Letter 1010: I received the letter from your great spirit, in which you graciously explain that the shortage of letter-carriers...

X. To his own heart's lord Lupus, Ruricius. I have received the letter of your magnanimity, in which you deign to make excuse that a scarcity of letter-carriers causes you to sprinkle me but rarely with the dew of your eloquence, and at the same time you also intimate that you are amazed why, when a frequent supply of those carriers is available to me, and an elegant abundance of words is likewise not lacking, I decline to write to you more often. I do not doubt that you have flung this out ironically, as is the eloquence of your wit, since you both abound in couriers and know that I labor under a poverty of speech and that, in the barrenness of my meager talent, the channel of my parched vein, as in the summer months, sweats out its course rather than flows. You added too that, just as Patroclus was to Achilles, or Theseus to Hercules, or Pirithous to Theseus, so you ought to be joined to me. In these tales and deeds of our forebears we ought to take not the precedence of the persons but the comparison of their love, so that, recalling the names of friends, we may follow their examples, and transferring their titles to ourselves we may match their merits, and culling from their very deeds whatever is magnificent and honorable we may usefully fit it to our own life, and may serve one another in pure charity, not in painted flattery, and may strive that what falsehood feigned in the friendships of those poets, the truth of our spirits may carry out in us, so that, while we seem to imitate the ancients, we may leave behind things worthy of imitation, and, praising the deeds of our elders, may ourselves be praised by posterity. These things therefore, my lord, flame of my heart, trusting your persuasion more than my own conscience, I have dictated briefly and hastily, with the bearer in a hurry; and these things your skill and your probity, if it takes thought for a friend's modesty, will either have to conceal or will take care to amend.

X. DOMINO PECTORI SUO LUPO RURICIUS. Accepi litteras magnanimitatis tuae, quibus excusare dignaris, quod, ut me rarius eloquentiae tuae rore respergas, baiuli faciat inopia, simulque etiam indicas te mirari, cur, cum mihi eorum frequentia suppetat, uerborum quoque copia compta non desit, uobis scribere saepius detrectem. quod uos per ironiam, ut est leporis uestri facundia, iactasse non ambigo, cum et uos abundetis tabellariis et me sciatis laborare egestate sermonis ac sterilitate exilis ingenii uelut aestiuis mensibus arentis uenae cursum sudare, non fluere. addidistis etiam, sicut Achilli Patroclum aut Herculi Theseum uel Theseo Pirithoum, ita uos mihi debere sociari. in his fabulis factisque maiorum non praerogatiuam personarum, sed conparationem debemus dilectionis accipere, ut amicorum recolentes nomina sequamur exempla et eorum in nos uocabula transferentes merita conferamus atque ex ipsorum gestis magnifica quaeque et honesta carpentes uitae nostrae utiliter coaptemus et seruiamus nobis in caritate candida, non adulatione fucata studeamusque, quod in amicitiis illorum poetarum falsitas finxit, in nobis animorum ueritas peragat, ut, dum imitari uidemur antiqua, relinquamus imitanda et seniorum facta laudantes laudemur a posteris. haec ergo, domine mi, flamma pectoris mei, persuasioni tuae quam conscientiae meae amplius credens gerulo festinante breuiter cursimque dictaui, quae peritia tua et probitas tua, si amici uerecundiae consuluerit, aut celare debebit aut emendare curabit. 4 pectoris sui Kr., fort. recte, cf. p . 365, 6. 366, 10 . 367, 5 8 comta S 9 hiruina S 12 sterelitate S aestiuus S 14 hirculi S 16 prerogatiuam S 17 antiquorum Luetjohann, amicorum illorum Gustafsson a 18 et eorum i. n. uocabula add. S in marg . tranferentes S 19 queque S 21 fugata S 22 amicitus S 28 consuluerit scripsi, consuiit S, consulit v .