, quasi victori accederet victi nomen, et fama multis quesita laboribus eventum unius iudicii sequeretur. Non infame negotium, ut mos erat, sed unde quosdam valde nobilitatos legimus. Hic si ex me lacerato senex idem sperat, spero ego quod fallitur, atque utinam non magis ad votum cogitatio sibi ulla succedat.

"The first I excuse, the second I approve; except that you were unable to equal the matter with words". Indeed, ingenious adolescents were accustomed to inaugurate their first reputation from some distinguished accusation, as if to the victor there accrued the name of the vanquished, and the fame sought by many labors were to follow the event of a single judgment. No infamous business, as the custom was, but one whence we read that certain men were made very noble. Here, if the old man hopes for the same from my being torn to pieces, I for my part hope that he is deceived, and would that no thought at all should succeed to his wish.

Inventus est qui solius fame cupidine Philippum Macedonie regem interficeret, ut quidam putant—apud alios enim causa cedis est iustior —; inventus est qui Diane Ephesie templum incenderet, ut vel insueto facinore notus esset, qui, ne per scelus assequi videretur quod optabat, Ephesii providerunt indicto supplitio, siquis eum historicus nominasset. Certe convitiator meus, qui non regem, non templum violavit, sed humilem solivagumque ruricolam, non hinc nobilitabitur; neque hic per me neque alibi nominandus, puto, nec per alios. Quis est enim tam vili deditus negotio, qui circa tam ieiunum nomen tempus expendat?

There was found one who, by the greed of fame alone, would assassinate Philip, king of Macedonia, as some think — for among others the cause of the slaying is more just —; there was found one who would set fire to the temple of Diana at Ephesus, so that by an unusual crime he might be known, which, lest he should seem to attain what he desired through wickedness, the Ephesians forestalled by a proclaimed punishment, if any historian had named him. Certainly my reviler, who violated neither a king nor a temple, but a humble and solitary-wandering country-dweller, will not from this be made notable; nor is he to be named here by me nor elsewhere, I think, nor by others. For who is so devoted to so vile a business as to expend time upon so jejune a name?

Aut quis est qui, etsi eum antea dilexisset, non deinceps lividis adversus immeritum scriptis eius perlectis adversetur atque oderit? Ita, si fortassis hoc calle famam petit, necquicquam insanierit. Sin turbasse otium, et silentium meum interrupisse contentus est, quod decreverat implevit: aliquot michi dies eripuit quos nemo restituet, et a meis tramitibus abductum, ad durum et insolitum iter traxit.

Or who is there who, even if he had loved him before, would not thereafter, once his livid writings against an undeserving man had been read, oppose and hate him? Thus, if perchance he seeks fame by this path, he will have raved in vain. But if he is content to have disturbed my leisure and interrupted my silence, he has accomplished what he resolved: he has snatched from me several days which no one will restore, and, taken off from my own paths, he has dragged me onto a hard and unaccustomed journey.

Quidni igitur turber, temporisque iacturam querar nec michi nec alteri fructuosam, nisi quantum studioso homini, modo animi crimen absit, et data sit occasio non quesita, in omni genere orationis exercendus est stilus? En in demonstrativo genere exerceor; mallem in laudibus exerceri. Ceterum, ut aliquando sit finis, is qui hanc michi necessitatem imposuit, in alienis finibus non inveniens quod querebat, revertatur ad proprias febres; tu lacessito faveas, lacessentem oderis, et valeas precor.

Why then should I be not disturbed, and complain of a waste of time fruitful neither to me nor to another, except in so far as for a studious man—provided the fault of spirit be absent, and an occasion be given, not sought—the style is to be exercised in every genre of oration? Behold, I am exercised in the demonstrative genre; I would rather be exercised in praises. For the rest, that there may at length be an end, let him who imposed this necessity on me, not finding in alien boundaries what he was seeking, return to his own fevers; do you favor the one provoked, hate the provoker, and fare well, I pray.