Letter 4018: How can I better prove to you how greatly I admire your Greek epigrams than by the fact that I have tried to imitate...
To Arrius Antoninus.
How can I better prove to you how greatly I admire your Greek epigrams than by the fact that I have tried to imitate some of them and turn them into Latin? I grant they have lost in the translation, and this is due in the first place to the poorness of my wits, and in the second place - and even more - to what Lucretius calls the poverty of our native tongue. * But if these verses, writ in Latin and by me, seem to you to possess any grace, you may guess how charming the originals are which were written in Greek and by you. Farewell.
[Note: 'De Rerum Natura', i.832.]
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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