Letter 818: The poem is a praise of a skilled rhetorician, but when I search within myself for those many great qualities, I...
To Gaios. (~363 AD)
The poem is a praise of a skilled rhetorician, but when I search within myself for those many great qualities, I find none. Still, I have profited by learning what one must do to be a good writer — though I remain among those who produce poor work.
If you disagree, that is no surprise: affection has a way of deceiving. This is precisely why I so admired the men to whom I showed the encomium — they came away saying they had seen a great deal of the poet's love for the rhetorician.
I am at a loss what to do. If I hide such fine verses, I wrong the man who composed them; but if I display them, I will be laughed at for imagining I am the person in the poem.
How to wrong neither you nor myself I shall have to consider. But by crowning Eudaimon first, you did exactly what I would have done had I been a poet — for that man was sure to repay the favor in kind, poem for poem. People generally prefer those more like themselves to those less so.
So I am more grateful for the honor than I am concerned about who came first.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
Γαΐῳ. (363)
Τὸ ποίημά ἐστιν ἔπαινος δεξιοῦ ῥήτορος, ἐγὼ δὲ τῶν
πολλῶν ἐκείνων καὶ μεγάλων ἐν ἐμαυτῷ ζητῶν εὗρον οὐδέν.
ἀλλ’ ὤνημαι μὲν μαθών, ἃ ποιῶν ἄν τις ἀγαθὸς εἴη συγγρα-
φεύς, εἰμὶ δὲ τῶν τὰ φαῦλα γεννώντων.
εἰ δὲ σοὶ μὴ δο-
κῶ, θαυμαστὸν οὐδέν· τὸ γὰρ φιλεῖν ἐξαπατᾶν πέφυκε. διὸ
καὶ σφόδρα ἠγάσθην τῶν ἀνδρῶν, οἷς ἔδειξα τὸ ἐγκώμιον·
ἀπῆλθον γὰρ πολὺ φήσαντες ἑωρακέναι τοῦ ποιητοῦ τὸ φίλ-
τρον εἰς τὸν ῥήτορα.
καὶ ἔγωγε οὐκ ἔχω ὅ τι ποιῶ. εἰ
μὲν γὰρ κρύψαιμι οὕτω καλὰ ἔπη, τὸν ποιήσαντα ἀδικήσω·
δεικνὺς δὲ γέλωτα ὀφλήσω οἰόμενος αὐτὸς ἐν τοῖς ἔπεσιν εἶ
νᾶι.
ἀλλ’ ὅπως μὲν μήτε σὲ μήτε ἐμαυτὸν ἀδικήσω, σκέ-
ψομαι· τὸν στέφανον δὲ Εὐδαίμονι προτέρῳ περιθεὶς πρᾶγμα
ἐποίησας, ὅ κἂν αὐτὸς ἐγώ, ποιητὴς εἴπερ ἦν. ὁ γὰρ ἀνὴρ
ἔμελλεν αὐτῷ τῷ εἴδει τὴν ἀμοιβὴν ἀποδώσειν, ποίημα ἀντὶ
ποιήματος. καὶ ὅλως τοὺς μᾶλλον ὁμοίους πρὸ τῶν ἧττον
αὑτοῖς ἐοικότων εἰώθασιν ἄνθρωποι ποιεῖσθαι.
τοῦ οὖν
τετιμῆσθαι μᾶλλον οἶδα χάριν ἢ λογίζομαι πότερος πρότερος.
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