---
title: "Letters · Epistulae"
author: "Ausonius"
translator: "Hugh G. Evelyn-White"
languages: [la, en]
shelf: "Classical Latin"
url: https://scriptura.si/works/ausonius-letters/
cite: "Ausonius, tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Letters · Epistulae. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/ausonius-letters/"
---

# Letters · Epistulae

*Ausonius, tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White*

Letters in verse and prose to friends, among them his former pupil Paulinus, who had left the world for a Christian life.

> Latin: ed. Hugh G. Evelyn-White, from the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit, stoa0045.stoa011, CC BY-SA 4.0).

> English: Hugh G. Evelyn-White, from the Perseus Digital Library (stoa0045.stoa011.perseus-eng1). Notes are not included.

> Rows follow the references the two texts share (chapters and sections), cut where both reach the end of a sentence.

## Contents

1. [Letters 1–14](https://scriptura.si/works/ausonius-letters/1.md)
2. [Letters 15–27](https://scriptura.si/works/ausonius-letters/2.md)
3. [Letters 28–34](https://scriptura.si/works/ausonius-letters/3.md)

## 1. Letters 1–14

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/ausonius-letters/1/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/ausonius-letters/1/#p-N

[¶0] Your learned pages, which I received while staving at Capua, brought me sheer delight. For there was in them a certain gaiety overlaid with honey from Tully's hive, and some eulogy on my discourse Mattering rather than deserved. And so I am at a loss to decide which to admire the more—the graces of your diction or of your disposition. Indeed you so far surpass all others in eloquence that I fear to write in reply; you so generously approve my essays that I am glad not to keep silence. If I say more in your praise. I shall seem to be “scratching your back” and to be copying more than complimenting your address to me. Moreover, since you do nothing consciously for the sake of display, I must beware of praising your natural good qualities as though they were studied. This one thing, however, I must tell you as an absolute fact—that there is no man alive whom I love more than you, so deeply pledged in honest affection have you always held me. But in this I think you are excessively modest, that you complain of me for playing traitor to your book. For it is easier to hold hot coals in one's mouth than to keep the secret of a brilliant work. Once you have let a poem out of your hands, you have renounced all your rights: a speech delivered is common property. Or do you fear the venom of some jealous reader, and that your book may smart from the snap of his rude fangs? You are the one man who up to now has owed nothing to partiality, lost nothing through jealousy. Involuntarily everyone, perverse or honest, finds you admirable. Therefore banish henceforth your groundless fears, and let your pen run on so that you may often be betrayed. At any rate assign some didactic or hortatory poem to my name also. Run the risk of my keeping silence; and though I desire to give you proof of it, yet I dare not guarantee it. Well I know how I itch to give voice to your work when you are so popular. For somehow he secures a partnership in the glory who first pronounces another's neat phrases. That is why in comedy authors have won but slight renown, while Roscius, Ambivius,1 and the other players have had no lack of fame. So spend your leisure in such occupation and relieve my famine with fresh books. But if in your Hight from vainglory you dread a chattering informer, do you also guarantee me your silence, that I may safely pretend that what you have written is mine! Farewell.

> Latin: MERUM mihi gaudium eruditionis tuae scripta tribuerunt, quae Capuae Iocatus accepi, erat quippe in his oblita Tulliano melle festivitas et sermonis mei non tam vera, quam blanda laudatio, quid igitur magis mirer, sententiae incertus addubito, ornamenta oris an pectoris tui. quippe ita facundia antistas ceteris, ut sit formido rescribere: ita benigne nostra conprobas, ut libeat non tacere, si plura de te praedicem, videbor mutuum scabere et magis imitator tui esse adloquii quam probator, simul quod ipse nihil ostentandi gratia facis, verendum est genuina in te bona tamquam adfectata laudare, unum hoc tamen a nobis indubitata veritate cognosce, neminem esse mortalium quem prae te diligam; sic vadatum me honorabili amore tenuisti. Set in eo mihi verecundus nimio plus videre, quod libelli tui arguis proditorem, nam facilius est ardentes favillas ore comprimere quam luculenti operis servare secretum. eum semel a te profectum carmen est, ius omne posuisti: oratio publicata res libera est. an vereris aemuli venena lectoris. Ne libellus tuus admorsu duri dentis uratur? tibi uni ad hoc locorum nihil gratia praestitit aut dempsit invidia, ingratis scaevo cuique proboque laudabilis es. proinde cassas dehinc seelude formidines et indulge stilo, ut saepe prodaris. certe aliquod didascalicum seu protrepticum nostro quoque nomini carmen adiudica. fac periculum silentii mei, quod etsi tibi exhibere opto, tamen spondere non audeo, novi ego. quae sit prurigo emuttiendi operis, quod probaris, nam quodam pacto societatem laudis adfectat, qui aliena bene dicta primus enuntiat. Ea propter in comoediis summatim quidem gloriam scriptores tulerunt, Roscio tamen atque Ambivio ceterisque actoribus fama non defuit. Ergo tali negotio expcnde otium tuum et novis voluminibus ieiunia nostra sustenta, quod si iactantiae fugax garrulum iudicem pertimescis, praesta etiam tu silentium mihi, ut tuto simulem nostra esse, quae scripseris, vale.

[¶1] Now I understand how honey-sweet is the power of speech, how enchanting and persuasive a thing is eloquence! You have made me believe that my letter delivered to you at Capua was not a barbarous compilation; but this only for so long as I am actually reading your letter, which is so spread, as it were, with the syrop of your nectar as to over-persuade me while I hang agape over its allurements. For as soon as I lay down your page and question myself, back comes the taste of my own wormwood, and I realize that the cup is smeared round with your honey.1 If indeed—as I often do— I return to your letter, I am enticed again: and then again that most soothing, that most fragrant perfume of your words dies away when I have done reading, and denies that sweetness carries weight as evidence. Like the flaunting glitter of tinsel or a tinted cloud, it delights me only for so long as 1 see it—like that little creature the chameleon, which takes its colour from whatever is beneath it. Your letter makes me feel one thing, my own conscience another. And do you venture to count me worthy of praise belonging to the most eloquent? Do you, I say, speak so of me—you who soar above all writers in faultlessness? What author is there so brilliant, but he appears unpolished by comparison with you? Who like you can approach the charm of Aesop, the logical deductions of Isocrates, the arguments of Demosthenes, the richness of Tully, or the felicity of our own Maro? Who can aspire to such success in any one of these, as you fully attain in them all? For what else are you but the concentrated essence of every great mind in the realm of the liberal arts? My lord, my son Symmachus, 1 do not fear that you may think I speak thus of you more smoothly than truly. Indeed, yon have proved how truthful I am both in thought and word while the two of us. so ill-matched in years, lived at court, where you. a recruit, earned a veteran's pay, while I, already a veteran, went through my recruit's training. At court I was truthful with you: much less when I am away from it should you think I tell stories. At court, I repeat, which bares the face and veils the heart 1—there you felt that I was a father and a friend and, if anything can be dearer than either, then something dearer still. But let us leave this matter, lest such a reminder seem too like the fear felt by Sosias. 2 Now for that matter which I almost passed over. What mock humility of yours is this, that you add a request for me to send you some didactic work or hortatory discourse? Shall 1 teach you when I myself need teaching 3 were I of an age to learn? Shall I counsel you, whose mind is so alert and vigorous? As well exhort the Muses to sing and advise the waves to flow, the breezes to blow freely, tire to give heat, and where anything occurs naturally, whether we will or no, to urge it forward with superfluous zeal! Enough this one mistake that a work of mine has, to my regret, become public property: though by good fortune it has fallen into the hands of friends. For had it been otherwise, not even you would convince me that I can give satisfaction. Let that be my answer to your letter: with the other matters which you desire to know, I will make short work: even so this letter is already long. However, I depute Julian, an intimate of your household, to answer any questions you care to ask concerning me: at the same time I urge that, when you learn his reason for coming, you aid him in a purpose which to some extent you have already favoured. Farewell.

> Latin: MODO intellego, quam mellea res sit oratio; quam delinifica et quam suada facundia. persuasisti mihi, quod epistulae meae aput Capuam tibi redditae concinnatio inhumana non esset; set hoc non diutius, quam dum epistulam tuam legi, quae me blanditiis inhiantem tuis velut suco nectaris delibuta perducit. ubi enim chartulam pono et me ipsum interrogo, tum absinthium meum resipit et circumlita melle tuo pocula deprehendo. si vero, id quod saepe facio, ad epistulam tuam redii, rursus inlicior: et rursum ille suavissimus, ille floridus tui sermonis adflatus deposita lectione vanescit et testimonii pondus prohibet inesse dulcedini. hoc me velut aerius bratteae fucus aut picta nebula non longius, quam dum videtur, oblectat chamaeleontis bestiolae vice, quae de subiectis sumit colorem, aliud sentio ex epistula tua, aliud ex conscientia mea. et tu me audes facundissimorum hominum laude dignari: tu, inquam, mihi ista, qui te ultra emendationem omnium protulisti? quisquamne ita nitet, ut conparatus tibi non sordeat? quis ita Aesopi venustatem, quis sophisticas Isocratis conclusiones, quis ad cnthymemata Demosthenis aut opulentiam Tullianam aut proprietatem nostri Maronis accedat? quis ita adfectet singula, ut tu imples omnia? quid enim aliud es, quam ex omni bonarum artium ingenio collecta perfectio? Haec, domine mi fili Symmache, non vereor, ne in te blandius dicta videantur esse quam verius, et expertus es (idem meam mentis atque dictorum, dum in comitatu (legimus ambo aevo dispari, ubi tu veteris militiae praemia tiro meruisti, ego tiroeinium iam veteranus exercui. in comitatu tibi verus fui, nedum me peregre existimes conposita fabulari. In comitatu, inquam, qui frontes hominum aperit, mentes tegit, ibi me et parentem et amicum et, si quid utroque carius est, cariorem fuisse sensisti, set abeamus ab his: ne ista haec conmemoratio ad illam Sosiae formidinem videatur accedere. Illud, quod paene praeterii, qua adfectatione addidisti, ut ad te didascalieum aliquod opuseulum aut sermonem protreptieum mitterem? ego te docebo doeendus adhuc, si essem id aetatis, ut discerem? aut ego te vegetum atque alacrem commonebo? eadem opera et Musas hortabor, ut canant, et maria, ut effluant, et auras, ut vigeant, et ignes, ut caleant. admonebo: et, si quid invitis quoque nobis natura fit, superfluus instigator agitabo. sat est unius erroris quod aliquid meorum me paenitente vulgatum est, quod bona fortuna in manus amicorum incidit, nam si contra id evenisset, nec tu mihi persuaderes placere me posse. Haec ad litteras tuas responsa sint: cetera, quae noscere aves, conpendi faciam; sic quoque iam longa est epistula. Iulianum tamen familiarem domus vestrae, si quid de nobis percontandum arbitraris, adlego; simul admoneo, ut, eum causam adventus eius agnoveris. iuves studium, quod ex parte fovisti. vale.

[¶2] Although praise bestowed upon their children is generally accepted as gospel by parents, yet it is somehow discounted when it is considered to have an eye to the favour of the great. I am at a stand, therefore, and ask what words 1 shall choose especially at this time in speaking of that worshipful man, Thalassius, your son-in-law. If 1 touch sparingly upon the graces of his character, I shall be thought to show signs of jealousy: if 1 duly enlarge upon them, I shall be next door to a flatterer. I will therefore copy Sallust 1 in his rigid mode of giving evidence. You have as son-in-law a man worthy of you, and, through you, of a consular family—one whom Fortune in her bestowal of distinctions has found too great to need her benefits, whom a faultless nature and stainless character have already furnished with higher gifts. Farewell.

> Latin: ETSI plerumque vera est aput parentes praedicatio filiorum, nescio quo tamen pacto detrimentum meriti sui patiatur, dum personarum spectare gratiam iudicatur, quaero igitur incertus animi, quae mihi nunc potissimum super viro honorabili Thalassio genero tuo verba sumenda sint. si parce decora morum eius adtingam. liventi similis existimabor: si iuste persequar, ero proximus blandienti. Imitabor igitur Sallustiani testimonii castigationem. Habes virum dignum te et per te familia consulari, quem fortuna honoris parti maiorem beneficiis suis repperit, emendatio animi et sanctitas potioribus iam paravit. vale.

[¶3] AT last, having struggled free from delay's seductive toils. I have left Bordeaux's soft enticements and on a neighbouring farm dwell nigh the town of Saintes: if this pleases you. friend Paulus, give me proof of it. Let horn-hoofed mules whirl hither a harnessed four-wheeled car,1 or, if you please, jump in a three-horse gig, 2 or mount a cob, or else a back-broken hack, if only you come quickly; for approaching Easter's rites summon me back, nor am I free to linger idly here. Bring over on your jaunt thrice a thousand lyrics or the feigned eases 3 which your pupils weave. With me you will rind none, for I have left yonder the old remnants of my trifles together with my wit.

> Latin: tandem eluctati retinacula blanda morarum
Burdigalac molles liquimus inlecebras.
Santonicamque urbem vicino accessimus agro:
quod tibi si gratum est, optime Paule, proba,
cornipedes rapiant inposta petorrita mulae;
vel cisio triiugi. si placet, insilias,
vel celerem manuum vel raptum terga veraedum
conscendas, propere dum modo iam venias;
instantis revocant quia nos sollemnia Paschae
libera nec nobis 1 est mora desidiae.
perfer in excursu vel leriuga milia epodon
vel falsas lites, quas schola vestra serit,
nobiscum invenies nullas, quia liquimus istic
nugarum veteres cum sale relliquias. 2

[¶4] OF oysters famed through the lavish feasts of high-born prodigals, whether dredged from the depths of various seas or left bare by ebbing shallows, or sheltered beneath rugged caves and in jagged clefts amid the rocks, those which green moss, which stained seaweed hides, whose welded shells are firm-shut as the stones, which when removed 4 from their home and planted in rich ooze are fattened by the inward moisture of the packed slime;—of these you bid me tell all the kinds, Paulus, my old comrade, made used to my trifling by sportive verse. I will approach the task, albeit the theme stir not an old man's zest nor be thought fit for the notice of a frugal man. For I have no Salian fare,1 no repasts of savour such as had the banquets of Penelope's wastrel suitors or of the sleek and scented youth about Alcinoüs.2 Yet will I tell o'er the tale, following report and testimony according to the tastes of men ever diverse in judgment. Howbeit, for me the choicest above all are those bred by the Ocean of the Meduli, 3 which, named after Bordeaux, high esteem hath raised even to Caesar's board, no less renowned than are our famous wines. These amongst all have won the pride of place, the rest lagging far behind: these be of substance both full fat and snowy white, and with their sweet juice most delicately mingle some flavour of the sea touched with a fine taste of salt. Next, though next at distance of long interval, are the oysters of Marseilles, which Narbo feeds near Venus' haven;4 and those which, untended, the Hellespontine wave shelters at Abydos; or those which cling afloat to the piles of Baiae; those washed by the San tonic surge; those known to the Genoni; or those harboured by Ebora's 5 stream where it joins the sea, so that they lie covered with a deep bed of weed: rough of shell are these, and sweet, and rich of meat. There are, too, such as praise the oysters of the Armoric deep, and those which shoremen gather on Pictonic coasts, and which the tide sometimes leaves bare for the wondering Caledonian.6 Add those which. reared below Byzantium's shores and the vexed beaches of Propontis, late-born renown now honours with distinction after the name of Promotus the general.1 These I tell thee, no bard, no historian, nor yet a world-wandering gourmand, but things I have heard from many, as wont is, whenever a challenge from a table on the right provokes gentle Lyacus with friendly converse. These are known to me not from common company nor from taverns, nor from the guilds of Plautine parasites, but because I myself have often celebrated festal days, sometimes with gatherings of my friends,2 or going in turn to banquets as a bidden guest, when perchanee a friend observed a birthday or a marriage feast, or a carouse 3 sanctioned by our fathers' custom: there I have heard many a worthy man praise these, and I remember them.

> Latin: OSTHEA nobilium cenis sumptuque nepotum
cognita diversoque maris deprensa profundo,
aut refugis nudata vadis aut scrupea subter
antra et muriceis scopulorum mersa lacunis,
quae viridis muscus, quae decolor alga recondit.
quae testis concreta suis ceu saxa cohaerent,
quae mutata loco, pingui mox consita limo,
nutrit secretus conclusae uliginis umor,
enumcrare iubes, vetus o mihi Paule sodalis,
adsuefacte meis ioculari carmine nngis.
adgrediar; quamvis curam non ista senilem
sollicitent frugique viro dignanda putentur.
nam mihi non Saliare epulum, non aura dapalis,
qualem Penelopae nebulonum mensa procorum
Alcinoique habuit nitidae eutis uncta iuventus.1
enumerabo tamen famam testesque secutus
pro studiis hominum semper diversa probantum.
Set mihi prae cunetis lectissima, quae Medulorum
educat Oceanus, quae Burdiga lensia nomen
usque ad Caesareas tulit admiratio mensas,
non laudata minus, nostri quam gloria vini.
haec inter cunctas palmam meruere priorem,
omnibus ex longo cedentibus: ista et opimi
visceris et nivei dulcique tenerrima suco
miscent aequoreum tenui sale tincta saporem.
proxima sint quamvis, sunt longe proxima multo
ex intervallo, quae Massiliensia, portum
quae Narbo ad Veneris nutrit; cultuque carentia
Hellespontiaci quae protegit aequor Abydi:
vel quae Baianis pendent fluitantia palis;.
Santonico quae tecta salo; quae nota Genonis:
aut Eborac mixtus pelago quae protegit amnis,
ut multo iaceant algarum obducta recessu:
aspera quae testis et dulcia, farris opimi.
Sunt et Aremorici qui laudent ostrea ponti,
et quae Pictonici legit accola litoris, et piae
mira Caledoniis nonnunquam detegit aestus.
accedunt, quae fama recens Byzantia subter
litora et insana generata Propontidis acta
promoti celebrata ducis de nomine laudat.
Haec tibi non vates, non historicus neque toto
orbe vagus conviva loquor, set tradita multis,
ut solitum, quotiens dextrae invitatio mensae
sollicitat lencm comi sermone Lyaeum.
haec non per vulgum mihi cognita perque popinas
aut parasitorum collegia Plautinorum,
set festos quia saepe dies partim ipse meorum
excolui inque vicem conviva vocatus adivi.
natalis si forte fuit sollemnis amico
coniugiove dapes aut sacra repotia patrum.
audivi meminique bonos laudare frequentes.

[¶5] IF any trust is ever to be placed in the feigned words of poets, and if they scrawl not ever fiction, Paulus—once the most famous child of the Castalian Camenae, now their father or grandfather or yet more ancient than a great-grandfather, as was of old the kinglet of Tartessus 4—remember to keep your promises inviolate. Phoebus bids us speak truth: although he suffers the Pierian sisters to swerve from the line, he himself never twists a furrow. You also must not regret your plighted bond; come quickly now by river or by road, either where Garonne, swelled with the flood-tide of the billowy deep, challenges the main, or where the beaten gravel of the relaid road leads to the garrison of Blaye. For in the first days after holy Easter J long to visit my estate. For I am weary at the sight of throngs of people, the vulgar brawls at the cross-roads, the narrow lanes a-swarm, and the broadways belying their name 1 for the rabble herded there. Confused Echo resounds with a babel of cries: “Hold! ‘—"Strike!’—" Lead!” —" Give! “—" Look out!” Here is a mucky sow in flight, there a mad dog in fell career,2 there oxen too weak for the waggon. No use to steal into the inner chamber and the recesses of your home: the cries penetrate through the house.3 These, and what else can shock the orderly, force me to leave the walled city and seek again the sweet peace of the retired country and the delights of trifling seriously: and there you may arrange your own hours and have the. right to do nothing or else what you will. If you haste after these joys, come quickly with all the wares of your Camenae:4 daetyls, elegiaes, choriam bies, lyries, comedy and tragedy—pack them all in your carriage, for the devout poet's baggage is all paper. With me you will find a quid pro quo if you please to trade on Greek,1 not Punic, terms.

> Latin: Si qua fides falsis umquam est adhibenda poetis
nec plasma semper adimunt,
Paule, Camenarum celeberrime Castaliarum
alumne quondam, nunc pater,
aut avus, aut proavis antiquior, ut fuit olim
Tartesiorum regulus:
intemerata tibi maneant promissa, memento.
Phoebus iubet verum loqui:
etsi Pierias patitur Ii rare sorores.
numquam ipse torquet αὔλακα.
te quoque ne pigeat consponsi foederis: et iam
citus veni remo aut rota,
aequoris undosi qua multiplicata recursu
Garumna pontum provocat,
aut iteratarum qua glarca trita viarum
fert militarem ad Blaviam.
nos etenim primis sanctum post Pascha diebus
avemus agrum visere.
Nam populi coetus et compita sordida rixis
fastidientes cernimus
angustas fervere vias et congrege volgo
nomen plateas perdere,
turbida congestis referitur vocibus echo:
“Tene, feri, duc, da, cave!”
sus lutulenta fugit, rabidus canis impete saevo
et impares plaustro boves,
nec prodest penetrale domus et operta subire:
per tecta clamores meant,
haec et quae possunt placidos offendere mores,
cogunt relinqui moenia,
dulcia secreti repetantur ut otia ruris,
nugis amoena seriis;
tempora disponas ubi tu tua iusque tuum sit,
ut nil agas vel quod voles,
ad quae si properas, tota cum merce tuarum
veni Camenarum citus:
dactylicos. elegos, choriambum carmen, epodos,
socci et coturni musicam
carpentis impone tuis: nam tota supellex
vatum piorum chartea est.
nobiscum invenies κατ' ἐναντία, si libet uti
non Poena 1 sed Graeca fide.

[¶6] AS for my verses, which a salutary and self-conscious sense of shame had sent into hiding, while you thought you were enticing them forth by sending forward your own poetry and prose, you have driven them back. For when one who is himself eloquent and a poet tries to lure an author to venture on publication, he frightens the other out of the purpose which he advocates. A listener ought to conceal his own skill if he wishes to induce a nervous orator to speak, and a practised veteran should not brandish in the face of mere recruits weapons he has wielded through a full term of service. Venus understood this in the matter of the prize for beauty so long withheld for lack of a decisive verdict. For it was modestly arrayed, when in the presence of her father, that she had contended, and her similar adornment did not discourage her rivals; but when the suit of the goddesses was brought down for a shepherd's decision, she appeared as when she had risen from the sea or had met with Mars, both overwhelming the judge and crushing her competitors' rivalry. And so, had not your Crazy Man, slight in theme though not in finish,2 checked my poor little works which you were eager to have brought out to light, I should long-since, like a too venturesome shoot, have put forth an impudent bud in the still wintry air, only to run the risk of heavy censure for my ill-advised haste. In short, to bring into play, as you bade me, the " swipe " 1—which, I fancy, is correctly termed by scholars a “swing-beam” —I did not dare after lately reading your verses; but I send you those pieces which have already been hurriedly recited to you. For indeed this you demand and 1 prefer; so that you, through your own fault, may stumble twice over the same stone, while I, whate'er befall, may blush but once. See, my dear Paid us, what a sorry poet you have provoked!—in wording harsh, in utterance halting, wandering from his points, in versifying without elegance, in satire without natural grace or spice of art, watery in wit, sluggish in spleen, no true performer in mime,2 no actor in comedy. And were not yon yourself to read these pieces I send, you would laugh at my delivery also. As it is, theirs is a more kindly destiny, because though begotten by me they will be adopted by you. So soon as I shall get wine carried to Saintes by two-horse cart, do you also get your cup of ostrich-shell which your steward says was left on your farm far away in your native Bigorre, 3

> Latin: VERSUS meos utili et conscio sibi pudore celatos carmine tuo et sermone praemissis dum putas eliei, repressisti. nam qui ipse facundus et musicus editionis alienae prolectat audaciam, consilio, quo suadet, exterret, tegat oportet auditor doctrinam suam, qui volet ad dicendum sollicitare trepidantem, nec emerita adversum tirunculos arma concutiat veterana calliditas. sensit hoc Venus de pulchritudiuis palma diu ambiguo ampliata iudicio. pudenter enim ut apud patrem velata certaverat nec deterrebat aemulas ornatus aequalis; at postquam in pastoris examen deducta est lis dearum, qualis emerserat mari aut eum Marte convenerat, et consternavit arbitrum et contendentium certamen oppressit, ergo nisi Delirus tuus in re tenui non tenuiter laboratus opuscula mea, quae promi studucras, retardasset, iam dudum ego ut palmes audacior in hibernas adhue auras improbum germen egissem, periculum iudicii gravis inconsulta festinatione subiturus. denique pisonem, quem tollenonem existimo proprie a philologis appellatum, adhibere, ut iubebas, recenti versuum tuorum lectione non ausus, ea quae tibi iam cursim fuerant recitata, transmisi. etenim hoc poposcisti atque id ego malui, tu ut tua culpa ad eundem lapidem bis offenderes, ego autem, quaecumque fortuna esset, semel erubescerem. Vide, mi Paule, quam ineptum lacessieris in verbis rudem, in eloquendo hiulcum, a propositis discrepantem, in versibus concinnationis expertem, in ea villando nec natura venustum nec arte conditum, diluti salis, fellis ignavi, nec de mimo planipedem nec de comoediis histrionem, ac nisi haec a nobis missa ipse lecturus esses, etiam de pronuntiatione rideres. nunc commodiore fato sunt, quod, licet apud nos genuina, aput te erunt adoptiva.
Vinum eum biiugo parabo plaustro
primo tempore Santonos vehendum,
ovum tu quoque - passeris marini,
quod nunc promus ait procul relictum
in fundo patriae Bigerritanae.

[¶7] To Axius, worthy - participant in Hellenic poesy and Roman song, I, Ausonius, send playful greeting in a medley of the two tongues. Muses, what do we? Wherefore with empty hopes do I sport idly, heedless of growing older day by day? O'er the Santonic plains, where frost accords chill welcome, I wander shivering with cold, a frigid hard indeed, a servant unemployed of the soft-tressed Pierides. Cold feet and chattering of teeth are each man's lot, because no hearth gives warmth in this snowy country, and men redouble all the cold with meditating their frigid verse. Yet even so, at the beginning of the new month and on the first of January let me send to Paulus the first-fruits of my song. Ye songful children of Mnemosyne with tresses coiffed, nine wordy maids with locks begarlanded. come now with chant ridiculous and macaronic 3 lay, wear winged triumph on your brows—for 'tis on you T call, a clumsy bottle-bard—compose for Paulus some mixed barbarian strain! For I may not, albeit tarrying in these parts, leave worthy Axius lacking my poesy. He shareth all with me, and knoweth all sorts of tricks for wrestling with my serious and my jesting verse. And now retired in the lonely-country of Crebennus he hath his heart-vexing dwelling in a grapeless land, remote alike from his dear friends and from all dinner-tables. There, sick at heart, he chides the heart-soothing Muses for his loneliness. Enough experience have 1 had of toil ere now, friend Paulus, both as a pleader in the courts and in the thankless professorial chair at Schools of Rhetoric, and got therefrom no profit. But now has all that youthful energy oozed from these limbs, trembling old age is nigh, and my strong-box grown light furnishes means for outlay less readily. For the helpless draws no salary from the Exchequer,1 and the bed-ridden dotard earns no golden fees. Yet if only thou wilt be of unruffled mind and rather see good in everything, thy toil and poverty will find oblivion. But this is the very best of all, from all the Muses everywhere—not without bowl and wine, comrade of the true Muses—to seek soothing consolation for a troubled heart. Here shalt thou find the fruit of Demeter. rich in crops, here fat swine, here capacious goblets if thou wouldst mix the nectar of good wine. So shall we twain cheer the blank hours of our life, so long as means and age allow and the Three Sisters spin their purple thread.2

> Latin: Ἑλλαδικῆσ μέτοχον μούσησ Latiacque camenae
Ἄξιον Αὐσόνιοσ sermone adludo bilingni.
Musae. quid facimus? τί κεναῖσιν ἐφ' ἑλπίσιν
Indimus ἀφρυδίῃδιν ἐν ἤματι
Σαντονικοῖσ κάμποισιν, ὅποι κρύοσ ἄξενόν.
erramus gelido τρομεροὶ καὶ frigdopetae.
Πιερίδων τενεροπλοκάμων θεράποντεσ inertes.
πάντα δ' ἔχει παγετόσ τε pedum καὶ κρουσμὸσ ὀδόντων,
θαλπωρὴ quia nulla φοκοῦ χιονώδει χώρῃ
et duplicant frigus ψυχρὰ carmina μητιόωντεσ.
ἀρχόμενοσ δ' ἄρα μηνὶ νέῳ Ιανοῦ τε calend αισ
primitias Panlo nostrae πέμψωμεν
Μνημοσύνησ κρηδεμνοκόμου πολν cantica τέκνα,
ἐννέα Verbosae κριννοστέφανοί τε puellae,
ἔνθ' ἄγε μοι πολυ risa ἔπη, σκουρώδεα μολπήν.
frontibus ὑμετέραισ πτέρινον praeferte triumphum
ὑμᾶσ γὰρ καλέω σκαιὸσ Διονυσοπουητήσ
Παύλῳ ἐφαρμόσσαιτε μεμιγμενοβάρβαρον
οὐ γάρ μοι θέμισ ἐστὶν in hac regione μένοντι
Ἄξιον abnostris ἐπιδεύεα εἶνε καμήναις:
κεῖνοσ ἐμοὶ πάντων μέτοχοσ. qui seria nostra.
qui ioca παντοδαπῇ novit tractare παλαίστρῃ.
καὶ νῦν sepositus μοναχῷ ἐνὶ rnre Κρεβέννου
ἀσταφύλῳ ἐνὶ χώρῳ habet θυμαλγέα λέσχην
οὔτε φίλοισ ἑτάροισ nec mensae accommodus ulli.
otia θελξινόοισ aeger σνμμέμφεται Μούσαισ.
Iam satis, ο φίλε Παῦλε, πόνου
ἔν τε for ῳ caus αισ τε καὶ ingrat αισι καθέδραισ.
ῤητορικοῖσ λουδοῖσι, καὶ ἔπλετο οὐδὲν
ἄλλ' ἤδη κεῖνοσ μὲν ἅπασ iuvenalios ἱδρὼσ
ἐκκέχυται μελέων, τρομερὴ δὲ πάρεστι senectus
καὶ minus in sumptum δαπάνασ lenis arca ministrat.
Οὐ γὰρ ἔχει ἀπάλαμνοσ ἀνὴρ lucr ον,
κλεινικὸσ οὔτε γέρων χρυσέην ἐργάζετ'.
Aequanimus quod si fueris et πάντα vel αἰνεῖν
malueris, λήθη πόνου ἔσσεται ἠδὲ.
Κεῖνο δὲ παγκάλλιστον, ut omnibus undique Musis
σὺν φιάλῃque οἴνῳque ἐτεῶν συνοπάονι,
θυμοῦ άλῃχεμένου solacia blanda requiras.
hic crit et fructus Δημητέρος ἀγλαοκάρπου,
ἔνθα σύεσ θαλεροί, πολυχανδέα pocula ἔνθα,
κιρνᾶν εἴ κε θέλοισ νέκταρ οὐίνοιο.
Ambo igitur nostrae παραθέλξομεν otia vitae.
Dum res et aetas et sororum
νήματα πορφύρεα πολέκηται.

[¶8] AUSONIUS, consul of the Romans, to Paulus, poet and declaimer: 3 haste to see thy friends.

> Latin: Ῥωμαίων ὕπατοσ ἀρεταλόγῳ ἠδὲ,
Αὐσόνιοσ Παύλῳ: σπεῦδε φίλους ἰδέειν.

[¶9] FOR thee I left the flood of the Garonne, for thee I dwell amid the plains of Saintes; our meeting, therefore, be thy aim! If thou art eager as I, full soon wilt thou enjoy the sight of me. But make such haste as thy strength and years permit; so that Ι see thee safe, I see thee soon enough. If after that unlucky drive thy powers are restored, and if thy limbs have now regained their wonted pliancy, if to the Muses' joy thou dost again frequent well-watered Pimpla,1 a bard once more and no scorching Automedon,2 banish the clouds of eld which haunt a drowsy greybeard, briskly devour the intervening road. But be heedful, mounting some chaise or slow post-horse: let no dog-cart 3 tempt thee, no high-mettled steed. I counsel thee avoid four-wheeled cars 4 with their notorious geldings, drive no swift mules thyself to play Metiscus.5 So be the Muses gracious to thee, thy conception ready, thy memory sound, and free thy flow of melting honey: so may Crebennus, so long for sale without a purchaser, be thine for a reward. But that thou mayest come more quickly, travelling the lighter, leave histories, mimes, and lyrics all at home. Muses make heavy baggage: those books stored with so many centuries, which scarce endure their own ages, are crushed by ours. With me thou wilt find a motley throng of epics, grammarians' subtilties and niceties of speech, the heroic dactyl and the lyrist's choriambus, Thaleia's comedy beside Terpsichore's tragic train, Sotades' 6 wanton verse, the Ionic of both kinds.7 the ordered sweetness of Pindaric rhythms, the shambling scazon 1 and the unlimping trimeter, eight books of Thucydides, nine of Herodotus, a goodly show of orators, and the philosophers in glorious tribes—all that thou wouldst, and still more shouldst thou wish. This word of greeting I send thee from my hooks. Farewell; if thou wouldst have me fare well, fare hither now.

> Latin: Aequoream liqui te propter, amice, Garumnam.
te propter campos incolo Santonicos;
congressus igitur nostros pete. si tibi cura.
quae mihi, conspectu iam potiere meo.
sed tantum adpropera, quantum pote corpore et aevo;
ut salvum videam, sat cito te video.
si post infaustas vigor integratus habenas
et rediit membris iam sua mobilitas,
si riguam laetis recolis Pipleida Musis.
iam vates et non flagrifer Automedon.
pelle soporiferi senium nubemque veterni
atque alacri mediam carpe vigore viam.
sed cisium aut pigrum cautus conscende veraedum:
non tibi sit raedae, non amor acris equi.
cantheris moneo male nota petorrita vites.
ne celeres mulas ipse Metiscus agas.
sic tibi sint Musae faciles, meditatio prompta
et memor, et liquidi mel fluat eloquii:
sic, qui venalis tam longa aetate Crebennus
non habet emptorem, sit tibi pro pretio
Attamen ut citius venias leviusque vehare.
historiam, mimos, carmina linque domi.
grande onus in musis: tot saecula condita chartis.
quae sua vix tolerant tempora, nostra gravant.
nobiscum invenies ἐπέων πολυμορφέα,
γραμματικῶν τε πλοκὰσ καὶ,
δάκτυλον ἡρῷον καὶ ἀοιδοπόλων,
σὺν Θαλίησ κώμῳ σύρματα.
σωταδικόν τε κίναιδον, ἰωνικὸν.
Ῥυθμῶν Πινδαρικῶν ἔννομον.
εὶλιπόδην σκάζοντα καὶ οὐ σκάζοντα.
Ὀκτὼ Θουκυδίδου, ἐννέα.
Ῥητορικῶν θάημα, σοφῶν ἐρικυδέα,
πάντα μάλ' ὅσσ' ἐθέλεις, καὶ πλέον, εἴ κε.
Hoc tibi de nostris ἀσπαστικὸν offero libris.
vale; valere si voles me, iam veni.

[¶10] O THOU, who with copious eloquence enrichest our ancient stores of wit, Tetradius, and takest heed that thy tart compositions be not gloomy and bereft of sweetness; who, blending gall and honey in thy verse, sufferest not thy Muses to grow dull, and flavourest alike what is insipid to the taste and what bitter to the palate; thou who outstrip'st the unpolished Muses of Suessa,3 yielding in age to them but not in style; why dost thou shun me, neighbour to the walls of Saintes, as of old the Roman youth tied from the Lucanian oxen 4 who renewed the battle with exceeding fury? Not like a tiger, not with lion's spring, but in fond love I seek thee out. J yearn to see my pupil's countenance and to enjoy the longed-for fruits of his mind. Reluctant hitherto I have gulped down the necessity which parted us in bygone days when Iculisma 5 kept thee hidden, once fettered with the heavy chains of teaching, and I would grudge that in so remote and lonely a spot the Muses' handiwork was concealed. But now —seeing thou flourishest amid throngs of famous men and not far hence, where the wind waits to thee my renown and talk of me rings in thine ears— why, puffing out thy chest with proud disdain, dost thou scorn me, a poet-consul, and to one who loves thee, admires thee, longs to enjoy thy verse, forgetfully show neglect and proud contempt? Thou shouldst be punished after thine own example, did not the loyalty of my heart, unmoved by time, love even the reluctant. Farewell. If thou wilt my welfare, whirl here forthwith with writing-case and all thy Muses.

> Latin: O qui vetustos uberi facundia
sales opimas, Tetradi,
cavesque, ne sit tristis et dulci carens
amara concinnatio;
qui felle carmen atque melle temperans
torpere musas non sinis
pariterque fucas, quaeque gustu ignava sunt,
et quae sapore tristia;
rudes camenas qui Suessae praevenit
aevoque cedis, non stilo:
cur me propinquum Santonorum moenibus
declinas, ut Lucas boves
olim resumpto praeferoces proelio
fugit iuventus Romula?
non ut tigris te, non leonis impetu,
amore sed caro expeto.
videre alumni gestio vultus mei
et indole optata frui.
invitus olim devoravi absentiae
necessitatem pristinae,
quondam docendi munere adstrictum gravi
Iculisma cum te absconderet,
et invidebam devio ac solo loco
opus camenarum tegi.
at nunc — frequentes atque claros nec procul
cum floreas inter viros
tibique nostras ventus auras deferat
auresque sermo verberet — cur
me supino pectoris fastu tumens
spernis poetam consulem,
tuique amantem teque mirantem ac tua
desiderantem earmina
oblitus alto neglegis fastidio?
plectendus exemplo tuo,
ni stabilis aevo pectoris nostri fides
quamquam recusantes amet.
Vale. valere si voles me, pervola
cum scrinio et musis tuis.

[¶11] AFTER the delay caused by the copyists, I know that the pleasure caused by my promise has been outworn by hope deferred, most noble Probus; yet I count it good fortune that I have not broken my word. The Fables of Titianus 2 and the Chronicles of Nepos 3—as though they were further fables; for they, too, are like fairy tales—I now send your excellency, glad, nay exultant, that there will be something which my devotion and pains can contribute towards your children's education. To the little book of Fables, however, I have, in the zeal of my respect for you, taken the extreme liberty of prefixing a few verses—few at least as I judge, who am a man of words; though you, when you have read them, will think them all too many. I solemnly assure your good-natured self, who can vouch for my honour, that I gave vent to them on a sudden impulse. For who would need to ponder long over these? This, indeed, the verses themselves will confirm. It may be that, if I live long enough, I will fashion out some work on your career, rude craftsman though I am: even should you not be satisfied with the reading of it, you will take the writing in good part. And since 1 have copied Chocrilus in his madness, yon must pardon me with the generosity of Alexander.1 These verses then (to use Plautus' word 2) will serve meanwhile as “Foreword” to the Fables, wordy and treacherous though they are. Though put together to convey my dutiful compliments to you, they have rushed off with one accord to offend your ears. Farewell, and give me your good regard. Go forth, little book, to Sirmium, and to thy lord and mine bid hearty health and greeting. Thou knowest not, little book, who is that our lord? Or though thou knowest, dost thou love to hear what delights thee? I might tell thee outright, but for more pleasure I will talk in mazes and with speech drawn out get full enjoyment. Him 1 mean who, full eloquent, outstrips Atreus' younger son 3 in pleading with few but melodious words; who combines Ulysses' hail and Nestor's honeyed flow with Tully's utterance; who is the all-highest save the three Lords of Lords,1 and supreme in the Praetorium. Him I mean, the Senate's chief, prefect likewise and consul (for as consul he has endless fame as colleague of an Emperor-consul), prop of the Roman curule chair—first, though his authority is second in degree; for first of all citizens shall he be as consul, but second to the Prince. He, the survivor of the Golden Race, begetter of a golden progeny, refutes the sage of Ascra,2 showing this is no Iron Age, since, conquering Time's ravages, he renews the line of the Annii and has equal right to deck with fillets the Anician family-tree.3 Of Probus speak I: thou knowest him full well —whom none ever named in speech without first praising him.4 Go forth, my little book, there to enjoy boundless good fortune. And ask withal, if he will suffer thee to address him in humble tones: “Prithee, true son of Romulus, declare the reason of thy name. Was it thy conduct earned thee this name, or to this name hath thy rule of conduct conformed? Or of his fore-knowledge did the supreme Disposer of the world bid thee be called by a name expressive of the nature with which he created thee?” The name was given in his praise and for a token of his life. Ah, happy little book, that such a man will unroll thee on his knee and not complain that thou takest up the hours of his welcome leisure; that he will vouchsafe thee the tones of his honeyed voice or his soft whispers; that for thee the dear dark pupils of his eyes will deign to find leisure; that with mind and ear in unison he will read thee through, some pages skipped. Whate'er thy fortune, go forth, little book, and enjoy thy boundless happiness. Say that I fare well and live, say that I live as I devoutly asked, praying with hallowed words that, as the last consulship made him colleague of the son, so again Augustus the sire 1 will renown him with partnership in his own honours. This also gently add: “Lo, from the very borders of the Rhine Ausonius, Italian of name,2 tutor of thy belov'd Augustus, sends thee these Fables, by Aesop writ in trimeters, but rendered in simple style and adapted into prose by Titianus, artist in words; that hereby he who is his father's and grandfather's pride, sprung from the mingled strains of the Probi and Anicii—as of old in Alba town the last scion of Aeneas' stock united the lines of Silvius 1 and Iulus—so he who is thy offspring, flower of the flowerlets of Rome, amid nurse's tales and drowsy strains of lullaby, may become versed in fables, growing used to play and learn at the same time.” Thereto add this prayer which I, though sinful, have addressed to the all-loving God: “Even as Augustus the sire hath made Probus colleague to his son, so may Gratian link this new Probus with his offspring which shall be.” Fulfilled hereafter shall be the words 1 speak: the worth of Probus' deeds demands it so. But now, that Julius 2 may speak, though all unwilling make an end of words, swift - footed dimeter, and having said “hail,” say now “farewell!”

> Latin: oblata per antiquarios mora scio promissi mei gratiam expectatione consumptam, Probe, vir optime; in secundis tamen habeo non fefellisse, apologos Titiani et Nepotis chronica quasi alios apologos (nam et ipsa instar sunt fabularum) ad nobilitatem tuam misi. gaudens atque etiam glorians fore aliquid, quod ad institutionem tuorum sedulitatis meae studio conteratur. Libello tamen apologorum antetuli paucos epodos. studio in te observantiae meae impudentissimo. paucos quidem, ut ego loquax iudico; verum tu, cum legens, etiam nimium multos putabis, adiuro benevolentiam tuam, verecundiae meae testem, eos mihi subita persuasione duxisse, nam quis hos diu cogitaret? quod sane ipsi per se probabunt, fors fuat, ut si milli vita suppetet, aliquid rerum tuarum quamvis incultus expoliam: quod tu etsi lectum non probes, scriptum boni consules, eumque ego imitatus sim vesaniam Choerili, tu ignoscas magnanimitate Alexandri. Hi igitur, ut Plautus ait, interim erunt antelogium fabularum, garruli et deceptores. qui compositi ad honorificentiae obsequium, ad aurium convicium concurrerunt, vale et me dilige.
Perge, o libelle, Sirmium
et dic ero meo ac tuo
have atque salve plurimum.
quis iste sit nobis erus,
nescis, libelle? an, cum scias.
libenter audis, quod iuvat?
possem absolute dicere,
sed dulcius circumloquar
diuque fando perfruar.
hunc dico, qui lingua potens
minorem Atridam praeterit
orando pauca et musica:
qui grandines Ulixei
et mel fluentem Nestora
concinnat ore Tulli;
qui solus exceptis tribus
eris erorum primus est
praetorioque maximus.
dico hune senati praesulem,
praefectum eundem et consulem
(nam consul aeternum cluet
collega Augusti consulis),
columen eurulis Romulae
primum in secundis fascibus;
nam primus e cunctis erit
consul, secundus principi.
Generi hic superstes aureo
satorque prolis aureae
convincit Ascraeum senem,
non esse saeelum ferreum,
qui vincit aevi iniuriam
stirpis novator Aoniae
paribusque comit infulis
Aniciorum stemmata.
Probum loquor: scis optime,
quem nemo fando dixerit,
qui non prius laudaverit.
perge, o libelle, et utere
felicitate intermina.
Quin et require, si sinet
tenore fari obnoxio:
“Age vera proles Romuli,
effare causam nominis,
utrumne mores hoc tui
nomen dedere, an nomen hoc
secuta morum regula?
an ille venturi sciens
mundi supremus arbiter,
qualem creavit moribus,
iussit vocari nomine?”
Nomen datum praeconiis
vitaeque testimonio,
libelle felix, quem sinu
vir tantus evolvet suo
nec occupari tempora
grato queretur otio,
quem melleae vocis modis
leni aut susurro impertiet,
cui nigellac luminum
vacare dignabunt corae,
quem mente et aure consciis,
quibusdam omissis, perleget:
Quaecumque fortuna est tibi.
perge, o libelle, et utere
felicitate intermina.
dic me valere et vivere,
dic vivere ex voto pio,
sanctis precantem vocibus,
ut, quem curulis proxima
collegio nati dedit,
hunc rursus Augustus prior
suis perennet fascibus,
subnecte et illud leniter:
“Apologos en misit tibi
ab usque Rheni limite
Ausonius, nomen Italum,
praeceptor Augusti tui,
Aesopiam trimetriam,
quam vertit exili stilo
pedestre concinnans opus
fandi Titianus artifex;
ut hinc avi ac patris decus,
mixto resurgens sanguine,
probiano itemque Anicio,
ut quondam in Albae moenibus
supremus Aenea satus
Silvios lulis miscuit,
sic iste, qui natus tui,
Hos flosculorum Romuli,
nutricis inter lemmata
lallique somniferos modos
suescat peritus fabulis
simul et iocari et discere.”
His adde votum, quod pio
concepimus rei deo:
“Ut genitor Augustus dedit
collegio nati Probum,
sic Gratianus hunc novum
stirpi futurae copulet.”
rata sunt futura, quae loquor:
sic merita factorum iubent.
Set iam ut loquatur Iulius,
fandi modum invita accipe,
volucripes dimetria,
haveque dicto dic vale.

[¶12] FULLEST enjoyment of a sweet distinction for thee were this—to have an auspicious gift from Imperial hands: next—though far inferior in degree—that thy quaestor-friend took tireless pains to gain thy New Strenae were New Year's presents given for the sake of good omen, and such were regularly distributed by the Emperors: see Suetonius, Aug. 57, Tib. 34. Year's bounty. Therefore of royal coinage, of Philippes d'or 1 waylaid by me receive as many as two Geryons; as three pair of horses, or as the Muses less one-third their band, or as those stars of the Zodiac that are above the earth; as many as the heroes to whom were committed the destinies of Rome and Alba,2 or as the hours wherein thou dost teach 3 or wherein thou dost rest at home; as many as the jarring gates which open on one half of the circus, excepting that which looks along the axis of the course; A as many as the feet whereon bees and Homer's verses move, or as the hours of the tide's flow and ebb; as many as the dramatic plots put on the stage by him who rests in the midst of Arcadia's bosom,5 or as the angles which the geometric figure of the honey-cell forms by the meeting of its extreme and intervening sides;6 as many as that which is approved the one and only perfect number;7 as that which consists equally of odd and even numbers, which alone unites in itself twice three and thrice two—the only number which, if doubled, contains as many units as the numbers 8 above it and below when added contain, and as the joint total of the Hyades and Pleiades. 9 So many sovereigns take as thy New Year's gift, Ursulus, famed as colleague of Harmonius— Harmonius, whom Claranus,1 whom Scaurus and Asper,2 whom Varro would rank as his equal, or Crates3 in earlier days, or he who gathered the mangled limbs of sacred Homer;4 or who placed symbols to mark out spurious verses:5 Harmonius, glory alike of the Attic and the Latin Muse, who alone dost mingle wine of Chios and Aminaea. 6

> Latin: PRIMUS iucundi foret 1 hic tibi fructus honoris
Augustae faustum munus habere manus:
proximus ex longo gradus est quaestoris amici
curam pro strenis excubuisse tuis.
ergo interceptos regale nomisma Philippos
accipe tot numero, quot duo Geryones;
quot terni biiuges demptoque triente Camenae
quotque super terram sidera zodiaci;
quot commissa viris Romana Albanaque fata
quotque doces horis quotque domi resides;
ostia quot pro parte aperit stridentia circus
excepto, medium quod patet ad stadium;
quot pedibus gradiuntur apes et versus Homeri
quotque horis pelagus profluit aut refluit;
protulit in scaenam quot dramata fabellarum,
Arcadiae medio qui iacet in gremio,
vel quot iuncturas geometrica forma favorum
conserit extremis omnibus et mediis;
quot telios primus numerus solusque probatur;
quot par atque impar partibus aequiperat,
bis ternos et ter binos qui conserit unus,
qui solus totidem congeminatus habet,
quot faciunt iuneti subterque supraque locati;
qui numerant Hyadas Pleiadasque simul.
⟨Tot numero auratos pro strenis accipe nummos 1⟩
Ursule collega nobilis Harmonio,
Harmonio, quem Claranus, quem Scaurus et Asper,
quem sibi conferret Varro priorque Crates
quique sacri lacerum collegit corpus Homeri
quique notas spuriis versibus adposuit:
Cecropiae commune decus Latiaeque camenae,
solus qui Chium miscet et Ammineum.

[¶13] AUSONIUS, whose rod now overawes a sceptre, sends greeting to rustic Theon at Médoc. What dost thou, dwelling on earth's farthest verge, poetic tiller of the sands, who must plough the shore next Ocean's border and the setting sun, whom a poor hovel, thatched with reeds, confines, and a peasant's hut smothers with sooty smoke that brings tears to the eyes? What can the Muses be doing, and songster Apollo—Muses not sprung from Helicon nor from the Horse's Spring,7 but those which, springing from Clementinus' eloquent breast, inspire empty-headed bards with borrowed thoughts? And rightly so: for who would rather have verses called his when he can safely rend thee with his laughter?8 These verses also, lest they may force my blushes, do thou recite: and truly they will easily seem thy very words. Yet what life dost thou pursue on the coasts of Médoc? Art busy trafficking, snapping up for a dipped coinage goods presently to be sold in dear salerooms at outrageous prices—as balls of sickly tallow, greasy lumps of wax, Narycian 1 pitch, torn paper, and rank-smoking torches, your country lights? Or art thou busy about greater matters, chasing the thieves who roam through all thy neighbourhood, until they fear the worst and invite thee to share their spoils? Dost thou through tenderness and hatred of bloodshed compound felonies for cash, call them mistakes, levy fines for cattle rieved, and leave the part of judge to share the crime? Or with thy brother amid impenetrable thickets dost thou surround the wandering harts with mesh and feathers 2 in wide circle? Or dost thou urge on with shouts the foaming boar's career and lay wait for the monster? Yet I warn thee ever to avoid wielding thy spear at close quarters with a bolt-like foe. Take warning from thy brother, who pulls back his clothes displaying ugly scars near his privy parts, and bares his breech to show how awkwardly 'twas pierced. Then to display his wounds he Hits away to be admired by Gedippa, and his friend Ur-sinus, and Jovinus' young hopeful, and Taurinus who ranks him with ancient heroes such as was the Calydonian conqueror 3 of the boar in Olenus, or the Attic stripling 4 victorious o'er the Erymanthian5 monster. But do thou give up the chase and shun the well-known tragedies of the woods, lest thou be as the son of Cinyras and become a second Adonis for Venus to mourn. Like him, assuredly, fair-haired and snowy-white of arms, thou dost let stream ruddy locks over a gleaming neck; like him soft of breast, like him slender as a reed with shapely body, dost thou pass lower into smoothly curving hips and shining ankles, beauteous from top to toe 1—even such as of old the ravisher in flowery Aetna, who from amid maiden throngs carried off Deo's daughter —Orcus, arisen from his Stygian furnaces! Or, because thou avoidest the chase by reason of such great dangers, does zeal for fishing draw thee? For all the gear at Dunmitonus is wont to display such treasures as the knotty wraps of Nereus' creatures, casting-nets, drag-nets, lines with rustic names, wears, and stitched hooks for earthworms.2 On this outfit dost thou proudly rely? The whole house is rich to overflowing with the spoils of the seashore. From the waves are brought home sturgeon,3 the deadly sting-ray, soft tender plaice, bitter tunnies,4 spindle-fish 5 ill-guarded by their spines, and grayling which will not keep above twice three hours. Or dost thou delight to outrage with thy versos the songful daughters of Mnemosyne, be they sisters three or eight?0 And since we are come to this, it thou wouldst learn what is midway between learned verse and verse ridiculous, take this trumped-up rubbish, this trifling mystery, though with the sheet unrolled thou wilt not be able to comprehend it unless thou dost purge thy wits ten times over with vinegar seasoned with squills,1 or at Anticyra drink in the sagacity of the Samian nabob.2 Or let thy interpreter come to thy aid, he who read my riddles and revealed to thee the secret of “Cadmus' little darky-girls, Melo's white page, the marks of the swart cuttlefish, and the knots of C nidos.” 3 Let him now come to thy help, and certainly once appointed literary dictator, he will worry out forthwith what I write playfully. I am making up verses, Master Poet, well known to thee, and which thou knowest are called hendecasyllables, though thou knowest not that they move to three measures. Those were composed by Phalaecus 4 of old, in which a penthemimeris is followed by a half-foot after two iambi. Others are so formed from a mutilated hexameter that the penthemimeris is placed first, and then, what left after the bucolic caesura. There are also those which the girl Sappho brought forth, where first reigns a second hippius, leaving an antibacchius to cap a choriambus. But thou wilt no longer be able to learn, Theon, and 'tis not lawful for me, a royal schoolmaster, to teach prosody to common clay. But forthwith produce what I demand. I ask for naught but what thy notebooks hold and unsoiled sheets contain. If thou, Sir Poet, wilt pay me this trifle, all Vacuna 1 do I cede to thee outright, and no more hereafter shalt thou dread the universal cry: “This is that feigned poet, Theon, the bad Laverna2 of good poetry.”

> Latin: AUSONIUS, cuius ferulam nunc sceptra verentur,
paganum Medulis iubeo salvere Theonem.
Quid geris extremis positus telluris in oris,
cultor harenarum vates, cui litus arandum
oceani finem iuxta solemque cadentem,
vilis harundineis cohibet quem pergula tectis
et tinguit piceo lacrimosa colonica fumo?
quid rerum Musaeque gerunt et cantor Apollo — Musae
non Helicone satae nec fonte caballi,
set quae facundo de pectore Clementini
inspirant vacuos aliena mente poetas?
iure quidem: nam quis malit sua carmina dici,
qui te securo possit proscindcre risu?
haec quoque ne nostrum possint urgere pudorem,
tu recita, et vere poterunt tua dicta videri.
Quam tamen exerces Medulorum in litore vitam?
mereatusne agitas leviore nomismate captans,
insanis quod mox pretiis gravis auctio vendat — albentis
sevi globulos et pinguia cerae
pondera Naryciamque picem scissamque papyrum
fumantesque olidum, paganica lumina, taedas?
An maiora gerens tota regione vagantes
persequeris fures, qui te postrema timentes
in partem praedamque vocent? tu mitis et osor
sanguinis humani condonas crimina nummis
erroremque vocas pretiumque inponis abactis
bubus et in partem scelerum de iudice transis?
An cum fratre vagos dumeta per avia cervos
circumdas maculis et multa indagine pinnae?
aut spumantis apri cursum clamoribus urges
subsidisque fero? moneo tamen, usque recuses
stringere fulminco venabula comminus hosti,
exemplum de fratre time, qui veste reducta
ostentat foedas prope turpia membra lacunas
perfossasque uates vicino podice nudat.
inde ostentator volitat, mirentur ut ipsum
Gedippa Ursinusque suus prolesque lovini
taurinusque ipsum priscis heroibus aequalis,
qualis in Olcnio victor Calydonius apro
aut Erymantheo1 pubes fuit Attica monstro.
Set tu parce feris venatibus et fuge nota
crimina silvarum, ne sis Cinyreia proles
accedasque iterum Veneri plorandus Adonis,
sic certe crinem flavus niveusque lacertos
caesariem rutilam per candida colla refundis,
pectore sic tenero, plana sic iunceus alvo,
per teretes feminum gyros surasque nitentes
descendis, talos a vertice pulcher ad imos — qualis
floricoma quondam populator in Aetna
virgineas inter choreas Deoida raptam
sustulit emersus Stygiis fornacibus Orcus.
An, quia venatus ob tanta pericula vitas,
piscandi trahens studio? nam tota supellex
Dumnitoni tales solita est ostendere gazas,
nodosas vestes animantum Nerinorum
et iacula et fundas et, nomina vilica. Lina
colaque et insutos terrenis vermibus hamos.
his opibus confise tumes? domus omnis abunda
litoreis dives spoliis, referuntur ab unda
corroco, letalis trygon mollesque platessae,
urentes thynni et male teeti spina elacati 1
nec duraturi post bina trihoria corvi.
An te carminibus iuvat incestare canoras
Mnemosyncs natas, aut tris aut octo sorores?
et quoniam huc ventum, si vis agnoscere, quid sit
inter doctrinam deridendasque camenas,
accipe congestas, mysteria frivola, nugas,
quas tamen explicitis nequeas deprendere chartis,
scillite decies nisi cor purgeris aceto
Anticyraeve bibas 1 Samii Lucumonis acumen.
aut adsit interpres tuus,
aenigmatum qui cognitor
fuit meorum, cum tibi
Cadmi nigellas filias,
Melonis albam paginam
notasque furvae sepiae
Gnidiosque nodos prodidit.
nunc adsit et certe, modo
praesul creatus litteris,
enucleabit protinus
quod lusitantes scribimus.
Notos fingo tibi, poeta, versus,
quos scis hendecasyllabos vocari,
set nescis modulis tribus moveri,
istos conposuit Phalaecus olim.
qui penthemimeren habent priorem
et post semipedem duos iambos.
sunt quos hexametri creant revulsi,
ut penthemimeres prior locetur,
tum quod bucolice tome relinquit.
sunt et quos generat puella Sappho:
quos primus regit hippius secundus,
ut eludat choriambon antibacchus.
set iam non poteris, Theon, doceri,
nec fas est mihi regio magistro
plebeiam numeros docere pulpam.
Verum protinus ede, quod requiro,
nil quaero, nisi quod libris tenetur
et quod non opicae tegunt papyri,
quas si solvens, o poeta, nugas,
totam trado tibi simul Vacunam,
nec iam post metues ubique dictum:
“Hic est ille Theon poeta falsus,
bonorum mala carminum Laverna.”

## 2. Letters 15–27

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/ausonius-letters/2/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/ausonius-letters/2/#p-N

[¶0] I HAVE been looking for a reply from you to the letter I wrote some time ago dealing playfully with your positively unnatural neglect of me and my own urgent demands; and since you have disdained to do me the courtesy of sending a favour in return, having found an old letter, half worm-eaten, which I once composed in a style of deliberate obscurity on oysters and mussels, now that I am older I have revised that careless effusion of my youth. But though recast, this composition still retains the same satirical and burlesque character, that now at least you may send an answer to my ditty in its newest guise, though by your silence you condemned it when new born. Oysters rivalling those of Baiae, which the surge of the ebbing sea fattens in the lush marshes of Médoc, I have received, dear Theon—a gift not beyond reckoning. But what was their number, the following single lines declare. As many were they as the forefinger thrice crossed with the thumb1 reckons up; as many as there were Geryons, if ten times multiplied; thrice as many as the decades told over in the Phrygian (Trojan) War, or as the journeys made by the flame-tressed Sun in a full month; as the nights which wandering Cynthia enjoys after she first shows her horns; as the days wherein Titan traverses each several Sign;2 as the years in which Phaenon (Saturn) accomplishes his circuit aloft; as the tale of years in which a Vestal maid does service,3 and as those o'er which the scion of Dardanus 4 prolonged his reign; as many as Priam's sons if twice ten are deducted, or, if you count them twice, as they who keep the Amphrysian Oracles, h as the young littered beneath the oaks by the Alban sow,6 and as the unit when there are ninety thirds—or as many hacks as are harnessed to a car at Bazas. But if the figure shadowed forth in story, and the number wrapped up in this learned rigmarole baffles a mind smothered deep in fat—that yon may know how to count in the common way at least, I will unfold the sum reduced to its factors. Thrice ten, methinks, or five times six, or two times five plus ten and ten, or four times six with twice three added; to seven times four add one and one, or to thrice four add nine twice over; take ten times two and one time ten, four times eight with two subtracted, two thirteen times plus a single four. Add also six to nine and eight to seven, or with twin sevens twice join eight, or—not to bother you with more—thirty in number were they all. The mussel not without mud-haunting oysters, makes up a course for early luncheon—a food delightful to the taste of lords and cheap enough for poor folks' kitchens. 'Tis not sought on the ship-wrecking deep so that the price grows great to match the danger, but is picked up in the nearest shallows after the sea's ebb, matching in colour the weed-strewn shore. For it is hidden in the cavern of a double shell which, warmed by the steam of boiling water, reveals the milk-white substance within. But too careless of cost this broad sheet is spreading out. See that thou abridge, my Muse, thy acreage of paper, and no longer let the furrow of the Cnidian reed proceed along the paths of the cloven-footed pen painting the surface of my poor parched page with Cadmus' dark-hued little daughters. Or from all the lines alike let a milk-white sponge blot out the dusky sepia. Let us spare the shortcomings of the folk at Dumnitonus, lest paper cost me more than the value of the oysters.

> Latin: expectaveram, ut rescriberes ad ea, quae dudum ioculariter luseram de cessatione tua valde impia et mea efflagitatione, cuius rei munus reciprocum quoniam in me colendo fastidisti, inventa inter tineas epistula vetere, quam de ostreis et musculis adfectata obscuritate condideram, quae adulescens temere fuderam, iam senior retractavi. set in eundem modum instaurata est satirica et ridicula conciunatio, saltem ut nunc respondeas novissimae cantilenae, qui illam noviciam silentio condemnasti.
Ostrea Baianis certantia, quae Medulorum
dulcibus in stagnis reflui maris aestus opimat.
accepi, dilecte Theon, numerabile munus,
verum quot fuerint, subiecta monosticha signant:
Quot ter luctatus cum pollice computat index;
Geryones quot erant, decies si multiplicentur;
ter quot erant Phrygii numerata decennia belli,
aut iter ut solidi mensis tenet ignicomus Sol;
cornibus a primis quot habet vaga Cynthia noctes;
singula percurrit Titan quot signa diebus
quotque annis sublimis agit sua saecula Phaenon;
quot numero annorum Vestalis virgo ministrat
Dardaniusque nepos regno quot protulit annos;
Priamidae quot erant, si bis deni retrahantur,
bisque viros numeres, qui fata Amphrysia servant;
quot genuit fetus Albana sub ilicibus sus
et quot sunt asses, ubi nonaginta trientes,
vel quot habet iunctos Vasatica raeda caballos.
Quod si figuras fabulis adumbratas
numerumque doctis involutum ambagibus
ignorat alto mens obesa viscere,
numerare saltim more vulgi ut noveris,
in se retortas explicabo summulas.
Ter denas puto quinquiesve senas,
vel bis quinque, dehinc decem decemque,
vel senas quater et bis adde ternas;
septenis quater adde et unum et unum,
aut ter quattuor adde bis novenis;
duc binas decies semelque denas;
octonas quater, hinc duae recedant;
binas ter decies, semel quaternas,
et sex adde novem vel octo septem,
aut septem geminis bis octo iunge,
aut — ne sim tibi pluribus molestus,
triginta numero fuere cunctae.
Iunctus limicolis musculus ostreis
primo conposuit fereula prandio,
gratus deliciis nobilium cibus
et sumptu modicus pauperibus focis,
non hic navifrago quaeritur aequore,
ut crescat pretium grande periculis;
set primore vado post refugum mare
algoso legitur litore concolor,
nam testae duplicis conditur in specu,
quae ferventis aquae lota vaporibus
carnem lacteoli visceris indicat.
Set damnosa nimis panditur area.
fac campum replices, Musa, papyrium
nec iam fissipedis per calami vias
grassetur Gnidiae sulcus harundinis,
pingens aridulae subdita paginae
Cadmi filiolis atricoloribus.
aut cunctis pariter versibus oblinat
furvam lacticolor sphongia sepiam.
Pareamus vitio Dumnitonae domus,
ne sit charta mihi carior ostreis.

[¶1] I, AUSONIUS, send greeting to my dear Theon, here setting out in verse my wishes and complaints. Thrice hath Luna renewed her cloven-footed heifers,1 since thou, sweet friend, dost avoid my house. Ninety days without thee have I dragged out, my dearest comrade; add further, summer days: this makes them nearly twice as long for me. Wouldst have me say that nine times ten days or ten times nine are gone? A fourth part of the year is passed away. Sixty hours and two thousand and a hundred beside without thee have I spent—without whom even an hour hangs heavy. Miles twice nine hundred the laws' appointment bids men accused traverse to full reckoning in so many days.2 By this time could I have gone afoot to Rome, and afoot returned, since the time when a few miles have parted thee from me. Has a thatched cot at Dumnitonus such charms for a bard? My villa Pauliacos 3 would not weigh so with me. Or because by bond drawn up hard and fast money is owed to me, dost thou keep from me lest I claim it back? Those twice seven gleaming Philippes d' or of royal mintage,4 Theon, I had rather lose—they would not be worth so much—than that thou, who art so closely twined about my heart, shouldst desert me over this long stretch of time. So either send back now forthwith the aforesaid louis and buy back thy freedom slothfully to linger, or 1 will freely give as many more besides, provided I behold the face of one so dear, however poor he be.5 Haste hither, sped by boat, and spread the bellying canvas of thy sail: the breath of the south wind from Médoc will waft thee reclining beneath an awning and stretched upon a couch, that the bulk of so great a body be not shaken. One tide will bear thee from the shore of Dumnitonus right to the harbour of Condate,1 if only thou makest good haste, and in place of sail, whene'er thy favouring breezes die away, biddest the bark speed straight on propelled with oars. Thou shalt find ready a four-wheeled car with team of mules: soon wilt thou gain the Lucani- villa -acus. 2. Thou shalt learn to make verse with such split nouns: thus shalt thou be a copier of the bard Lucilius.

> Latin: AUSONIUS salve caro mihi dico Theoni,
versibus expediens, quod volo quodve queror.
Tertia fissipedes renovavit Luna iuvencas,
ut fugitas nostram, dulcis amice, domum,
nonaginta dies sine te, carissime, traxi;
huc adde aestivos: hoc mihi paene duplum est.
vis novies denos dicam deciesque novenos
isse dies? anni portio quarta abiit,
sexaginta horas super et duo milia centum
te sine consumpsi, quo sine et hora gravis.
milia bis nongenta iubet demensio legum
adnumerata reos per tot obire dies.
iam potui Romam pedes ire pedesque reverti,
ex quo te dirimunt milia pauca mihi.
scirpea Dumnitoni tanti est habitatio vati?
Pauliacos tanti non mihi villa foret,
an quia per tabulam dicto pangente notatam
debita summa mihi est, ne repetamus, abes?
bis septem rutilos regale nomisma Philippos,
nec tanti fuerint, perdere malo, Theon,
implicitum quam te nostris interne medullis
defore tam longi temporis in spatio,
ergo aut praedictos iam nunc rescribe Darios
et redime, ut mora sit libera desidiae,
aut alios a me totidem dabo, dum modo cari
conspicer ora viri. pauperis usque licet.
Puppe citus propera sinuosaque lintea veli
pande: Medullini te feret aura 1 noti
expositum subter paradas lectoque iacentem,
corporis ut tanti non moveatur onus.
unus Dumnitoni te litore perferet aestus
Condatem ad portum, si modo deproperes
inque vicem veli, quotiens tua flamina cessant,
remipedem iubeas protinus ire ratem,
invenies praesto subiuncta petorrita mulis:
villa Lucani- mox potieris -aco.
rescisso disces conponere nomine versum:
Lucili vatis sic imitator eris.

[¶2] I, AUSONIUS the Consul, return greeting to Theon the Bard. Apples of gold thou sendest, Theon, but verse of lead: who would think these species were of the same substance? Both have one name, but both have differences: to call your apples quinces, alter your quinsied verse.3 Farewell, Theon, whose name is from the blessed gods, but often as a participle it means one running.4

> Latin: AUSONIUS consul vatem resaluto Theonem.
Aurea mala, Theon, set plumbea carmina mittis;
unius massae quis putet has species?
unum nomen utrisque, set est discrimen utrisque:
poma ut mala voces, carmina verte mala.
Vale beatis nomen a divis Theon,
metoche set ista saepe currentem indicat.

[¶3] EVEN as the thrush who, ravaging the olives or Picenum,5 fattens his waxen haunches,6 or who has torn the gleaming clusters from the vines and now hangs entangled in the nets which in the evening hour float loose like clouds, or in the morn are taut with dew—such are the birds I send thee from our wintry hedges, themselves glad to be caught, twice ten in all; for so many in the twilight of early dawn flew headlong into the net. Thereto I add full-grown ducks which a raid on the neighbouring meres supplies, web-footed birds whose broad beaks ravage the blue waters, with legs of crimson-red and plumage rich as the rainbow dight with various colours, with necks that rival doves. I have not cheated my own table to send these dainties: that thou shouldst eat them causes me more enjoyment. Fare thee well, that so I may fare well.

> Latin: QUALIS Picenae populator turdus olivae
clunes opimat cereas
vel qui lucentcs rapuit de vitibus uvas,
pendetque nexus retibus,
quae vespertinis fluitant nebulosa sub horis
vel mane tenta roscido:
tales hibernis ad te de saepibus, ipsos
capi volentes, misimus
bis denos; tot enim crepero sub lucis eoae
praeceps volatus intulit.
tum, quas vicinae suggessit praeda lacunae,
anites maritas iunximus,
remipedes, lato populantes caerula rostro
et crure rubras Punico,
iricolor vario pinxit quas pluma colore,
collum columbis aemulas,
Defrudata meae non sunt haec fercula mensae:
vescente te fruimur magis.
Vale bene, ut valeam.

[¶4] I HAD believed that nought could be added to the sum of my affection whereby, mine honoured father, my love might be increased. Added (thanks to the gods above and to thy grandson, their instrument, who has laid upon our names a two-fold yoke), added is a title whereby my reverence for thee is increased, whereby I may teach my son what 'tis to love, a father. This grandson himself hath made thee a grandfather: to me he too is son, and to thee am I: his birth makes us both fathers. No longer doth natural affection alone inspire me with love for thee: as doubly a father I love thee now. For I seem made thy peer, because a little boy ennobles me too with the distinction of that name; not because our age is the same, since I somewhat approach thee in age and can pass as thy brother, nor does so great a span divide our years as the seasons which part others. I have seen brothers whose birthdays were separated by as many years as ours: names add no weight to years. Fair youth so blends with old age in thee, that thy earlier time of life lingers, while tin' present but begins. And, me-thinks, these two ages have agreed each to present itself without hurrying on their seasons, this gently gliding onwards, that approaching without haste, bringing ripe fruit while yet the flower remains. I vow, my dearest father, that I know not thy years, and account thine as many as I deem my own. Let no son know these, let the too hasty heir reckon them up, his heart set more on inheritance than loving wishes, teaching his sons to grow op after such bad pattern as to hope they too have no long-lived father. But I, born when my sire was in his earliest youth, will avow that I delight that our times of life are so nearly matched. What I owe as a son, my dear love for thy grandson moves me, his father, to increase, the more to honour thee as a grandsire. Thou too, my sire, rejoice in thy doubled title now that thy son in early youth hath made thee grandfather. A small thing 'tis to be a grandfather: may the kind powers be propitious, and by his own grandson may the grandfather be made great-grandfather. Even further the Fates will have power to prolong thine age: but those prayers, methinks, are rather answered which are moderate.

> Latin: CREDIDERAM nil posse meis adfectibus addi,
quo, venerande pater, diligerere magis,
accessit (grates superis medioque nepoti,
bina dedit nostris qui iuga nominibus)
accessit titulus, tua quo reverentia crescat,
quo doceam natum, quid sit amare patrem.
ipse nepos te fecit avum: mihi filius idem
et tibi ego: hoc nato nos sumus ambo patres,
nec iam sola mihi pietas mea suadet amorem:
nomine te gemini iam genitoris amo.
quippe tibi aequatus videor, quia parvulus isto
nomine honoratum me quoque nobilitat:
non aetas quia nostra eadem: nam subparis aevi
sum tibi ego et possum fratris habere vicem,
nec tantum nostris spatium interponitur annis,
quanta solent alios tempora dividere,
vidi ego natales fratrum distare tot annis,
quot nostros: aevum nomina non onerant,
pulchra iuventa tibi senium sic iungit, ut aevum
quod prius est maneat, quod modo ut incipiat.
et placuisse reor geminis aetatibus, ut se
non festinato tempore utraque daret,
leniter haec flueret, haec non properata veniret,
maturam frugem flore manente ferens,
annos me nescire tuos, pater optime, testor
totque putare tuos, quot reor esse meos.
nesciat hos natus, numeret properantior heres,
testamenta magis quam pia vota fovens
exemploque docens pravo iuvenescere natos,
ut nolint patres se quoque habere senes.
verum ego primaevo genitus genitore fatebor
subparis haec aevi tempora grata mihi.
debeo quod natus, suadet pia cura nepotis
addendum patri, quo veneremur avum.
tu quoque, mi genitor, geminata vocabula gaude,
nati primaevi nomine factus avus.
exiguum, quod avus: faveant pia numina divum
deque nepote suo fiat avus proavus,
largius et poterunt producere fata senectam:
set rata vota reor, quae moderata, magis.

[¶5] ***** This narrative also I owe to my cares for thee, my dearest son; although this troubled plaint for my gloomy fortunes scarce deserves so mild a term. Already o'er the sluggish surface of chill Moselle the bark had borne thee forward, O my son, and from the kisses and embraces of thy weeping sire the envious stream had parted thee. Alone! though compassed with a throng of friends, I was alone and offered yearning prayers for that fleeting craft; alone, though still I saw you, my child, and grudged the hasty speed of the swift oarage plying against the stream. What day was that? No longer is that year which Attic Meton 4 worked out with such patient skill. Forlorn I pace the empty, lonely shores. Now I strike down the sprouting willow-shoots, now I crush beds of turf and o'er green sedge I poise my slippery footsteps on the pebbles strewn beneath. So the first day passed away, so the second reached its bourne, so the two nights which wheeled revolving after each, so others: and the whole year for me will so pass by until thy destiny gives back me, thy sire, to thee. With this condition I may bargain even for death, that thou, my son, payest thy father the last tributes, surviving him. Ausonius the Grandfather to Ausonius his Grandson WHILE thy persistent master with coaxing pains was committing to thee, still of boyish years, thy earliest poems,1 and was training thy prentice ear and the faculties it guides, so that thy tongue, corrected of the unskilled palate's faults, might produce the words to be repeated with an obedient murmur,2 I, an old man, added naught severe lest anxious admonition might gall, or mar the sweet first-taste with bitterness. But now, when thou dost feel the stir and pulse of youth, and canst distinguish between the manly and the feeble and show thyself thine own councillor in behaviour as in speech, accept, not indeed precepts, but prayers of thy grandfather who entreats while rejoicing at the high festival of his grandson's birthday....... (I thank Heaven which) has consented that, recovered, I may spend my old age brought back from the Fates' borderland,3 and behold this happy day and the stars I scarce hoped to see, I who was well-nigh mourned as one dead. This, my sweet grandson, is a gift doubly profitable, in that thy birthday now occurs, and the prize of my own safety is by this the richer that the glory of thy ripening age now waxes, and that I, now old, behold my grandson attain to youth. Now comes round for thee the sixth period of three years since thou wert born, bringing back the Ides of September. The Ides is an auspicious day, observed too by the genii of gods. In Sextilis Hecate, Leto's daughter, claims the Ides; in May, Mercury, who was raised to the ranks of the gods. October's Ides are hallowed by the birth of Maro long ago. Oft mayest thou observe each Ides of all the twice six months, whoso shalt celebrate the Ides of my Ausonius.1 Farewell my sweetest grandson. Ausonius to his Son Hesperius BEING about to come myself, I send on ahead a booklet which I have amused myself by writing in the form of an exhortation to my little grandson, your sister's son. For this I prefer to reciting it myself, in order that you may feel less restraint in your criticism a faculty which is usually hampered by two circumstances: first that what is heard passes over our ears more quickly than what is read; and second the presence of the reciter handicaps the frankness of the critic. As it is, you have nothing to fear on either score, because both as you read you are free to linger, and as you come to criticize your feelings for me do not stand in your way. But look you, my dearest son, I have a caution to add.

> Latin: …
debeo et hanc nostris, fili dulcissime, curis
historiam: quamquam titulo non digna sereno
anxia maestarum fuerit querimonia rerum.
Iam super egelidae stagnantia terga Mosellae
protulerat te, nate, ratis maestique parentis
oscula et amplexus discreverat invidus amnis,
solus ego et quamvis coetu celebratus amico
solus eram profugaeque dabam pia vota carinae
solus adhuc te, nate, videns; celerisque remulci
culpabam properos adverso flumine cursus.
quis fuit ille dies? non annus longior ille est,
Attica quem docti collegit cura Metonis.
desertus vacuis solisque exerceor oris.
nunc ego pubentes salicum deverbero frondes,
gramineos nunc frango toros viridesque per ulvas
lubrica substratis vestigia libro lapidis,
sic lux prima abiit, sic altera meta diei,
sic geminas alterna rotat vertigo tenebras,
sic alias: totusque mihi sic annus abibit,
restituant donec tua me tibi fata parentem.
hac ego condicione licet vel morte paciscar,
dum decores suprema patris tu, nate, superstes.
Condiderat iam Solis equos Tartesia Calpe
stridebatque freto Titan iam segnis Hibero:
iam succedentes quatiebat Luna inveneas,
vinceret ut tenebras radiis velut aemula fratris;
iam volucres hominumque genus superabile curis
mulcebant placidi tranquilla oblivia somni;
transierant Idus, medius suprema December
tempora venturo properabat iungere Iano;
et nonas decimas ab se Nox longa Kalendas
iugiter acciri celebranda ad festa iubebat.

[¶6] If any passages in these verses shall appear to you (and I fear that there are many such) to be composed with more brilliance than truth, and have more colour than vigour, know that I deliberately allow them to run on smoothly, so that these little bits maybe attractive rather than forceful, like those marriageable daughters— “whom their mothers seek to make Low-shouldered and tight-laced, to seem more trim” 1 —you know the rest. It only remains, then, for you to say: “Why do you wait for my criticism on what you yourself proclaim to be a faulty piece of work?” My answer, of course, will be that I blush for verses of this sort in public, but am less ashamed of them when between you and me; for 1 write them to suit his years rather than my own—or perhaps to suit mine also: old men are twice children! In short, goodbye to your strictures: I have to do with a child. Farewell, my darling son. To Ausonius my Grandson The Muses also have their own sports: hours of ease find place among the Camenae, my honey-sweet grandson; nor does the sour schoolmaster's domineering voice always harass boys, but spells of rest and study keep each their appointed times. As for an attentive boy to have read his lessons willingly is enough, so to rest is lawful. “School” has been called by that Greek name, that the laborious Muses may be allowed due share of leisure. Wherefore the more, assured that play follows work in turn, learn willingly: to beguile the weariness of long toil we grant spells of leisure. Boyish zeal flags unless serious work is interspersed with merriment, and workaday with holiday. Learn readily, and loathe not, my grandson, the control of your grim teacher. A master's looks need never cause a shudder. Though he be grim with age and, ungentle of voice, threaten harsh outbursts with frowning brows, never will he seem savage to one who has tutored his face to habitual calm. A child will love its nurse's wrinkles, who shrinks from its mother; grandchildren when they come at last, a new anxiety, prefer doddering grandsires and granddams to their parents. So Thessalian Chiron did not affright Achilles, Peleus' son, though he was quite half a horse, nor pine-bearing Atlas scare Amphitryo's youthful son, but both coaxingly used to soothe their young pupils with gentle words.

> Latin: Nescis, puto, quid velim tot versibus dicere, medius fidius neque ego bene intellego: tamen suspieor. iam prima nox erat ante diem nonum decimum kal. Iam, eum redditae sunt mihi litterae tuae oppido quam litteratae. his longe iucundissimum poema subdideras, quod de tribus Suetonii libris, quos ille de regibus dedit, in epitomen coegisti tanta elegantia, solus ut mihi videare adsecutus, quod contra rerum naturam est, brevitas ut obscura non esset, in his versibus ego ista collegi:
Europamque Asiamque duo vel maxima terrae
membra, quibus Libyam dubie Sallustius addit
Europae adiunctam, possit cum tertia dici,
regnatas multis, quos fama oblitterat et quos
barbara Romanae non tradunt nomina linguae —
Illibanum Numidamque Avelim Parthumque Vononem
et Cara num, Pellaea dedit qui nomina regum,
quique magos docuit mysteria vana Nechepsos
et qui regnavit sine nomine moxque Sesostris …

[¶7] You also be not afraid, though the school resound with many a stroke and the old master wear a lowering face: “fear proves a spirit degenerate.”1 But to yourself be true, mocking at fear, and let no outcry, nor sound of stripes, nor dread, make you quake as the morning hours come on. That he brandishes the cane for sceptre, that he has a full outfit of birches, that he has a tawse artfully hidden in innocent washleather, that scared confusion sets your benches abuzz, is but the outward show of the place and painted scenery to cause idle fears. Your father and mother went through all this in their day, and have lived to soothe my peaceful and serene old age. To that old age, for whatever space the Fates shall grant in the still coming years, do you, who bear your grandfather's name, my first-born grandson, with your first-born powers, afford the joy that springs from achievement or from promise. Now I see you a boy, soon shall 1 see you in years of youth, and by and by a man, if Chance so bid; or if this be grudged, yet will 1 hope—nor shall my prayers grow weary—that, not unmindful of your father and myself, you may ever strive to win through eloquence the hard-won prizes of the Muses, and some day tread this path wherein I have gone before and your father, the proconsul, and your uncle the prefect 1 now press on. Read thoroughly whatever is worth remembering: I will give you some first hints. You must open the pages of the Iliad's creator, study the works of lovable Menander: with modulation and with stress of voice bring out “measureless measures” with a scholar's accent, and infuse expression as you read. Punctuation enforces the meaning, and pauses give strength even to dull passages.3 Ah, when shall these gifts reward mine old age?

> Latin: Haec tu quam perite et concinne, quam modulate et dulciter, ita iuxta naturam Romanorum accentuum enuntiasti, ut tamen veris et primigenis vocibus sua fastigia non perirent, iam quid de eloquentia dicam? liquido adinrare possum nullum tibi ad poeti eam facundiam Romanae iuventutis aequari: certe ita mihi videri, si erro, pater sum, fer me et noli exigere iudicium obstante pietate, verum ego cum pie diligam, sineere et severe iudieo. adfice me, oro, tali munere frequenter, quo et oblector et honoror. accessit tibi ad artem poetieam mellea adulatio, quid enim aliud agunt:
Audax Icario qui fecit nomina ponto
et qui Chalcidicas moderate enavit ad arces,

[¶8] When shall those many poems by me forgot, those many links in the chain of history through the ages, those comedies, royal tragedies, and strains melic and lyric 4 by thine5 utterance be recalled? When wilt thou make an old man's clouded faculties grow youthful? With thee for guide, my grandson, once more may I dare to learn Flaccus' rhythmic strains and Maro's sonorous lines. Do thou, too, Terence, who with thy choice speech 6 adornest Latium, and with well-fitting sock7 trippest o'er our stage, compel my scarce-remembering age to new delight in thy dialogues. Now, Catiline, thy monstrous plot, now Lepidus' sedition, now from the year of Lepidus and Catulus 1 the fortunes and vicissitudes of Rome do I commence and trace their sequence through twice six years. Now read 1 of that war, not free from civil strife,2 which banished Sertorius stirred up with the aid of his Iberian allies. And not without skill do I, thy grandfather, counsel thee thus, but from the experience gained in training a thousand minds. Many from their infant years have I myself brought up, and, cherishing them in my bosom and hushing their complaints, have stolen their tender years from their fond nurses. Presently, as boys, with mild warnings and gentle threats I lured them to seek through sourness for ripe success and pluck sweet fruit sprung from a bitter root. I, too, when they assumed manhood's garb and reached their vigorous prime, led them on towards good living and sound learning and forceful speaking, even though they refused to bear the yoke of command upon their necks and submitted not their months to the jagged bits thrust upon them. Hard the control, rough the experience, scanty the result when viewed after long practice, to govern headstrong youth with mild correction! These toils did I endure until- when now my pains were becoming pleasant and kindly Custom was lightening my toil through use—until, invoked to the sacred task of an Emperor's instruction, I am exalted and compassed about with honours manifold, what time the golden Palace was bidden to obey me. Let Nemesis hold aloof, and may Fortune bear with my light speaking: I held sway o'er the Empire, while a schoolboy1 endowed with purple, sceptre, throne, submitted himself to a tutor's laws, and Augustus held my dignity above his own. That dignity in due time, when grown to manhood, he advanced to dizzy heights, so that I was created Quaestor by the Augusti, father and son; so that a two-fold prefecture2 and curule chair were mine; so that, for my reward, as consul was I invested with the purple robe and the embroidered toga, and was held pre-eminent in the annals of my year.3 Thus have 1 gained all possible advantage for my grandchild, thy consul-grandfather, and shine forth the beacon of thy life. Even though, long since distinguished even through thy father's fame, thou mightst seem graced, mightst seem laden;4 yet from me thou hast gained signal renown besides. This render thou no load, but by thine own efforts struggle to climb on high and hope for thine own insignia, thine own consulate. WHEN THE LATTER HAD SENT HIM A POEM ON THE KINGS, OF CHEAT LENGTH AND BASED ON TRANQUILLUS NOW had Tartesian Calpe hidden the Sun's coursers and Titan, now feeble, plunged hissing 6 'neath the Iberian wave; now was Luna lashing on her advancing heifers to vanquish darkness with her beams as though vying with her brother; now birds and human kind, so vulnerable by care, were wooing peaceful sleep and calm forgetfulness; the Ides were passed, and mid-December was hastening to link his last days with approaching Janus; and long Night was bidding the nineteenth day of the Calends 1 be summoned forthwith to celebrate the feast. You do not know, I expect, what I wish to say in all these verses. So help me Heaven! even I do not clearly understand: yet I have a glimmering. It was early in the night preceding the nineteenth day of the Calends of January2 when your wonderfully lettered letter was delivered me. Together with this you sent an extremely delightful poem wherein you have condensed the three books of Suetonius, which he devotes to the Kings,3 so gracefully that I regard you as having alone achieved what is contrary to the ordinary course of things— conciseness without obscurity. Amongst these verses I have picked out the following:— “Europe and Asia, Earth's two greatest members, whereto uncertainly Sallust adds Libya as appanage of Europe, whereas it might be called a third part of the globe, have been ruled by many kings whom Fame blots from her page, and whom their uncouth names perpetuate not in Roman speech —Illibanus, Numidian Avelis, Vonones the Parthian, Caranus who founded the dynasty of Pella,4 and he who taught the wizards unavailing mysteries. Nechepsos, or reigned and left no name, and afterwards Sesostris...” How skilfully and neatly, how harmoniously and sweetly have you delivered these names, conforming at once to the character of our Roman accent, yet not allowing the true and original sounds to lose their proper stress! And then what shall I say of your gift for expression? I can absolutely take my oath that for fluency in verse none of our Roman youths is your equal: at any rate, that is my opinion. If 1 am wrong, I am your father, bear with me and do not force from me a verdict which my natural feelings reject. Put in fact, while 1 love fondly, I criticise frankly and strictly. Bestow on me, I beg, such favours constantly, thereby both delighting and complimenting me. Your skill in poetry has the additional attraction of delicious flattery. For what else do these lines mean?—
He who through rashness gave his name to the Icarian Sea And he who, prudent, winged his way to the Chalcidian hold,
1 save that you call your own lively and soaring vigour rashness, but affirm that I, being both wary and one whom a son ought to imitate, am endowed with a wholesome cautiousness?2 But indeed the reverse is true. For you fly high in such wise that you do not fall: my old age is content to stay still. I make this brief pronouncement out of hand on the morning next after the evening mentioned; for your messenger is only waiting long enough to take back a reply. For if I have spare time, it will be a delightful occupation to maunder on at greater length to you, partly to draw you out, and partly to please myself. Farewell. TO Paulinus, Ausonius. Metre so bids, placing you before me and setting your name in front of mine. And yet before mine comes your name in our annals, and at Rome your curule chair of ivory has precedence of mine, and in poetry your palm is long since decked with ribbons1 which my palm lacks. 'Tis in the glory of prolonged old age alone I have the advantage—what matters that? The crow is not therein above the swan, nor, because he lives a thousand years, does the bird of Ganges 2 surpass the kingly peacock with his hundred eyes. I am beneath you in genius as far as I am above you in age; my homely Muse rises in deference to yours. Live, keep well, and in the time to come link New Year to New Year as oft as did your father or mine. WHAT kind treatment of me, that my complaint is dealt with without even being delivered, my son Paulinus! Fearing that the oil you sent had not given satisfaction, you repeat the gift and, by the addition of some Barcelona sauce called muria, 3 in- crease its measure. Put you know that I am neither accustomed nor able to pronounce that name nutria which is popularly used, though the most learned of the ancients, even while disdaining to use Greek terms, have no Latin name by which to call garum.1 But by whatever name that “Liquor of the Allies” 2 is called, “I'll flood my plate: this juice, too little used By our forefathers, must overflow the spoon.” But what could be more friendly or more generous than that you, to give me a share, should cheat yourself of your own dainties just when freshly coming into season? O friend sweeter than honey, O more delightsome than the Graces' charms, O worthy to be clasped by everyone in a fatherly embrace! However, these and other tokens of a generous nature some other, perchance, some day, though but rarely, may reveal: as for your talent shown in the scholarliness of your letter, in the sweetness of your poem, in imagination and in apt composition, I swear by everything that it will never be imitable by any man, however much he admit that it deserves imitation. As for the work itself, I will do as you bid. I will work over the whole minutely, and although it has received the highest finish at your hands, I will apply my chisel to give a superfinish however needless, but rather to obey yon than to add aught to what is perfect. Meanwhile, however, that your messenger may not return without a douceur of verse, I think 1 must make a preliminary gambol in a few iambics while the work in heroic strains which you want of me is beginning. But—so may I have you and Hesperius safe! — since they are dashed off in a single evening (though this they in themselves will guarantee), have had no further pains bestowed upon them. Farewell. Iambus than Parthian or Cydonian dart, Iambus than wings of birds more fleet, than rushing Padus' current more impetuous, than the downpour of rattling hail more searching, than lightning's dazzling flash more darting, even now speed through the air borne by Perseus' winged sandals and with the eap of the Arcadian god.1 If 'tis truly told that Hippocrene gushed forth at the hoof-beat of the impatient courser, thou, begotten in the very fount of Pegasus, wast first to link new rhythmic feet and, while the nine holy Muses sang in harmony, didst urge the lord of Delos to slaughter of the dragon.2 Bear this my greeting, fleetfoot, winged-foot, even to the town where Paulinus dwells, I mean Hebromagus, and straightway, if, his strength now regained, brisk vigour nerves his refreshed frame, bid him “hail,” then demand of him a return. Tarry not at all, and return now ere I cease to speak, after the example of that author of thy source,3 who o'er Chimaera with her triple blast of raging flame flew safe from the fire so near. Say “hail to thee,” say “greetings to thee sends thy friend and neighbour and thy patron, the source of thine honours,1 the fosterer of thy intellect.” Say also “master,” say “father,” say every caressing name of hallowed affection. And having said “Hail,” say “Farewell” and instantly return. But if he ask what judgment my ripe and not unskilful age pronounces on his latest writings, say thou knowest not, but that soon there will be ready a waggon full of heroic verses. Thereto 1 will yoke a pair of three-legged screws, back-broken with the lash, taken from the labyrinths of the mill, where by the heavy crank they turn the millstones, that by these may travel three jovial messengers. Perchance, too, he will ask who are these jovial fellows whom thou dost say are coming in a troop? Then say: “I saw three-jointed Dactyl ready on a heartbreaking hack;2 slow-footed Spondee was tramping in his company—he who at equal intervals checks my career—and one much like me but always facing about, neither equal to me nor unequal, who is called Trochee.” Thus speak: then in haste fly hither straight without delay, bringing back meanwhile some little gift from the abundance of that storehouse of poetry.

> Latin: nisi ut tu vegetam et sublimem alacritatem tuam temeritatem voces, me vero, et consultum et quem filius debeat imitari, salutari prudentia praeditum dicas? quod equidem contra est. nam tu summa sic adpetis, ut non decidas: senectus mea satis habet, si consistat. haec ad te breviter et illico vesperis illius secuto mane dictavi; ita enim tabellarius tuus, ut epistulam referret, instabat, nam si mihi otium fuerit, oblectabile negotium erit ad te prolixius delirare, te ut eliciam, mihi ut satisfaciam. vale.
PAULINO Ausonius, metrum sic suasit, ut esses
tu prior et nomen praegrederere meum,
quamquam et fastorum titulo prior et tua Romae
praecessit nostrum sella curulis ebur,
et, quae iamdudum tibi palma poetica pollet,
lemnisco ornata est, quo mea palma caret,
longaevae tantum superamus honore senectae.
quid refert? cornix non ideo ante evenum;
nec quia mille annos vivit Gangeticus ales,
vincit centum oculos, regie pavo, tuos.
ccdimus ingenio, quantum praccedimus aevo;
adsurgit Musae nostra Camena tuae.
Vive, vale et totidem venturos consere ianos,
quot tuus aut noster conseruere patres.
Quanto me adfecit beneficio non delata equidem, sed suscepta mea querimonia, Pauline fili! veritus displicuisse oleum, quod miseras, munus iterasti, addito etiam Barcinonensis muriae condimento cumulatius praestitisti, scis autem me id nomen muriae. quod in usu vulgi est, nec solere nec posse dicere, cum scientissimi veterum et Graeca vocabula fastidientes Latinum in gari appellatione non habeant, sed ego, quocumque nomine liquor iste sociorum vocatur,
Iam patinas implebo meas, ut parcior ille
maiorum mensis applaria sucus inundet.
Quid autem tam amabile tamque hospitale, quam quod tu, ut me participes, delicias tuas in ipsa primitiarum novitate defrudas? o melle dulcior, o Gratiarum venustate festivior, o ab omnibus patrio stringende complexu! sed haec atque alia huius modi documenta liberalis animi aliquis fortasse et aliquando, quamvis rarus: illud de epistularum tuarum eruditione, de poematis iucunditate, de inventione et concinnatione iuro omnia nulli umquam imitabile futurum, etsi fateatur mutandum, de quo opusculo, ut iubes, faciam, exquisitim universa limabo et quamvis per te manus summa contigerit, caelum superfluae expolitionis adhibebo, magis ut tibi paream, quam ut perfectis aliquid adiciam. Interea tamen, ne sine corollario poetico tabellarius tuus rediret, paucis iambicis praeludendum putavi, dum illud, quod a me heroico metro desideras, incohatur. isti tamen, ita te et Hesperium salvos habeam, quod spatio lucubratiunculae unius effusi, quamquam hoc ipsi de se probabunt, tamen nihil diligentiae ulterioris habuerunt, vale.
Iambe Parthis et Cydonum spiculis,
iambe pinnis alitum velocior,
Padi mentis impetu torrentior,
magna sonorae grandinis vi densior,
flammis corusci fulminis vibratior,
iam nunc per auras Persei talaribus
petasoque ditis Arcados vectus vola. si vera
fama est Hippocrene, quam pedis
pulsu citatam cornipes fudit fremens,
tu, fonte in ipso procreatus Pegasi,
primus novorum metra iunxisti pedum
sanctisque Musis concinentibus novem
caedem in draconis concitasti Delium.
Fer hanc salutem praepes et volucripes
Paulini ad usque moenia, Hebromagum loquor,
et protinus, iam si resumptis viribus
alacri refecti corporis motu viget,
salvere iussum mox reposce mutuum,
nihil moreris iamque, dum loquor, redi,
imitatus illum stirpis auctorem tuae,
triplici furentem qui Chimaeram incendio
supervolavit tutus igne proximo,
dic “te valere,” dic: “salvere te iubet
amicus et vicinus et fautor tuus,
honoris auctor, altor ingenii tui.”
dic et magister, dic parens, dic omnia
blanda atque sancta caritatis nomina,
haveque dicto dic vale, actutum et redi.
Quod si rogabit, quid super scriptis novis
maturus aevi nec rudis diiudicem:
nescire dices, sed paratum iam fore
heroicorum versuum plenum, essedum.
cui subiugabo de molarum ambagibus,
qui machinali saxa volvunt pondere,
tripedes caballos terga ruptos verbere,
his ut vehantur tres sodales nuntii,
fors et rogabit, quos sodales dixeris
simul venire? dic: “Trinodem dactylum
vidi paratum crucianti canthcrio:
spondeus illi lentipes ibat comes,
paribus moratur qui locis cursum meum,
mihique similis, semper adversus tamen,
nec par, nec impar, qui trochacus dicitur.”
Haec fare cursim nec moratus pervola,
a liquid reportans interim munusculi
de largitate musici promptarii.

[¶9] MANY and various are the causes 1 have for gratitude to you, which both circumstance, arising from time to time, happily introduces, and the ready generosity of your nature voluntarily invites, my son Paulinus. For in that you deny me nothing when I demand, you whet my effrontery rather than blunt it; as now again you will realize in the matter of Philo, formerly my bailiff, who, after storing at Hebromagus1 goods which he has bought up on various estates, is in danger of being driven inconveniently from the shelter which your people afforded him. And unless you kindly grant this my request—namely that he be permitted to stay on there as suits his purpose, and that a barge or some sort of vessel be furnished him, that a little of my corn may be transported as far as the town, thereby delivering Lucaniacus2 from famine betimes—a literary man's whole household there will be reduced, not to Cicero's Speech on the Com Supply? but to the Weevil of Plautus. That I may the more easily obtain this boon, or that you may fear greater bother if you refuse, I send you a letter composed in iambics, and duly sealed, that you may not say the messenger has been tampered with, should he come to you without the guarantee of a seal. Yet I have sealed it, not, as Plautus says— “With wax and thread and signs significant,” 4 but with a poetic stamp: this you may regard more as a brand burnt in than a seal impressed.5 Philo, who is bailiff of my estate, or as he himself wishes, the administrator (for your Greekling thinks that a fine-sounding name which shows the gilt of the classic tongue), unites with his complaints my prayers, which reluctantly I myself dispatch. You shall see the man himself as he stands close by me, the very image of his class, grey, bushy haired, unkempt, blustering, bullying, Terence's Phormio,1 with stiff hair bristling like a sea-urchin- or my lines. This fellow, when light harvests had oft belied his promises, came to hate the name of bailiff; and, after sowing late or much too early through ignorance of the stars,3 made accusation against tin-powers above, carping at heaven and shifting the blame from himself. No diligent husbandman, no experienced ploughman, a spender rather than a getter,4 abusing the land as treacherous and unfruitful, he preferred to do business as a dealer in any sale-market, bartering for “Greek credit,” and, wiser than the Seven Worthies of Greece, has joined them as an eighth sage. And now he has provided grain at the price of old salt,0 and blossoms out as a new trader; he visits tenants, country parts, villages and townships, travelling by land and sea; by bark, skiff, schooner, galley, he traverses the windings of the Tarn and the Garonne, and by changing profits into losses and losses into frauds,1 he makes himself rich and me poor. He now has sailed right up to your villa Hebroinagus and made it the depot for his goods, that thence by barge grain may be carried down for my service, as he avers. This guest, then, lest you be burdened, speed on his way in a few days, that, transported forthwith by the help of your vessel as far as the township's harbour, he may deliver Lucaniacus from famine by now, by now Perusian, by now Saguntine.2 If I receive this boon I ask of you, you shall be worshipped above Ceres: old Triptolemus or, as some call him, Epimenides, or Buzyges,3 the bailiff's patron, will I arrange to make inferior to your godhead, for this corn will become your gift.

> Latin: multas et frequentes mihi gratiae tuae causas et occasio subinde nata concinnat et naturae tuae facilitas benigna conciliat, Pauline fili. nam quia nihil poscente me abnuis, magis acuis procaciam quam retundis: ut nunc quoque in causa Philonis procuratoris quondam mei experiere, qui apud Hebroniagmn conditis mercibus, quas per agros diversos coemit, concesso ab hominibus tuis usus hospitio, inmature periclitatur expelli, quod nisi indulseris rogante me, ut et mora habitandi ad commodum suum utatur et nauso aliave qua navi usque ad oppidum praebita frugis aliquantum nostrae advehi possit, Lucaniacus ut inopia liberetur mature: tota illa familia hominis litterati non ad Tullii frumentariam, sed ad Cureulionem Plauti pertinebit. Hoc quo facilius impetrarem, aut quo maiorem verereris molestiam, si negares, concinnatam iambis signatamque ad te epistulam misi, ne subornatum diceres tabellarium, si ad te sine signi fide veniret, signavi autem, non, ut Plautus ait,
Per ceram et linum 1 litterasque interpretes;
sed per poeticum characterem: magis notam inustam, quam signum impressum iudicares.
Philon, meis qui vilicatus praediis,
ut ipse vult, ἐπίτροποσ,
(nam gloriosum Graeculus nomen putat.
quod sermo fucat Dorius)
suis querellis adserit nostras preces,
quas ipse lentus prosequor.
videbis ipsum, qualis adstet comminus,
imago fortunae suae,
carnis, comosus, hispidus, trux, atribux,
Terentianus Phormio,
horrens capillis ut marinus asperis
echinus aut versus mei.
hic saepe falsus messibus vegrandibus
nomen perosus vilici,
semente sera sive multum praecoqua
et siderali inscitia
caelum lacessens seque culpae subtrahens
reos peregit caelites.
non cultor instans, non arator gnaruris,
promusque quam condus magis,
terram infidelem nec feracem criminans
negotiari maluit
mercator quo ⟨libet⟩ foro venalium,
mutator ad Graecam fidem,
sapiensque supra Graeciae septem viros
octavus accessit sophos.
et nunc paravit1 triticum casco sale
novusque pollet emporus;
adit inquilinos, rura, vicos, oppida
soli et sali commercio;
acatis, phaselis, lintribus, stlattis, rate
Tarnim et Garumnam permeat
ac lucra damnis, damna mutans fraudibus
se ditat et me pauperat.
Is nunc ad usque vectus Hebromagum tuam.
sedem locavit mercibus,
ut inde nauso devehat⟨ur triticum 1⟩
nostros in usus, ut refert,
hunc ergo paucis ne graveris hospitem
⟨cura diebus ut meet,⟩
adactus ut mox navis auxilio tuae
ad usque portus oppidi
iam iam Perusina, iam Saguntina fame
Lucaniacum liberet.
Hoc si impetratum munus abs te accepero,
prior colere quam Ceres:
Triptolemon olim, sive Epimenidem vocant,
aut viliconum Buzygem,
tuo locabo postferendos numini,
nam munus hoc fiet tuum.

[¶10] TO EVERYTHING ELSE WITHOUT PROMISING TO COME WE are shaking off a yoke, Paulinus, which its tried equableness once made easy, a yoke lightly laid and worthy the respect of those it joined, which mild Concord used to guide with even reins; which through so long a line of rolling years never an idle tale, never a peevish complaint has stirred, nor quarrel thrust from its place, nor anger, nor misapprehension, nor Suspicion which, lending too ready ears to Persuasion's trumped-up pretexts, forms from them grievances to look like truth; so gentle, so easy a yoke which both our fathers drew on into old age from the beginning of their life, which, laid upon their duteous heirs, they would have had remain throughout till length of days broke up our lives. And remain it did, while there was joyous trust and no laborious care to maintain exchange of good offices, but they flowed freely, keeping unbroken their unguarded course. This yoke so mild Mars' horses would endure with obedient neck, and those wild steeds stolen from the stable of Diomedes, and even that team which, when another than the Sun held their reins, plunged lightning-blasted Phaethon in the Padus. Yet it is being shaken off, Paulinus; and that, not through the fault of both, but of one alone—of thee. For my neck will ever bear it gladly. It is the partner of my toil deserts me, and 'tis not so easy for one, when his fellow fails, to carry on alone that which the two bare as comrades. Heart and strength fail not, but unfair is the condition of carrying a burden, when both loads are laid on the partner left and the weight of another's charge is added. So one ailing member in a man involves the sound body in infection, and the peril even of a tiny limb makes the whole knitted frame totter in all its countless joints. Yet let me even be crushed if only loyalty to my old friend fail not while 1 endure, and memory deep-planted in the years bring back—vain consolation!—my errant comrade. Ah, heartless! From Peirithous thou couldst part Theseus and separate Euryalus from the company of his dear Nisus; urged to flight by thee, Pylades would have left Orestes, and Sicilian Damon would not have kept his bond! What general delight, what good men's prayers have thus been cheated of their looked-for gain! They all were speaking words of congratulation: already they were about to enter our names in the lists of friends belonging to nobler days of old. Pylades was giving place, Phrygian Nisus also now was growing less famed, and Damon who met his promised bail. We showed less tragic tokens of friendship, even as great Scipio and Laelius, long-lived in wisdom: we, with pursuits and hearts the same, were marvellous to all, the more for this that we were equals though unequal-aged. Sooner, methinks, could the Pellaean war-lord have loosed the lashings of that fate-fraught yoke, although their beginning was concealed from view and their end hidden by a double knot. Some presumptuous word we surely spoke, that the vengeful queen of Rhamnus thus made onslaught on our excessive hopes; as in old days when, angered at the vaunting of Arsaces' royal son, the avenging goddess, crushing his presumptuous boasts, withstood his purpose to set up in the land of Cecrops' sons a memorial of the Median arms, and just when she was to be raised to support a trophy of Greek arms, deliberately took her stand as Attic Nemesis to mark the Persian rout.1 What caprice of thine is this to harass nobles of the seed of Romulus? Against Medes and Arabs, thy natural foes, advance through clouds and chaos black: from men of Roman name keep thou afar. There rather seek thou friendships to assail, where that jealousy of thine and rankling venom estranges hearts well-fitted for thy deceits. For Paulinus and Ausonius, men whom the sacred purple of Quirinus and the golden tissue of the consul's robe have enwrapped, to yield to the stratagems of a foreign goddess is not seemly. Wherefore do I complain and cry out on the ravage of an eastern monster? 'Tis western Tagus' shores, 'tis Punic Barcelona that does me hurt, 'tis the Pyrenees whose snowy crests join sea to sea, thou thyself also dost me hurt, thou who abandonest thy friends without a cause, deserting thy town and, perchance, the native fashion of thy dress and speech, thou who now dwellest among new friends, whom the extent of a wide province parts from me beyond mountains 'neath an alien sun, beyond rivers and cities and all the land and sky which lie outspread betwixt Merida by Ana's streams and the wide flood of the Garonne. If only the division were narrow and interposed a separating space not too formidable (albeit they think every place far off who seek to be together), even so affection's self would make the places near, spanning the interval with a bridge of words; even as Saintes keeps touch with Bordeaux, and she again with Agen and the folk who till the country parts of Aquitaine; and as two-fold Aries1 links to herself at equal distances the roofs of Alpine Vienne and Narbonne; and then thou, Martian'2 Narbonne, alliest with thee five-fold Toulouse.3 If such the distance severing our neighbouring towns, then would I clasp thee, ready to my embrace, and the air of my complaint would be breathed into thy ears. Now for thee beyond the Alps and stony Pyrenees, Saragossa is thy home,1 Tyrrhenian Tarragona 2 is near by, and Barcelona built above the oyster-bearing sea: me hills, me rivers in triple array 3 part from Bordeaux and from the common throng, and in my leisure the vine-clad hills engage me, the rich glebe with its blithe peasantry, now the green meads, now the copse with its dancing shades, the church 1 thronged with crowding villagers, and all those my domains hard by each other in Novarus village, which enjoy such change at the various seasons throughout the year, that the chill winters are warm for them and in the furious summer heats soft north winds breathe over them a gentle coolness. Yet without thee the year advances, bringing no grateful change The rainy Spring flits by lacking its flower, the heat-bringing Dog-Star parches, Pomona brings not variety of sweet autumn fruits, and with outpoured water Aquarius makes gloomy all the winter. Dost thou perceive thy fault, my dearest Pontius? For my loyalty remains steadfast and, never to be changed, my regard for the Paulinus of old days endures, even as the harmony betwixt my sire and thine. If Ulysses' bow was easy to be strung by any man, or if Achilles' spear could be wielded save by its lord, then shall the queen of Rhamnus loose us from so long a bond. Hut why weave I such sad refrain in mournful verse, why does my heart not turn to nobler prayers? Ear be that fear! Sure is my confidence that, if the Father and the Son of God accept the reverent words of those who seek, thou canst be restored at my prayer, that I may weep not for a home scattered and ravaged, for the realm rent in pieces between a hundred owners, once Paulinus's, and for thee, that, wandering with a range as wide as the extent of Spain, unmindful of old friends thou dost trust in strangers. O hasten hither, my pride, my chiefest care, summoned with vows, good omens, and with prayers speed thee hither, while thou art young and while my old age to win thy favour preserves its vigour unconsumed. Ah, when shall this news break on my ears? “Lo, thy Paulinus is at hand: now he leaves the snowy towns of Spain, now reaches the fields of Tarbellae, now approaches the homesteads of Hebromagus, now enters his brother's domains hard by, now glides down stream, and now is in sight: now the prow is being swung out into the stream:1 now he has passed the thronged entrance of his home-port, outstrips the whole host of folk who hurry to meet him, and passing his own doors now, even now beats at thine.” “Do I believe, or do those who love feign dreams for their own selves.” 2

> Latin: discutimus, Pauline, iugum, quod nota fovebat
temperies, leve quod positu et venerabile iunctis
tractabat paribus Concordia mitis habenis;
quod per tam longam seriem volventibus annis
fabula non umquam, numquam qucrimonia movit,
nulla querella loco pepulit, non ira nec error
nec quae conpositis male suadac credula causis
concinnat veri similes suspicio culpas;
tam placidum, tam mite iugum, quod utrique parentes
ad senium nostri traxere ab origine vitae
inpositumque piis heredibus usque manere
optarunt, dum longa dies dissolveret aevum,
et mansit, dum laeta fides nec cura laborat
offleii servare vices, set sponte feruntur
incustoditum sibi continuantia cursum.
Hoc tam mite iugum docili cervice subirent
Martis equi stabuloque feri Diomedis abacti
et qui mutatis ignoti Solis habenis
fulmineum Phaethonta Pado mersere iugales,
discutitur, Pauline, tamen: nec culpa duorum
ista, set unius tantum tua. namque ego semper
contenta cervice feram, consorte laborum
destituor, nec tam promptum gestata duobus
unum deficiente pari perferre sodalem,
non animus viresque labant, sed iniqua ferendo
condicio est oneri, cum pondus utrumque relicto
ingruit acceduntque alienae pondera librae,
sic pars aegra hominis trahit ad contagia sanum
corpus et exigui quamvis discrimine membri
tota per innumeros artus eonpago vacillat.
obruar usque tamen, veteris ne desit amici
me durante fides memorique ut fixa sub aevo
restituant profugum, solacia cassa, sodalem.
Inpie, Pirithoo disiungere Thesea posses
Euryalumque suo socium secernere Niso;
te suadente fugam Pylades liquissct Oresten
nec custodisset Siculus vadimonia Damon.
quantum obleetamen populi, quae vota bonorum
sperato fraudata bono! gratantia cuncti
verba loquebantur: iam nomina nostra parabant
inserere antiquis aevi melioris amicis.
cedebat Pylades, Phrygii quoque gloria Nisi
iam minor et promissa obiens vadimonia Damon.
nos documenta magis felicia, qualia magnus
Scipio longaevique dedit sapientia Laeli:
nos studiis animisque isdem miracula cunctis,
hoc maiora, pares fuimus quod dispare in aevo.
ocius illa iugi fatalis solvere lora
Pellaeum potuisse ducem reor, abdita opertis
principiis et utroque caput celantia nodo.
Grande aliquod verbum nimirum diximus, ut se
inferret nimiis vindex Rhamnusia votis;
Arsacidae ut quondam regis non laeta triumphis
grandia verba premens ultrix dea Medica belli
sistere Cecropidum in terris monumenta paranti
obstitit et Graio iam iam Agenda tropaeo
ultro etiam victis Nemesis stetit Attica Persis.
Quae tibi Romulidas proceres vexare libido est?
in Medos Arabasque tuos per nubila et atrum
perge chaos: Romana procul tibi nomina sunto.
illic quaere alios oppugnatum sodales,
livor ubi iste tuus ferrugineumque venenum
opportuna tuis inimicat pectora fucis.
Paulinum Ausoniumque, viros, quos sacra Quirini
purpura et auratus trabeae volavit amictus,
non decet insidiis peregrinae cedere divae.
Quid queror coique insector crimina monstri?
occidui me ripa Tagi, me Punica laedit
Barcino, me bimaris iuga ninguida Pyrenaei.
⟨laedis et ipse tuos qui deseris ultro, relictis⟩
moenibus et patrio forsan quoque vestis et oris
⟨more, interque novos qui nunc versaris amicos⟩
quemque suo longe dirimat provincia tractu
trans montes solemque alium, trans flumina et urbes
et quod terrarum caelique extenditur inter
Emeritensis Anae lataeque fluenta Garunmae.
Quod si intervalli spatium tolerabile limes
poneret exiguus (quamvis longa omnia credant,
qui simul esse volunt), faceret tamen ipsa propinquos
cura locos, mediis iungens distantia verbis;
Santonus ut sibi Burdigalam, mox iungit Aginnum
illa sibi et populos Aquitanica rura eolentes;
utque duplex Arelas Alpinae tecta Viennae,
Narbonemque pari spatio sibi conserit, et mox
quinquiplicem socias tibi, Martie Narbo, Tolosam.
hoc mihi si spatium vicinis moenibus esset,
tunc ego te ut nostris aptum conplectcrer uluis
adflaretque tuas aures nostrae aura loquellae.
Nunc tibi trans Alpes et marmoream Pyrenen
Caesarea est Augusta domus, Tyrrhenica propter
Tarraco et ostrifero super addita Barcino ponto:
me iuga Burdigala,1 trino me flumina coetu
secernunt turbis popularibus otiaque inter
vitiferi exercent colles laetumque colonis
uber agri, tum prata virentia, tum nemus umbris
mobilibus celebrique frequens ecclesia vieo
totquc mea in Novaro sibi proxima praedia pago,
dispositis totum vicibus variata per annum,
egelidae ut tepeant hiemes rabidosque per aestus
adspirent tenues frigus subtile Aquilones.
te sine set nullus grata vice provenit annus,
ver pluvium sine flore fugit, Canis aestifer ardet,
nulla autumnales variat Pomona sapores
effusaque hiemem contristat Aquarius unda.
agnoscisne tuam, Ponti dulcissime, culpam?
nam mihi certa fides nec conmutabilis umquam
Paulini illius veteris reverentia durat
quaeque meoque tuoque fuit concordia patri,
si tendi facilis cuiquam fuit arcus Ulixei
aut praeter dominum vibrabilis ornus Achilli,
nos quoque tam longo Rhamnusia foedere solvet.
Set cur tam maesto sero tristia carmina versu
et non in meliora animus se vota propinquat?
sit procul iste metus, certa est fiducia nobis,
si genitor natusque dei pia verba volentum
accipiat, nostro reddi te posse precatu,
ne sparsam raptamque domum lacerataque centum
per dominos veteris Paulini regna fleamus
teque vagum toto quam longa Hispania tractu,
inmemorem veterum peregrinis fidere amicis.
Adcurre, o nostrum decus, o mea maxima cura,
votis ominibusque bonis precibusque vocatus,
adpropcra, dum tu iuvenis, dum nostra senectus
servat inexhaustum tibi gratificata vigorem.
ecquando iste meas inpellet nuntius aures?
“Ecce tuus Paulinus adest: iam ninguida linquit
oppida Hiberorum, Tarbllica iam tenet arva,
Hebromagi iam tecta subit, iam praedia fratris
vicina ingreditur, iam labitur amne.secundo
iamque in conspectu est: iam prora obvertitur amni:
ingressusque sui celebrata per ostia portus
totum occursantis populi praevertitur agmen
et sua praeteriens iam iam tua limina pulsat.”
Credimus an, qui amant, ipsi sibi somnia fingunt?

## 3. Letters 28–34

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/ausonius-letters/3/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/ausonius-letters/3/#p-N

[¶0] WRITTEN JUST AFTER THE PRECEDING I hoped that the complaint which filled my latest letter might be able to move thee, Paulinus, and that my caressing reproof might lure thee to reply. But thou, as if after swearing by holy things thou wast vowed to keep deep silenee, abidest obstinately by the rule of speechlessness.1 Is it not allowed? Or art thou ashamed to have a friend still alive who claims a father's rights, whilst thou remainest the dependent heir? Let cowards quake with such dread, but have thou no fear, and boldly keep the custom of giving and returning greeting. Or if an informer is beside thee, and if 'tis an inquisitor's2 too stern rebuke is feared, baffle it with a device whereby secrets are oft eoncealed. She whom the brutal outrage of the Thracian king had robbed of her tongue, revealed her sorrows by means of woven threads and committed the story of her wrongs to the silent loom.3 Also a shamefast maid entrusted the tale of her love to an apple,4 and blushed not to share her secret with fruit which could never speak. To deep-dug pits a servant revealed his royal lord's deformity,5 and long the earth hid the secret most faithfully: thereafter the reed, breathed on by the wind, sang the story. Trace letters with milk: the paper as it dries will keep them ever invisible; yet with ashes the writing is brought to light.6 Or imitate the Spartan scytale, writing on strips of parchment wound about a rounded stick in continuous lines, which, afterwards unrolled, will show characters incoherent because sequence is lost, until they are rolled again about just such another stick.1 I can show thee countless codes of the ancients for concealing and unlocking secret messages 2; it thou, Paulinus, fearest to be betrayed and dread'st the charge of my friendship, let thy Tanaquil 3 know naught of it. Do thou scorn others, but disdain not to address thy father. I am thy nourisher, thy old tutor, the first to lavish on thee the honours of old time,4 the first to introduce thee into the guild of the Aonides.

> Latin: PROXIMA quae nostrae fuerat querimonia chartae,
credideram quod te, Pauline, inflectere posset
eliceretque tuam blanda obiurgatio vocem.
set tu, iuratis velut alta silentia sacris
devotus teneas, perstas in lege tacendi.
non licet? anne pudet, si quis tibi iure paterno
vivat amicus adhuc maneasque obnoxius heres?
ignavos agitet talis timor, at tibi nullus
sit metus et morem missae acceptaeque salutis
audacter retine, vel si tibi proditor instat
aut quaesitoris gravior censura finietur,
occurre ingenio, quo saepe occulta teguntur.
Thraeicii quondam quam saeva licentia regis
fecerat elinguem, per licia texta querellas
edidit et tacitis mandavit crimina telis.
et pudibunda suos malo commisit amores
virgo nec erubuit tacituro conscia pomo.
depressis scrobibus vitium regale minister
credidit idque diu texit fidissima tellus:
inspirata dehinc vento cantavit harundo.
lacte incide notas: arescens charta tenebit
semper inaspicuas; prodentur scripta favillis.
vel Laccdaemoniam scytalen imitare, libelli
segmina Pergamei tereti circumdata ligno
perpetuo inscribens versu, «pii deinde solutus,
non respondentes sparso dabit ordine formas,
donec consimilis ligni replicetur in orbem.
Innumcras possum celandi ostendere formas
et clandestinas veterum reserare loquellas:
si prodi, Pauline, times nostraeque vereris
crimen amicitiae; Tanaquil tua nesciat istud,
tu contemne alios nec dedignare parentem
adfari verbis, ego sum tuus altor ei ille
praeceptor, primus veterum largitor honorum,
primus in Aonidum qui te collegia duxi.

[¶1] THIS is the fourth letter in which I have laid bare to thee, Paulinus, my familiar complaint, and with caressing words sought to stir thee from thy lethargy. But never a page comes to repay my loving attentions, no propitious words writ at the head of sheets which bring me greeting.5 How has my luckless letter, for which your long neglect shows such disdain, deserved this rebuff? Yet foe from foe receives greeting 6 in savage speech and “hail” comes between opposed arms. Even rocks make answer to mankind and speech beating back from caves returns, returns too the vocal mimicry of the woods; cliffs by the sea-shore cry out, streams utter their murmurs, the hedges, whereon bees of Hybla feed,1 are ever whispering. Reed-grown banks also have their tuneful harmonies, and the pine's foliage in trembling accents talks with its beloved winds. So oft as the light eastern breeze leans on the shrill-voiced leaves, strains of Dindymus respond to the grove of Gargara. 2 Nature made nothing dumb. Birds of the air and four-footed beasts are not mute, even the serpent has its own hissing note, and the herds of the deep sigh with faint semblance of a voice. Cymbals give sound at a clash, stages at beat of bounding feet, the taut skins of hollow drums give back a booming; Mareotie 3 sistra raise rattling din in Isis' honour nor does Dodona's brazen tinkling cease as oft as the lavers at the clappers' measured stroke obediently reply with rhythmic beat.1 2,; Thou, as though thou wert a mute citizen of Oebalian Amyclae,5 or Egyptian Sigalion 6 were sealing thy lips, stubbornly keepest silence, Paulinus. I recognise shame in thee, for continued negligence cherishes her own defeet, and in shame for long silenee thou dost resolve not to maintain interchange of courtesies; and lengthened idleness loves its own fault. Who forbids you to write “hail” and “farewell” with studied brevity, and to commit to paper these words of greeting? I do not demand that thy page should weave a long drawn out web of verse and burden thy letter with a multitude of words. Twas but one letter wherewith the Spartans made reply and, though refusing, pleased the angry king.1 For indeed terseness is courteous; so, report says, taught reborn Pythagoras.2 While babblers would be stringing indecisive words, in all cases he would answer only “Yes” or “No.” O stable rule of speech! For nothing is shorter and more adequate than these, which approve the valid or reject the invalid. None pleased by silence; many by brief reply. 45"But I, whither with foolish amplitude of speech have I been long careering? How distant from itself and yet how near is error! I with long speech, thou with utter silence, we both displease. Yet can not keep silence, for free affection never bears yoke, nor loves to screen truth with glozing words. Hast thou, dearest Paulinus, changed thy nature? Do Biscayan glades and sojourns in the snowy Pyrenees and doth forgetfulness of our clime work thus? What curse shall I not righteously call down on thee, O land of Spain? May Carthaginians ravage thee, may faithless Hannibal waste thee with fire, may banished Sertorius again seek in thee the seat of war! Shall then Birbilis or Calagorris clinging to its crags, or parched Ilcrda3 whose ruins, littered over rugged hills, look down on brawling Sicoris, possess him who is mine and his country's pride, the mainstay of the Senate? Here dost thou, Paulinus, establish thy robe consular and Roman curule chair, and wilt thou bury there thy native honours? But who is that unhallowed wretch who has urged you to so long silence? May he turn no sound to any advantage, may no joys enliven him, no sweet poets' lays, no melting harmonies of seductive elegy, may no cry of beast nor low of cattle nor song of bird cheer him, nor yet Echo, who hidden in shepherds' bosky groves consoles us while repeating our complaints. Sad, needy let him dwell in waste places and in silence roam the borders of Alpine hills, even as, 'tis said, in days of old Beller-ophon, distraught, avoided the company of men and wandered straying through untrodden places.1 This is my prayer, this cry, Boeotian Muses divine, receive ye and with Latin strains call back your bard!

> Latin: quarta tibi haec notos detexit epistula questus,
Pauline, et blando residem sermone lacessit.
officium set nulla pium mihi pagina reddit,
fausta salutigeris adscribens orsa libellis,
unde istam meruit non felix charta repulsam,
spernit tam longo cessatio quam tua fastu?
hostis ab hoste tamen per barbara verba salutem
accipit et Salve mediis intervenit armis,
respondent et saxa homini et percussus ab antris
sermo redit, redit et nemorum vocalis imago;
litorei clamant scopuli, dant murmura rivi,
Hyblacis apibus saepes depasta susurrat.
est et harundineis modulatio musica ripis
cumque suis loquitur tremulum coma pinea ventis,
incubuit foliis quotiens levis curus acutis,
Dindyma Gargarico respondent cantica luco.
nil inlitum natura dedit, non aeris ales
quadrupedesve silent, habet et sua sibila serpens,
et pecus aequoreum tenui vice vocis anhelat.
cymbala dant flictu sonitum, dant pulpita saltu
icta pedum, tentis reboant cava tympana tergis;
Isiacos agitant Mareotica sistra tumultus
nec Dodonaci cessat tinnitus aeni,
in numerum quotiens radiis ferientibus ictae
respondent dociles modulato verbere pelves.
Tu velut Oebaliis habites taciturnus Amyclis
aut tua Sigalion Aegyptius oscula signet,
obnixum, Pauline, taces, agnosco pudorem,
quod vitium fovet ipsa suum cessatio iugis,
dumque pudet tacuisse diu, placet officiorum
non servare vices; et amant longa otia culpam,
quis prohibet Salve atque Vale brevitate parata
scribere felicesque notas mandare libellis?
non ego, longinquos ut texat pagina versus,
postulo multiplicique oneret sermone tabellas.
una fuit tantum, qua respondere Lacones
littera, et irato regi placuere negantes,
est etenim comis brevitas: sic fama renatum
Pythagoram docuisse refert, cum multa loquaces
ambiguis sererent verbis, contra omnia solum
Est, respondebat, vel Non. o certa loquendi
regula! nam brevius nihil est et plenius istis,
quae firmata probant aut infirmata relidunt.
nemo silens placuit, multi brevitate loquendi.
Verum ego quo stulte dudum spatiosa locutus
provehor? ut diversa sibi vicinaque culpa est!
multa loquens et cuncta silens non ambo placemus.
nec possum reticere, iugum quod libera numquam
fert pietas nec amat blandis postponere verum,
vertisti, Pauline, tuos dulcissime mores?
Vasconis hoc saltus et ninguida Pyrenaei
hospitia et nostri facit hoc oblivio caeli?
inprecer ex merito quid non tibi, Hiberia tellus!
te populent Poeni, te perfidus Hannibal urat,
te belli sedem repetat Sertorius exul.
ergo meum patriaeque decus columenque senati
Birbilis aut haerens scopulis Calagorris habebit,
aut quae deiectis iuga per seruposa ruinis
arida torrentem Sicorim despectat Hilerda?
hic trabeam, Pauline, tuam Latiamque curulem
constituis, patriosque istic sepelibis honores?
Quis tamen iste tibi tam longa silentia suasit
impius? ut nullos hie vocem vertat in usus,
gaudia non illum vegetent, non dulcia vatum
carmina, non blandae modulatio flexa querellae,
non fera, non illum peeudes, non mulceat ales,
non quae pastorum nemoralibus abdita lueis
solatur nostras Eeho resecuta loquellas.
tristis, egens deserta eolat tacitusque pererret
Alpinis conexa iugis, eeu dicitur olim
mentis inops coetus hominum et vestigia vitans
avia perlustrasse vagus loca Bellerophontes.
Haec preeor, hanc vocem, Boeotia numina M usae,
accipite et Latiis vatem revocate eamenis.

[¶2] THOU tellest me that my tongue keeps unbroken silence while thou art never dumb, and reproachest me with choosing idleness in secret retreats, and withal addest the charge of neglected friendship and tauntest me with terror of my spouse, launching a cruel line against my very heart.3 Cease, I prithee, to wound thy friend, and seek not to mingle bitterness—as wormwood with honey —with a father's words. My care has been and still, endures, to honour thee with every friendly token, to compass thee with faithful affection. No blemish, however slight, has ever marred my devotion towards thee; even by a look I have ever feared to hurt thee and to wrong thee with an. unguarded aspect; and when I have approached thee, out of respect I have the more heedfully ordered my looks and given my features a bright and cheerful cast, that no ungrounded suspicion might bring down a cloud upon thee, my revered father, even though arising from an unspoken thought. After like pattern my household has honoured and honours thee, and in love for thee we are as agreed together as our hearts are linked together in worship of Christ. What rancour, I beg of thee, against thy friends is crept over thy heart? With what idle tale has nimble Slander forced her way into thy ears, smitten thy fond heart, and aimed late blows against the tried affection of ancient faith, so as to harm a son by cozening a sire from his peace? But my heart is conscious of no feigned sincerity, my devotion, guiltless of neglect towards my father, hurls back with scorn every undeserved taunt, and brooks not to be scarred with a false charge because in truth innocent: as easy hurt as it is free from fault, it is the more sorely injured by an unjust blow. Thou dost complain that I have shaken off the yoke 1 wherewith I was joined with thee in the pursuit of letters. This I declare that I have never even borne. For only equals share one yoke: no one links the powerful with the weak, and no team works with one will, if the forced yoke-fellows are of unequal measure. If thou dost match calves with bulls or horses with wild-asses; if thou comparest moorhens with swans, and nightingales with owls, hazels with chestnuts, or rankest wayside shrubs with cypresses;—then place me beside thee: Tully and Maro scarce could uphold a like yoke with thee. If I be yoked in love, in that alone will I dare boast myself thy yoke-fellow wherein the humble vies with the great in even career. Sweet friendship makes us peers through the eternal bond betwixt me and thee and through the equal laws of endless mutual love. This yoke no malicious tale has unloosed from my neck, no long absence from my land has broken it nor ever shall destroy it, though I should be removed from thee by the whole span of space and time. Never shall I live separate from thee in soul: sooner shall life itself depart from my frame than thy face from my heart. Through all the length of time given to mortals and ordained, so long as I shall be confined in this halting frame, though I be held a world apart, thee neither parted by a world nor severed from my sight I will keep implanted in my inmost being: in heart I shall see thee, in loving thought embrace thee, having thee with me everywhere. And when, released from the prison of the body, I shall have (town forth from the earth, in whatever clime our general Father shall place me, there also will I bear thee in my heart; nor shall the selfsame end which severs me from my body, unloose me from love of thee. For the soul, which, surviving the body's ruin, endures in virtue of heavenly birth, must needs keep both its own faculties and affections no less than its own life, and so admits forgetfulness no more than death, remaining ever living, ever mindful. Farewell, illustrious master.

> Latin: CONTINUVTA meae durare silentia linguae
te numquam tacito memoras placitamque latebris
desidiam exprobras neglectaeque insuper addis
crimen amicitiae formidatamque iugalem
obicis et durum iacis in mea viscera versum.
parce, precor, lacerare tuum, nec amara paternis
admiscere velis, eeu melle absinthia, verbis.
Cura mihi semper fuit et manet officiis te
omnibus excolere, adfectu observare fideli,
non umquam tenui saltim tua gratia naevo
conmaculata mihi est; ipso te laedere vultu
semper et incauta timui violare figura;
eumque tua accessi, venerans mea cautius ora
conposui et laeto formavi lumine frontem,
ne qua vel a tacito contractam pectore nubem
duceret in sanctum suspicio falsa parentem.
hoc mea te domus exemplo coluitque colitque
inque tuum tantus nobis consensus amorem est,
quantus et in Christum conexa mente colendum.
Quis tua, quaeso, tuis obduxit pectora livor?
quo rumore pium facilis tibi fama per aures
inrupit pepulitque animum contraque vetustam
experta pietate fidem nova vulnera movit,
laederet ut natis placidum male suada parentem?
Set mihi non fictae mens conscia simplicitatis
nec patris inculti pietas rea respuit omne
iumentum et falso perstringi crimine non fert,
inmunis vero: gravius violatur iniquo
vulnere, tam tenera offensae, quam libera culpae.
Diseussisse iugum querens me, quo tibi doctis
iunctus eram studiis, hoc nec gestasse quidem me
adsero. namque pares subeunt iuga: nemo valenles
copulat infirmis neque sunt concordia frena,
si sit conpulsis mensura iugalibus inpar.
si vitulum tauro vel equum committis onagro;
si confers fulicas cycnis et acdona parrae,
castaneis corulos; aequas viburna cupressis:
me conpone tibi: vix Tullius et Maio tecum
sustineant aequale iugum, si iungar amore,
hoc tantum tibi me iactare audebo iugalem,
quo modicus sociis magno contendit habenis.
dulcis amicitia aeterno mihi foedere tecum
et paribus semper redamandi legibus aequat.
hoc nostra cervice iugum non scaeva resolvit
fabula, non terris absentia longa diremit,
nec perimet, toto licet abstrahar orbe vel aevo.
numquam animo divisus agam: prius ipsa recedet
corpore vita meo, quam vester pectore vultus.
Ego te per omne quod datum mortalibus
et destinatum saeculum est,
claudente donec continebor corpore,
discernar orbe quamlibet,
nec orbe longe nec remotum lumine
tenebo fibris insitum:
videbo corde, mente complectar pia
ubique praesentem mihi.
et cum solutus corporali carcere
terraque provolavero,
quo me locant axe communis pater,
illic quoque animo te geram;
neque finis idem, qui meo me corpore
et amore laxabit tuo.
mens quippe, lapsis quae superstes artubus
de stirpe durat cacliti,
sensus necesse est simul et adfectus suos
teneat aeque ut vitam suam,
et ut mori, sic oblivisci non capit,
perenne vivax et memor.
Vale domine illustris.

[¶3] 'Tis the fourth summer now returns for hardy reapers, and as oft has winter grown stark with hoary rime, since any syllable from thy lips reached me, since 1 saw any letter penned by thy hand— ere thy page, auspicious with its message of greeting, bestowed manifold the gift so long denied. For indeed 'twas a triple letter enriched with various flowers of composition, but the melodious sheets were a three-fold poem. Tilings sweet, though somewhat soured with manifold complaints, troubled affection had mingled with criticism. Put with me the father's gentleness rather than the critic's bitterness finds a resting place, and in my heart I draw from the kindly words what may weigh against the harsh. But these charges must be refuted in their proper place and canvassed in the sterner tones of the avenging heroic measure. Meanwhile, though briefly, lighter iambus shall hurry on ahead, in separate metre 1 paying back his debt of words. Now my elegiacs bid thee “hail” and having hailed thee, since they have made for others a beginning and a step, cease to speak. Paulinus to Ausonius Why dost thou bid the deposed Muses return to my affection, my father? Hearts consecrate to Christ give refusal to the Camenae, are closed to Apollo. Once was there this accord betwixt me and thee, equals in zeal but not in power—to call forth deaf Apollo from his Delphic cave, to invoke the Muses as divine, to seek from groves or hills the gift of utterance by the god's gift bestowed. Now 'tis another force governs my heart, a greater God, who demands another mode of life, claiming for himself from man the gift he gave, that we may live for the Father of life. To spend time on empty things, whether in pastime or pursuit, and on literature full of idle tales, he forbids; that we may obey his laws and behold his light which sophists' cunning skill, the art of rhetoric, and poets' feignings overcloud. For these steep our hearts in things false and vain, and train our tongues alone imparting naught which can reveal the truth. For what good thing or true can they hold who hold not the head of all, God, the enkindler and source of the good and true, whom no man seeth save in Christ. He is the light of truth, the path of life, the strength, mind, hand, and power of the Father, the sun of righteousness, the fount of blessings, the flower of God, born of God, creator of the world, life of our mortality and death of Death. He, the Lord of Virtues, to us God and for us Man, puts on our nature as we must put on his, linking God with man in perpetual intercourse, himself of each partaking. He, then, when he has launched his beams from heaven upon our hearts, wipes off the sorry filth of our dull bodies and renews the disposition of our hearts: he draws forth all which aforetime used to please, giving unsullied pleasure in return, and absolutely with a master's right claims both our hearts and lips and time. He seeks himself to engross our thoughts, our minds, belief and choice, himself to be feared and loved. Those aimless surges, which the toils of life stir up in the course of this present span of time, are brought to naught by faith in a life to come with God. This easts not a way the riches, which we are thought to seorn, as unhallowed or little worth, but, as more dear, bids them be laid up in Heaven in trust with Christ our God, who has promised more than he receives, to pay back with large usury those things now despised or rather laid up in his keeping. A faithful guardian, an unfailing debtor, he will repay with increase wealth entrusted to him, and of his bounty God with abundant interest will restore the money we have spurned. To Him given up, whether waiting or serving, in Him laying up my all, think me not, I beseech thee, slothful nor wayward, nor charge me with want of filial piety. How can piety be wanting in a Christian? For " piety " has the acquired meaning to be a Christian, and " the impious " one not subject to Christ. When I am learning to hold fast this, can I fail to show it toward thee, that is, towards my father, to whom God has willed that I should owe all sacred duties and names of affection? To thee I owe training, honours, learning, my pride of eloquence, of civil rank, of reputation, being by thee advanced, fostered, and instructed, my patron, tutor, father. But why do I live so long retired, thou askest reproachfully, and art stirred with a loving anger. It is expedient, or 'tis necessary, or 'tis my pleasure: whichever of these it be, it will be pardonable. Forgive me, as I love thee, if I do what is convenient; be thankful if I live as pleases me. PAULINUS TO AUSONIUS That I shall be absent from my native land full three years' space, and that I have traversed another world in aimless wanderings, forgetful of that fellowship in thy life, once cherished—thou dost reproach me with complaints hallowed by the love whence they spring. I welcome with reverence due the emotions of a father's heart and the anger which claims my gratitude leaving affection unimpaired. Yet for my return, my father, I would rather thou should'st ask it there where it can be granted. Shall I believe that thou canst call me back to thee while thou pourest forth barren prayers to beings not divine, suppliant to the Castalian Muses while God turns from thee? Not through such deities wilt thou bring me baek to thee and to my country. Thou call'st the deaf, implorest things of naught— a light breeze will bear away what is addressed to a nothing—the Muses, who are names but nonentities. The stormy winds whirl away ineffectual such prayers as these, which, not addressed to God, cateh in the empty clouds nor make their way into the starry court of the King of Heaven. If thou carest for my return, look towards him and pray to him who with his thunder shakes the fiery heights of highest Heaven, who shoots forth his triple flash of flame, nor mingles it with idle sounds, who on the. crops graciously bestows sunshine and rains from heaven, who being above all that is, or wholly in all things everywhere, reigns over all through Christ who permeates all things: through whom he occupies and sways our minds, through whom he orders our times and places. Put if he ordains things opposed to our hopes, by prayer he may be turned aside to that which we desire Why blamest thou me? If thou mislikest the course which I pursue under God's influence, there is an earlier step: let the Author be accused, who is pleased either to shape or change my feelings. For if thou thinkest my nature is as of old and as 'twas known to thee, I will avow of myself that now I am not the man I was about that time when I was not thought wayward though wayward I was, seeing with the darkness of error, wise in what with God is foolishness,1 and living on the food of death. Wherefore thou art the more bound to pardon me, because by this the more readily 'tis permitted thee to recognize that this change is from the most high Father—that 'tis not in accordance with my nature: by this I shall not, methinks, be held to have admitted a lamentable distraction of a mind changed for the worse, since I have openly avowed that not my own mind has caused me to change my former life. I have a new mind, I confess—a mind not my own: not mine aforetime, though mine now through God's influence—and if in my deeds or thoughts he sees anything worthy for his gifts, to thee chief gratitude, to thee the glory falls due, since thy instruction has produced what Christ could love. Wherefore thou shouldst give thanks rather than complain because I—that son of thine, offspring of thy learning and thy character, Paulinus, whose parentage thou dost not deny, even now when thou believest me wayward—have so changed my principles that I have gained grace to become the child of Christ while I am the child of Ausonius. He will confer his rewards upon thy merit and from this tree of thine proffer the first fruit to thee. And so, I pray thee, think nobler thoughts and lose not the highest rewards by execrating good things which have their source from thee. For indeed my mind does not wander, nor even does my life flee from intercourse with men — even as thou writest that Pegasus' rider lived in Lycian caves 1—albeit many dwell in pathless places through God's leading, just as before them men famous among the sages did for the sake of their learning and their inspiration. Even so in these days also, they who with pure hearts have adopted Christ are wont to live—not as beside themselves, nor out of savagery choosing to dwell in desert places; but because—turning their faces to the stars on high, contemplating God, and intent to scan the deep wells of truth—they love repose void of empty cares, and shun the din of public life, the bustle of affairs, and all concerns hostile to the gifts of Heaven both by Christ's command and in desire for salvation. By hope and faith these follow God for the pledged reward which he, whose promise cannot fail, will bestow on such as persevere, if only this present life with its vain interests does not prevail, and the fiery perceptions, penetrating to Heaven's secret places, scorn what they see to gain what they see not. For things perishable are open to our sight, the eternal are denied; and now in hope we pursue what with the mind we see, scorning the various shapes, the images of things, and the attractions which provoke our natural sight. And yet such resolve has been found to lodge in those to whom already is revealed the light of the good and true, the eternity of the world to come and the emptiness of that which is. But I, who have not the same cause for boasting, why do I bear the same reproach? My surety of hope is no less; but since I dwell in pleasant places, and even now abide upon the agreeable shores of a prosperous coast, whence this so premature carping at my abode? I would that jealousy with good grounds may begin to pluck at me: bearing the name of Christ I shall welcome taunts. A mind strengthened by power divine feels no weak shame, and the praise I here despise is restored to me when Christ is judge. Do not, then, chide me, my honoured father, as though I had turned to these pursuits perversely, and do not twit me with my wife or with defect of mind: mine is not the perturbed mind of Bellerophon, nor is my wife a Tanaquil but a Lucretia. Nor am I now forgetful, as thou thinkest, of the heavens 'neath which my fathers dwelt, seeing that I look up to the all-highest Father, and that whoso worships Him alone he is truly mindful of Heaven.1 Believe then, father, that I am not unmindful of the heavens and do not live distraught in mind, but dwell in a civilized place: pursuits themselves bear witness to the character of righteous men; for an unrighteous race will not be able to know the most high God: granted that much of the country, much of the folk is unimproved and ignorant of laws, yet what tract is without its rustic worship? Or what offence in them is wiekeduess common to other parts? 1 And yet thou dost taunt me with the woodlands of Vasconin and snowy lodgings in the Pyrenees, as though I live tied down at the very frontier of the whole realm of Spain and have no place of my own anywhere in country or in town, where wealthy Spain outstretched along the world's boundary watches the suns dip down into the sea. Put suppose it had been my lot to dwell amid the hills of brigands, have I become a block in a savage's hut, changed into the very serfs amid whom I lived, partaking of their wildness? A pure heart admits no evil, even as filth spattered upon smooth bristles does not stick: if one without stain of wickedness spends his life in a Vasconian glade, his character, unblemished as before, draws no infection from his host's barbarity. Put why am I charged on that account when I dwell, as I have dwelt, in a far different country bordering on splendid cities and thickly covered with man's prosperous tillage? And if my life had been led on the borders of Vasconia, why should not the savage folk rather have been moulded after my mode of life, laying aside their barbarous customs to come over to our own? For whereas thou dost fix my Spanish dwelling-place in ruined cities, traversing in thy verse desolate towns, and eastest in my teeth mountain Calahorra, Bambola hanging from its jagged crags, and Lerida prostrate on its hill-side—as though, an exile from home and city, I were dwelling in these far from the dwellings and highways of men; dost thou believe these are the resources of the Iberian land, ignorant of the Spanish world where laden Atlas took his stand beneath the load of Heaven, he whose mountain, now the furthest fragment and boundary of the earth, shuts out with its lofty peak Calpe that lies betwixt two seas? Are only Bambola, Calahorra, Lerida, placed to the credit of this land which has its Saragossa, pleasant Barcelona, and Tarragona looking from majestic heights down to the sea? What need for me to tell over the cities, distinguished for their territories and walls which prosperous Spain thrusts forth between two seas; where Betis 1 swells the Atlantic, Hiberus 2 the Tuscan sea—Spain whose compass occupies the wide intervening tract which parts main from main, setting its bounds at the extreme verge of the world? If thou, O famous master, wert minded to describe the region where thou dwellest, wouldst thou be content to leave unnamed cheerful Bordeaux preferring to write of the pitchy Boii 3? And when thou bestowest thy leisure on the hot springs of Maroiahnn4 and permittest thyself to live amid shady groves, dwelling amid cheerful scenery and habitations marvellously built, dost thou inhabit murky hovels and cabins of twisted straw amid a wilderness fit for the skin-clad natives of Bigorre? Dost thou, a consul, scorn the proud walls of thine own Rome while not disdaining Bazas amid its sand hills? Or because the fertile country and green fields of Poiteau are about thee, shall I lament that the Ausonian consulate—alas! — has sunk to the level of Raraunum,5 and that the official robe grows shabby in some mouldering shrine; whereas in fact it hangs in the renowned city of Roman Quirinus along with the imperial palm-broidered robes, trophies of like distinction, there gleaming, long venerable, with unfrayed gold, keeping fresh the glorious bloom of thy deathless achievement? Or when thou art lodged under the roof of Lucanus,1 thy country house, inhabiting a pile vying with the halls of Rome, shall we take the pretext afforded by the place which gives its name to the vicinity, saying thou dwellest in the hamlet of Condate 2? Let much admit of jests, let sportive fiction also be allowed; but with a smooth tongue to strike against an aching tooth, to sport with stinging-compliments, and to season jests ill-relished with the vinegar of tart satire, oft befits a poet, never a father. For loyalty and natural affection demand that what slander-spinning Rumour instils into guileless ears, that the good-hoping mind of a father should not suffer to take hold and gain firm lodgment in the heart. Even the common herd, malignant in its brutal sneers towards habits formerly observed, does not always hold it crime to alter one's life: for to alter wisely is accounted praise. When thou hearest 1 am changed, ask what is ray pursuit and my business. If 'tis a change from right to wrong, from godliness to wickedness, from temperance to luxury, from honour to baseness, if I live slothful, sluggish, ignoble, take pity on a comrade strayed into evil; a gentle father well may be stirred with anger to restore a fallen friend to right living and by stern reproof to bring him back to better things. But if perchance thou dost likewise hear—and 'tis what I have chosen and what I pursue—that I have vowed my heart to our holy God, following in accord with obedient belief the awful behest of Christ, and that I am convinced by God's word that deathless rewards are laid up for man, purchased by present loss, that, methinks, has not so displeased my revered father that he thinks it a perversion of the mind so to live for Christ as Christ appointed. This is my delight, and this “perversion” I regret not. That I am foolish in the eyes of those who follow other aims gives me no pause, if only in sight of the eternal King my opinion be wise. A short-lived thing is man at best, man with his frail body and passing season, dust and a shadow without Christ: his praise and blame are so much worth as the arbiter himself. Himself he perishes and his own mistake must bear him company, and with the judge who pronounced it a verdict dies and passes. And unless, while this present time is granted, we take careful heed to live according to the command of Christ our Lord, too late, when man has put off his mortal frame, will be his complaint that while he feared the light rebuke of human tongues, he feared not the severe wrath of the Heavenly Judge. And that He sitteth on the throne at the right hand of the eternal Father, that He is set over all as king, and that as years roll away He will come to try all races with even-balanced judgment, and bestow due rewards upon their several deeds, I for my part believe, and, fearing, toil with restless zeal that, if so it may be, I be not cut off by death ere I am cut off from sin. Against His coming my believing heart trembles with fluttering strings and my soul, even now aware of what shall be, quakes with foreboding lest, shackled with paltry cares for the body and weighted with a load of business, if perchance the awful trump should peal from the opened heaven, it should fail to raise itself on light pinions into the air to meet the Lord,1 flitting in Heaven amid glorified thousands of the saints, who through the void up to the stars on high shall with unlaborious effort uplift light feet, unshackled with the world's fetters, and wafted on soft clouds shall pass amid the stars to worship the Heavenly King in mid air and join their glorious companies with Christ whom they adore. This is my fear, this my task, that the Last Day overtake me not asleep in the black darkness of profitless pursuits, spending wasted time amid empty cares. For what shall I do if, while I drowse amid sluggish hopes, Christ, disclosed to me from his heavenly citadel, should flash forth, and 1, dazzled by the sudden beams of my Lord coming from opened Heaven, should seek the doleful refuge of murky night, confounded by the o'erwhelming light? Wherefore, that neither doubt of the truth, nor love of this present life with delight in worldly things and anxious toil should bring this on me, I am resolved to forestall calamity by my plan of life, to end anxieties while life remains, awaiting with untroubled heart fierce Death, the general doom of things for ages yet to come. If this thou dost approve, rejoice in thy friend's rich hope: if otherwise, leave me to be approved by Christ alone.

> Latin: Quarta redit duris haec iam messoribus aestas,
et totiens cano bruma gelu riguit,
ex quo nulla tuo mihi littera venit ab ore,
nulla tua vidi scripta notata manu,
ante salutifero felix quam charta libello
dona negata diu multiplicata daret,
trina etenim vario florebat epistula textu,
set numerosa triplex pagina carmen erat.
dulcia multimodis quaedam subamara querellis,
anxia censurae miscuerat pietas,
sed milli mite patris plus quam censoris acerbum
sedit, et e blandis aspera penso animo,
ista suo regerenda loco tamen et graviore
vindicis heroi sunt agitanda sono.
interea levior paucis praecurret iambus
disere to referens mutua verba pede.
Nunc elegi salvere iubent dictaque salute,
ut fecere aliis orsa gradumque, silent.
Ausonio Paulinus
Quid abdicatas in meam curam, pater,
redire Musas praecipis?
negant Camenis nec patent Apollini
dicata Christo pectora,
fuit ista quondam non ope, sed studio pari
tecum mihi concordia,
ciere surdum Delphica Phoebum specu,
vocare Musas numina,
fandique munus munere indultum dei
petere e nemoribus aut iugis,
nunc alia mentem vis agit, maior deus,
aliosque mores postulat.
sibi reposeens ab homine 1 munus suum,
vivamus ut vitae patri,
vacare vanis, otio aut negotio,
et fabulosis litteris
vetat; suis ut pareamus legibus
lucemque cernamus suam,
quam vis sophorum callida arsque rhetorum et
figmenta vatum nubilant,
qui corda falsis atque vanis imbuunt
tantumque linguas instruunt,
nihil adferentes, ut salutem conferant,
quod veritatem detegat.
quid enim tenere vel bonum aut verum queant,
qui non tenent summae caput,
veri bonique fomitem et fontem deum,
quem nemo nisi in Christo videt?
Hic veritatis lumen est, vitae via,
vis, mens, manus, virtus patris,
sol aequitatis, fons bonorum, flos dei,
natus deo, mundi sator,
mortalitatis vita nostrae et mors necis.
magister hic virtutium,
deusque nobis atque pro nobis homo,
nos induendus induit,
aeterna iungens homines inter et deum
in utrumque se commercia,
hic ergo nostris ut suum praecordiis
vibraverit eaelo iubar,
abstergit aegrum corporis pigri situm
habitumque mentis innovat:
exhaurit omne, quod iuvabat antea,
castae voluptatis vice,
totusque nostra iure domini vindicat
et corda et ora et tempora,
se cogitari, intellegi, credi, legi,
se vult timeri et diligi,
aestus inanes, quos movet vitae labor
praesentis aevi tramite,
abolet futura cum deo vitae fides.
quae, quas videmur spernere,
non ut profanas abicit aut viles opes,
set ut magis caras monet
caelo reponi ereditas Christo deo,
qui plura promisit datis,
contempta praesens vel mage deposita sibi
multo ut rependat faenore,
sine fraude custos, aucta creditoribus
bonus aera reddet debitor
multaque sprctam largior pecuniam
restituet usura deus.
Huic vacantem vel studentem et deditum,
in hoc reponentem omnia
ne quaeso segnem neve perversum putes
nec crimineris impium,
pietas abesse Christiano qui potest?
namque argumentum mutuum est
pietatis, esse Christianum, et impii,
non esse Christo subdilum.
hanc cum tenere discimus, possum tibi
non exhibere, id est patri,
cui cuncta sancta iura, cara nomina
debere me voluit deus?
tibi disciplinas, dignitatem, litteras,
linguae, togae, famae decus
provectus, altus, institutus debeo,
patrone, praeceptor, pater.
Sed cur remotus tamdiu degam, arguis
pioque motu irasceris,
conducit istud aut necesse est aut placet:
veniale, quidquid horum, erit.
ignosce amanti, si geram quod expedit;
gratare, si vivam, ut libet.
Ausonio Paulinus
defore me patriis tota trieteride terris
atque alium legisse vagis erroribus orbem,
culta prius vestrae oblitum consortia vitae,
increpitas sanctis mota pietate querellis.
amplector patrio venerandos pectore motus
et mihi gratandas salvis adfectibus iras.
set reditum inde meum, genitor, te poscere mallem,
unde dari possit, revocandum me tibi credam,
cum steriles fundas non ad divina precatus,
Castalidis supplex averso numine Musis?
non his numinibus tibi me patriaeque reduces.
surda vocas et nulla rogas (levis hoc feret aura,
quod datur in nihilum) sine numine nomina Musas.
inrita ventosae rapiunt haec vota procellae,
quae non missa deo vacuis in nubibus haerent
nec penetrant superi stelantem regis in aulam.
Si tibi eum mei reditus, illum adspice et ora,
qui tonitru summi quatit ignea culmina caeli,
qui trifido igne micat nec inania murmura miscet
quique satis caelo soles largitur et imbres,
qui super omne, quod est, vel in omni totus ubique,
omnibus infuso rebus regit omnia Christo:
quo mentes tenet atque movet, quo tempora nostra
et loca disponit, quod si contraria votis
constituat nostri, prece deflectendus in illa est,
quae volumus. quid me accusas? si displicet actus
quem gero agente deo, prius est: fiat reus auctor,
cui placet aut formare meos aut vertere sensus.
nam mea si reputes, quae pristina, quae tibi nota.
sponte fatebor eum modo me non esse, sub illo
tempore qui fuerim, quo non perversus habebar
et perversus eram falsi caligine cernens,
stulta dei sapiens et mortis pabula vivens.
quo magis ignosci mihi fas, quia promptius ex hoc
agnosci datur a summo genitore novari,
quod non more meo geritur: non, arbitror, istic
confessus dicar mutatae in prava notandum
errorem mentis, quoniam sim sponte professus
me non mente mea vitam mutasse priorem,
mens nova mi,fateor, means nonmea: non meaquondam,
set mea nunc auctore deo, qui, si quid in actu
ingeniove meo sua dignum ad munia vidit,
gratia prima tibi, tibi gloria debita cedit,
cuius praeceptis partum est, quod Christus amaret.
Quare gratandum magis est tibi, quam queritandum,
quod tuus ille, tuis studiis et moribus ortus,
Paulinus, cui te non infitiare parentem,
nec modo, cum credis perversum, sic mea verti
consilia, ut sim promeritus Christi fore, dum sum
Ausonii, feret ille tuae sua praemia laudi
deque tua primum tibi deferet arbore fructum.
Unde, precor, meliora putes nec maxima perdas
praemia detestando tuis bona fontibus orta.
non etenim mihi mens vaga, sed neque participantum
vita fugax hominum, Lyciae qua scribis in antris
Pcgaseum vixisse equitem, licet avia multi
numine agente eolant, clari velut ante sophorum
pro studiis musisque suis: ut nunc quoque, castis
qui Christum sumpsere animis, agitare frequentant,
non inopes animi neque de feritate legentes
desertis habitare locis; sed in ardua versi
sidera spectantesque deum verique profunda
perspicere intenti de vanis libera curis
otia amant strepitumque fori rerumque tumultus
cunctaque divinis inimica negotia donis,
et Christi imperiis et amore salutis, abhorrent
speque fideque deum sponsa mercede sequuntur,
quam referet certus non desperantibus auctor,
si modo non vincant vacuis praesentia rebus,
quaeque videt spernat, quae non videt ut mereatur
secreta ignitus penetrans caelestia sensus.
namque caduca patent nostris, aeterna negantur
visibus; et nunc spe sequimur,quod mente videmus,
spernentes varias, rerum spectacula, formas
et male corporeos bona sollicitantia visus.
attamen haec sedisse illis sententia visa est,
tota quibus iam lux patuit verique bonique,
venturi aeternum saecli et praesentis inane.
At mihi, non eadem cui gloria, cur eadem sit
fama? fides voti par est, sed amoena colenti,
nunc etiam et blanda posito locupletis in acta
litoris, unde haec iam tam festinata locorum
invidia est? utinam iustus me carpere livor
incipiat: Christi sub nomine probra placebunt,
non patitur tenerum mens numine firma pudorem,
et laus hic contempta redit mihi iudice Christo.
Ne me igitur, venerande parens, his ut male versum
increpites studiis neque me vel coniuge carpas
vel mentis vitio: non anxia Bellerophontis
mens est nec Tanaquil mihi, sed Lucretia coniunx,
nec mihi nunc patrii est, ut visa, oblivio caeli,
qui summum suspecto patrem, quem qui colit unum,
hic vere memor est caeli, crede ergo, pater, nos
nec caeli inmemores nec vivere mentis egentes,
humanisque agitare locis, studia ipsa piorum
testantur mores hominum; nec enim impia summum
gens poterit novisse deum: sint multa locorum,
multa hominum studiis inculta, expertia legum,
quae regio agresti ritu earet? aut quid in istis
improbitas aliena nocet? quod tu mihi vastos
Vaseoniae saltus et ninguida Pyrenaei
obicis hospitia, in primo quasi limine fixus
Hispanae regionis agam nec sit locus usquam
rure vel urbe mihi, summum qua dives in orbem
usque patet mersos spectans Hispania soles.
sed fuerit fortuna iugis habitasse latronum,
num lare barbarico rigui mutatus in ipsos,
inter quos habui, socia feritate colonos?
non recipit mens pura malum neque levibus haerent
inspersae fibris maculae: si Vascone saltu
quisquis agit purus sceleris vitam, integer aeque
nulla ab inhumano morum contagia ducit
hospite, sed mihi cur sit ab illo nomine crimen,
qui diversa colo, ut colui, loca iuncta superbis
urbibus et laetis hominum celeberrima cultis?
ac si Vasconicis mihi vita fuisset in oris,
cur non more meo potius formata ferinos
poneret, in nostros migrans, gens barbara ritus?
Nam quod in cversis habitacula ponis Hibera
urbibus et deserta tuo legis oppida versu
montanamque milli Calagorrim et Birbilim acutis
pendentem scopulis eodemque iacentis Hilerdac
exprobras, velut his habitem laris exul et urbis
extra hominum tecta atque vias; — an credis Hiberae
has telluris opes, Hispani nescius orbis,
quo gravis ille poli sub pondere constitit Atlans,
ultima nunc eius mons portio metaque terrae,
discludit bimarem celso qui vertice Calpen?
Birbilis huic tantum, Calagorris, Hilerda notantur,
Caesarea est Augusta cui, Barcinus amoena
et capite insigni despectans Tarraco pontum?
Quid numerem egregias terris et moenibus urbes,
quas geminum felix Hispania tendit in aequor,
qua Betis Oceanum Tyrrhenumque auget Hiberus,
lataque distantis pelagi divortia conplet,
orbe suo finem ponens in limite mundi?
anne tibi, o domine inlustris, si scribere sit mens,
qua regione habites, placeat reticere nitentem
Burdigalam et piceos malis describere Boios?
cumque Maroialicis tua prodigis otia thermis
inter et umbrosos donas tibi vivere lucos,
laeta locis et mira colens habitacula tectis:
nigrantesne casas et texta mapalia culmo
dignaque pellitis habitas deserta Bigerris?
quique superba tuae contemnis moenia Romae
consul, arenosas non dedignare Vasatas?
vel quia Pictonicis tibi fertile rus viret arvis,
Raraunum Ausonias heu devenisse curules
conquerar, et trabeam veteri sordescere fano;
quae tamen augusta Latiaris in urbe Quirini
Caesareas inter parili titulo palmatas
fulget inadtrito longum venerabilis auro,
florentem retinens meriti vivacis honorem.
aut eum Lucani retinens culmine fundi,
aemula Romuleis habitans fastigia tectis,
materiam praebente loco, qui proxima signat,
in Condatino dicetis degere vieo?
Multa iocis pateant, liceat quoque ludere fictis;
sed lingua mulcente gravem interlidere dentem,
ludere blanditiis mentibus et male dulces
fermentare iocos satirae mordacis aceto
saepe poetarum, numquam decet esse parentum,
namque fides pietasque petunt, ut, quod mala nectens
insinuat castis fama auribus, hoc bona voti
mens patris adfigi fixumque haerescere cordi
non sinat, et vulgus scaevo rumore malignum
ante habitos mores, non semper flectere vitam
crimen habet: namque est laudi bene vertere, eum me
inmutatum audis, studium officiumque require.
si pravo rectum, si relligiosa profanis,
luxurie parcum, turpi mutatur honestum,
segnis, iners, obscurus ago, miserere sodalis
in mala perversi: blandum licet ira parentem
excitet, ut lapsum rectis instauret amicum
moribus et monitu reparet meliora severo.
At si forte itidem, quod legi et quod sequor, audis,
corda pio vovisse deo venerabile Christi
imperium docili pro credulitate sequentem,
persuasumque dei monitis aeterna parari
praemia mortali damnis praesentibus empta,
non reor id sancto sic displicuisse parenti,
mentis ut errorem credat sic vivere Christo,
ut Christus sanxit, iuvat hoc nec paenitet huius
erroris, stultus diversa sequentibus esse
nil moror, aeterno mea dum sententia regi
sit sapiens, breve, quidquid homo est, homo corporis aegri,
temporis occidui et sine Christo pulvis et umbra:
quod probat aut damnat tanti est, quanti arbiter ipse.
ipse obit atque illi suus est comitabilis error
cumque suo moriens sententia iudice transit.
Et nisi, dum tempus praesens datur, anxia nobis
cura sit ad domini praeceptum vivere Christi,
sera erit exutis homini querimonia membris,
dum levia humanae metuit convicia linguae,
non timuisse graves divini iudicis iras:
quem patris aeterni solio dextraque sedentem,
omnibus impositum regem et labentibus annis
venturum, ut cunctas aequato examine gentes
iudicet et variis referat sua praemia gestis,
credo equidem et metuens studio properante laboro,
si qua datur, ne morte prius quam crimine solvar.
Huius in adventum trepidis mihi credula fibris
corda tremunt gestitque anima id iam cauta futuri,
praemetuens, ne vineta aegris pro corpore curis
ponderibusque gravis rerum, si forte recluso
increpitet tuba vasta polo, non possit in auras
regis ad occursum levibus se tollere pinnis,
inter honora volans sanctorum milia caelo,
qui per inane levis neque mundi conpede vinctos
ardua in astra pedes facili molimine tollent
et teneris vecti per sidera nubibus ibunt,
caelestem ut medio venerentur in aere regem
claraque adorato coniungant agmina Christo.
Hic metus est, labor iste, dies ne me ultimus atris
sopitum tenebris sterili deprendat in actu,
tempora sub vacuis ducentem perdita curis,
nam quid agam, lentis si, dum coniveo votis,
Christus ab aetheria mihi proditus arce coruscet
et, subitis domini caelo venientis aperto
praestrictus radiis, obscurae tristia noctis
suffugia inlato confusus lumine quaeram?
Quod mihi ne pareret vel diffidentia veri,
vel praesentis amor vitae rerumque voluptas
curarumque labor, placuit praevertere casus
proposito et curas finire superstite vita
communemque adeo ventura in saecula rebus
expectare trucem securo pectore mortem.
Si placet hoc, gratare tui spe divite amici:
si contra est, Christo tantum me Inique probari.

[¶4] Almighty Father of all things, to whom supreme power belongs, hear, if I pray aright. Let no day be passed by me in sadness, no night disturb my calm repose. Let others' goods not attract me, but rather let my own avail such as implore my aid: may none have a wish to hurt me or the means to hurt me. Let me have no occasion to will ill and let the unruffled power to do well be with me. Let my mind, content with its own and not given to base gains, overcome bodily enticements keeping the conscience of chaste conduct. Let that offending member, the ever-guilty tongue, well-pleasing to malicious ears for the poison it sheds, hate lewd jesting and unseemly words. Let me not be overcome by any man's decease, nor prosper through the death of any; let me never envy any man nor ever tell a lie. Be mine a cheerful home, and at my unpurchased 1 repasts may a well-fed slave bred in my house, my trusty comrade and prosperous henchman, serve blithely; and mine an obedient wife with children born of my clear wife. Upon pure conduct God bestows such gifts: such conduct assures itself of life unending against the world to come.

> Latin: Omnipotens genitor rerum, cui summa potestas,
exaudi, si iusta precor, ne sit mihi tristis
ulla dies, placidam nox rumpat nulla quietem,
nec placeant aliena mihi, quin et mea prosint
supplicibus nullusque habeat mihi vota nocendi
aut habeat nocitura mihi. male velle facultas
nulla sit ac bene posse adsit tranquilla potestas,
mens contenta suo nec turpi dedita lucro
vincat corporeas casto bene conscia lecto
inlecebras, turpesque iocos obscenaque dicta
oderit illa nocens et multum grata malignis
auribus effuso semper rea lingua veneno,
non obitu adfligar cuiusquam aut funere crescam,
invideam numquam cuiquam nec mentiar umquam,
adsit laeta domus epulisque adludat inemptis
venia satur fidusque comes nitidusque minister,
morigera et coniunx caraque ex coniuge nati.
Moribus haec castis tribuit deus: hi sibi mores
perpetuam spondent ventura in saecula vitam.

[¶5] Paulinus to the justly respected lord Gestidius. IT is an insult to present a man of standing who has plenty of sea dainties with anything derived from the land and country-side. But, that I might have excuse for some converse with you, my bosom friend, and to make a show of accompanying these words of mine with some token of respect, I am sending a poor few of the very few fig-peckers which my lads bring home of an evening. And since I blush for their small number, I added on more words to my verses, as though indeed I could increase their number by my chatter. But since both alike are open to criticism, you will do a kind and friendly action by pardoning both, so as to make the fewness of the birds not appear mean, and my wordiness not tiresome. Take, then, these fowl fed in the thickets of the country-side, which the cunning fowler, lurking beneath a screen of bracken, while he beguiles and decoys birds with a call like their own, has taken hanging on his limed twigs—a silly tribe. Then, bringing home his light prey of no slight price, he sets out the catch upon his stall: and the array makes goodly show of prime birds in front gradually thinning out towards the back of the counter. That the more skinny may not displease, the fat birds with their attractive plumpness hold the foremost place, forestalling and delighting the gaze.

> Latin: Iniuria quidem est patri familias maritimis deliciis abundanti terrenum aliquid et agreste praebere; sed ego, ut et causa mihi esset aput unanimitatem tuam aliquid conloquendi et aliquod sermoni huic obsequium viderer adiungere, panculas de paucissimis, quas pueruli vespere inferunt, ficedulas misi. quarum eum erubescerem paucitatem, plura etiam versiculis verba subtexui, quasi vero numerum loquacitate facturus. sed quia utraque culpabilia sunt, tu utrisque benigne ae familiariter ignoscendo facies, ut nec inhumana videatur paucitas nec odiosa garrulitas.
Sume igitur pastas dumoso in rure volucres,
quas latitans filicis sub tegmine callidus anceps,
dum simili mentitur aves fallitque susurro,
agmina viscatis suspendit credula virgis.
tunc referens tenuem non parvo munere praedam
digerit aucupium tabulis: et primus opimis
ordo nitet, sensim tenuatus ad ima tabellae.
ut minus offendat macies, praelata saginae
gratia praeventos pingui iuvat alite visus.

[¶6] THAT thy poor friend's loving gift may find favour with thee, think not on the rich gifts which thou sendest me. For what fit return can I make thee for those fish which the neighbouring shore supplies thee from its teeming pools, so wondrous in appearance, so diverse in shape? But for me in the deep pools amid the rocky shallows only a few shell-fish are bred among the dark seaweed. Of these I give thee a share sending across to thee twice five and twice three shells smelling of the sea's fragrance, filled with delicious meat and substance of double hue. I pray thee accept them gracefully and despise them not as little worth: if they are few, use great love in measuring their quantity.

> Latin: PAUPERIS ut placeat carum tibi munus amici,
munera ne reputes, quae mittis ditia nobis.
nam tibi quid dignum referam pro piscibus illis,
quos tibi vicinum locupleti gurgite litus
suppeditat miros specie formaque diremptos?
at mihi vix alto vada per saxosa profundo
rarus in obscura generatur sphondylus alga.
hinc te participans bis quinque et bis tibi ternas
transmisi aequoreo redolentes nectare testas,
quas viscus praedulce replet bieolore medulla.
Oro libens sumas, nec vilia dedigneris,
quae sunt parva modum magno metitus amore.
Pedite sursum flumina!
investigatum ferre dolo leporem.
quae tantae tenuere morae rumore sub omni?