Letter 8021: If I could erase my previous letter by writing a better one, I would multiply my pages endlessly — always improving,...

If I could erase my letter by writing, I would endeavor to do so with manifold intent. But since it is not possible for a man not to err, I — that gray-haired one, yet your father — beg you never to remember my earlier letter: so may father and homeland receive you such as I proclaim you daily to all. I trusted the writings of others, so that with the importunate haste of my pen I might bite. You had done what a wise man does, who read my verses only to Lord Probus, who holds the summit among the learned — which was the right thing to do. I, importunate, who ought not to have trusted another — as far as I can see, I was stirred up in vain. Go therefore to Lord Probus (so may your father live, so may you hear me still alive, whom you have always loved), because I dictated these words almost on my deathbed, and kiss his knees on my behalf and tell him about that final verse: Terentianus led me on in that example — "Thus he speaks weeping, and lets loose the reins of his fleet." All things, however, that were worthy of correction he has foreseen. I greet you with the love I owe. If I survive, I will emend the verses themselves and send them thus. For I received your letter, which you sent by the boy Rufinus, in the month of July: whence it befell that I did not know what had transpired, so that I was moved in that way.