Letter 1002: I know I have undertaken a hard campaign and am lifting a heavy burden on weak shoulders — I who have roused your...

I know that I have undertaken a hard province and that I am lifting a heavy burden upon weak shoulders, I who, so far as concerns me, have roused your Eminence [Florus]—untroubled though you were—with the goads of words. So does feeble youth provoke beasts that threaten with their teeth, and, while it challenges things greater than its strength, supposes that what it hopes will come to pass is a spectacle, not a battle. So does a mind ignorant of the encounter, before the danger, owe its eagerness to the contests. I judge the lion's rage and the beast that Libya nourishes to be gentler in tongue than you. What ignorance has flung me headlong? What fervor of spirit has led me, wandering and a stranger from any acquaintance with you, astray into a trackless path, so that I did not know what one provoked owed to your purpose—you who always are the first to begin insults, you who in the gymnasia of injuries have never deserved to be ranked second? You, surely the most practiced reviler of clerics, who have always displayed against them the bites of a fresh and sharp tooth, whom a life lived to the very nail has not deserved to escape, to whom all learning has yielded, and whom the whole company of the religious has fled as though a comet-star: this man I, shameless and weak of brow, have stirred up. With this same assurance I might have challenged the winds to blow, the rivers to run their course, my own Faustus to eloquence—I who have spurred you on to a chattering of speech, sparing as you are, with the iron heels of my words. Forgive me, I beg, and what in others you reckon a fault—silence—spurn it in those who love you, abstain from replies, and condemn by contempt the one who provokes you. Let one drawn forth from the very bosom of the senate-house contend with you: concerning the lineage about Gallus, fall silent: let your silence, if you prevail, be punished by the like penalty [in kind]. Beware, my lord, lest by provoking one lesser in loquacity you begin to be esteemed lowly. For what labor is it to overcome one lying prostrate in that quarter and to lead a triumph over him who confesses himself unequal before the conflict? Yet be for me, before lord Faustus, the clasp of my love, if you are eager to escape complaints, however narrow and rustic.

II. ENNODIVS FLORO. Noui me duram cepisse prouinciam et grauem sarcinam humeris infirmis adtollere, qui sublimitatem tuam quantum ad me quietam uerborum stimulis excitaui. sic minaces dente bestias inualida lacessit adulescentia et dum maiora uiribus prouocat, quod euenire optat spectaculum putat esse, non proelium. sic mens congressionis ignara certaminibus ante periclum debet affectum. leonis rabiem et quam Libya alit bestiam quam te lingua censeo mitiorem. quae me praecipitauit inscitia? qui animi feruor a cognitione tui peregrinantem 1 uicini T adiangens T, adnrgee fort . 2 aUceris L adaliscentia B, adolescentiae Pb 8 perfectionem B, om. LPTVb; quae primordii ee momtrant fort. (cf. Wiener Studien II p. 234) 4 exortationia LPV 6 reum noti L celestia LPT etaic hi pie- rwnque . 7 unum T num minoribus Utteris ita mg. add . mei] Bedulo add. B 9 aepistulae B 10 quem BL 12 solet in quibusdam eese LPTVb praeuii in te] praeuii sine re coni. Bar- tMM 13 potetur B ezstitiwe L II. 16 prouintiam LTV 17 umeris L h eras . infirmus B attollere LPTV 18 minaois LllV 19 sinualida B aduliscentia JB, adole- LPTV 21 prelium L 22 periclum BL, periculum TV libya B, libia LPTV alet B 24 inscicia T, insicia P, inscia b qui animi BPb, quia nimis TV, qui animis L 1* duxit in deuium, ut nescirem quid intentioni lacessitus deberet, qui semper contumelias primus incipit, qui in iniuriarum. gymnasiis numquam meruit posthaberi? clericorum certe exereitaissimus maledictor, qui ad eos semper nouelli et acuti dentis morsus exhibuit quem euadere ad unguem ducta uita non meruit, cui cessit omnis eruditio et quasi cometen sidus religiosorum fugit uniuersitas: hunc ego inprobus et fronte debilis excitaui. hac fiducia prouocassem uentos ad flandum, ad cursum flumina, Faustum meum ad facundiam, qua te ad garrulitatem loquendi parcus ferratis uerborum calcibus animaui. ignosce, quaeso, et quod in aliis uitium putas, taciturnitatem amantes sperne, abstine a responsis, prouocantem damna contemptu. tecum decertet de mediis curiae sinibus eductus: circa Gallum prosapia conticesce: silentii tui, si praeuales, talione multetur. caue, mi domine, ne incipias minorem loquacitate prouocando humilis aestimari. quid enim laboris est iacentem in ea parte superare et triumphum de eo ducere, qui se ante conflictum inparem confitetur? esto mihi tamen apud domnum Faustum amoris mei fibula, si querelas quamuis angustas et rusticas studes euadere.