Letter 8010: To Ruricius [Ruricius of Limoges, a cultivated aristocrat who later became bishop].
Sidonius Apollinaris→Ruricius of Limoges|c. 467 AD|Sidonius Apollinaris
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To Ruricius [Ruricius of Limoges, a cultivated aristocrat who later became bishop].
I am deeply pleased that you both value and love literature. For the fire of your intellect and the river of your words I would declare more freely, if only your eagerness to praise me did not make it impossible for you to accept praise yourself. Though your letter displays charity's sweetness, nature's eloquence, and learning's discipline, you have erred in only one thing: your choice of subject matter — though even that can be called praiseworthy in intention, since you seem to have strayed in judgment. You heap enormous titles of praise upon my character; but if you had any consideration for my modesty, you should have remembered Symmachus's dictum: "True praise adorns, but false praise punishes."
Yet if I read your heart correctly, you did this as much by art as by affection, beyond the enormous love you display. For it is the habit of eloquent men to test their talents against difficult material and to drive the skilled plow of a fertile mind precisely where the barren argument offers the dullest, thinnest soil. The world overflows with such examples: the physician is known in desperation, the helmsman in the storm. Their reputation is built by the very dangers that precede it — a fame that stays hidden until it finds something to prove itself against.
So too a great orator: if he takes on a narrow subject, he displays his vast talent all the more impressively. Marcus Tullius surpassed all others in his other speeches, but in the case of Aulus Cluentius he surpassed himself. Marcus Fronto shone in all his orations but exceeded his own standard in the speech against Pelops. Gaius Plinius [Pliny the Younger] won more glory from the centumviral court in his speech for Attia Variola than when he delivered his comparable panegyric to the incomparable emperor Trajan.
So you have done the same: in your desire to exercise your skill, you did not fear that even my own self-knowledge would stand in your way. Rather, heal my weaknesses with your prayers, and do not crush the fragility of my still-ailing soul under the false weight of flattering eloquence. Since your life is even more beautiful than your beautiful prose, you would do me a greater favor if you chose to pray for me rather than to make speeches about me. Farewell.
EPISTULA X
Sidonius Ruricio suo salutem.
1. Esse tibi usui pariter et cordi litteras granditer gaudeo. nam stilum vestrum quanta comitetur vel flamma sensuum vel unda sermonum, liberius assererem, nisi, dum me laudare non parum studes, laudari plurimum te vetares. et quamquam in epistula tua servet caritas dulcedinem, natura facundiam, peritia disciplinam, in sola materiae tamen electione peccasti, licet id ipsum praedicari possit in voto, quod videris errasse <in> iudicio. ingentes praeconiorum titulos moribus meis applicas; sed si pudoris nostri fecisses utcumque rationem, Symmachianum illud te cogitare par fuerat: ut vera laus ornat, ita falsa castigat.
2. quo loci tamen si animum vestrum bene metior, super affectum, quem maximum ostendis, hoc tu et arte fecisti. nam moris est eloquentibus viris ingeniorum facultatem negotiorum probare difficultatibus et illic stilum peritum quasi quendam fecundi pectoris vomerem figere, ubi materiae sterilis argumentum velut arida caespitis macri glaeba ieiunat. scaturrit mundus similibus exemplis: medicus in desperatione, gubernator in tempestate cognoscitur; horum omnium famam praecedentia pericula extollunt, quae profecto delitescit, nisi ubi probetur invenerit.
3. sic et magnus orator, si negotium aggrediatur angustum, tunc amplum plausibilius manifestat ingenium. Marcus Tullius in actionibus ceteris ceteros, pro Aulo Cluentio ipse se vicit. Marcus Fronto cum reliquis orationibus emineret, in Pelopem se sibi praetulit. Gaius Plinius pro Attia Variola plus gloriae de centumvirali suggestu domum rettulit, quam cum Marco Ulpio incomparabili principi comparabilem panegyricum dixit.
4. sic et ipse fecisti, qui, dum vis exercere scientiam tuam, non veritus es fore tibi impedimento etiam conscientiam meam. quin potius supplicando meis medere languoribus neque per decipulum male blandientis eloquii aegrotantis adhuc animae fragilitatem gloriae falsae pondere premas. sane cum tibi sermone pulchro vita sit pulchrior, plus mihi indulges, si mei causa orare potius velis quam perorare. vale.
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To Ruricius [Ruricius of Limoges, a cultivated aristocrat who later became bishop].
I am deeply pleased that you both value and love literature. For the fire of your intellect and the river of your words I would declare more freely, if only your eagerness to praise me did not make it impossible for you to accept praise yourself. Though your letter displays charity's sweetness, nature's eloquence, and learning's discipline, you have erred in only one thing: your choice of subject matter — though even that can be called praiseworthy in intention, since you seem to have strayed in judgment. You heap enormous titles of praise upon my character; but if you had any consideration for my modesty, you should have remembered Symmachus's dictum: "True praise adorns, but false praise punishes."
Yet if I read your heart correctly, you did this as much by art as by affection, beyond the enormous love you display. For it is the habit of eloquent men to test their talents against difficult material and to drive the skilled plow of a fertile mind precisely where the barren argument offers the dullest, thinnest soil. The world overflows with such examples: the physician is known in desperation, the helmsman in the storm. Their reputation is built by the very dangers that precede it — a fame that stays hidden until it finds something to prove itself against.
So too a great orator: if he takes on a narrow subject, he displays his vast talent all the more impressively. Marcus Tullius surpassed all others in his other speeches, but in the case of Aulus Cluentius he surpassed himself. Marcus Fronto shone in all his orations but exceeded his own standard in the speech against Pelops. Gaius Plinius [Pliny the Younger] won more glory from the centumviral court in his speech for Attia Variola than when he delivered his comparable panegyric to the incomparable emperor Trajan.
So you have done the same: in your desire to exercise your skill, you did not fear that even my own self-knowledge would stand in your way. Rather, heal my weaknesses with your prayers, and do not crush the fragility of my still-ailing soul under the false weight of flattering eloquence. Since your life is even more beautiful than your beautiful prose, you would do me a greater favor if you chose to pray for me rather than to make speeches about me. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.