Letter 9002: SIDONIUS TO THE LORD POPE EUPHRONIUS, GREETINGS
Sidonius Apollinaris→Euphronius, of Colonia Armeniæ|c. 467 AD|Sidonius Apollinaris
grief death
SIDONIUS TO THE LORD POPE EUPHRONIUS, GREETINGS
1. Albiso the bishop and Proclus the deacon — rightly to be pronounced as teachers of character, since they deserve to be your pupils — brought your letter, with which you have favored me with its most sacred affection. That letter, however, lays upon me as much honor as it does burden. Hence I rejoice so much at its blessing as I am confounded by its injunction, since I am wholly thrown into disarray and comply in part — but only in part. For you command things as different from one another as they are excessive, and you decree to be unfolded a work which is as difficult to accomplish from my extremity as it is impudent to begin.
2. But if I rightly measure in you the greatness of tested piety, you have labored more to have the feeling of your heart made public than the effect of my work. For when Jerome the translator, Augustine the dialectician, and Origen the allegorist are bringing forth for you rich sheaves laden with spiritual meanings in a wholesome harvest of learning, it is certainly not from my quarter that the dry straw of a fasting tongue will crackle for you at this moment. By this standard you would rightly pair the hoarse honking of geese with the singing of swans and the chattering whispers of importunate sparrows with the modulated laments of nightingales.
3. What more? Even thus it would be done arrogantly and indecorously, should I undertake the weight of the task commanded — I, a new cleric and an old sinner, light in knowledge and heavy in conscience — with the result that if I sent out whatever I had written, my person would not then be absent from the mockery of those who judged it, even though it had been absent from their sight. I beg you, lord bishop, do not too insistently require my modesty — which is hiding as best it can — to be made unsightly by the rashness of this undertaking, since the malice of detractors is such that material which you send tends more quickly to incur reproach when it has been started than approval when it has been finished. Deign to be mindful of us, lord bishop.
EPISTULA II
Sidonius domino papae Euphronio salutem.
1. Albiso antistes Proculusque levites, ideo nobis morum magistri pronuntiandi, quia vestri merentur esse discipuli, litteras detulerunt, quarum me sacrosancto donastis affectu; quae tamen litterae plurimum nobis honoris, plus oneris imponunt. unde et ipsarum sic benedictione laetor, quod iniunctione confundor, quippe qui ex asse turbatus vel ex parte non pareo. iubetis enim tam diversa quam nimia explicarique decernitis opus, quod ab extremitate mea tam difficile conpletur quam inpudenter incipitur.
2. sed si amplitudinem in vobis pietatis expertae bene metior, plus laborastis, ut affectus vestri cordis quam nostri operis effectus publicaretur. neque enim, cum Hieronymus interpres, dialecticus Augustinus, allegoricus Origenes gravidas tibi spiritalium sensuum spicas doctrinae salubris messe parturiant, nunc scilicet tibi a partibus meis arida ieiunantis linguae stipula crepitabunt. hoc more tu et olorinis cantibus anseres ravos et modificatis lusciniarum querelis inproborum passerum fringultientes susurros iure sociaveris.
3. quid? quod sic quoque arroganter fieret indecenterque, si negotii praecepti pondus aggrederer, novus clericus peccator antiquus, scientia levi gravi conscientia, videlicet ut, si scriptum quocumque misissem, persona mea nec tunc abesset risui iudicantum, cum defuisset obtutui. ne, quaeso, domine papa, nimis exigas verecundiam meam qualitercumque latitantem coepti operis huiusce temeritate devenustari, quia tantus est livor derogatorum, ut materia, quam mittis, velocius sortiatur inchoata probrum quam terminata suffragium. memor nostri esse dignare, domine papa.
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SIDONIUS TO THE LORD POPE EUPHRONIUS, GREETINGS
1. Albiso the bishop and Proclus the deacon — rightly to be pronounced as teachers of character, since they deserve to be your pupils — brought your letter, with which you have favored me with its most sacred affection. That letter, however, lays upon me as much honor as it does burden. Hence I rejoice so much at its blessing as I am confounded by its injunction, since I am wholly thrown into disarray and comply in part — but only in part. For you command things as different from one another as they are excessive, and you decree to be unfolded a work which is as difficult to accomplish from my extremity as it is impudent to begin.
2. But if I rightly measure in you the greatness of tested piety, you have labored more to have the feeling of your heart made public than the effect of my work. For when Jerome the translator, Augustine the dialectician, and Origen the allegorist are bringing forth for you rich sheaves laden with spiritual meanings in a wholesome harvest of learning, it is certainly not from my quarter that the dry straw of a fasting tongue will crackle for you at this moment. By this standard you would rightly pair the hoarse honking of geese with the singing of swans and the chattering whispers of importunate sparrows with the modulated laments of nightingales.
3. What more? Even thus it would be done arrogantly and indecorously, should I undertake the weight of the task commanded — I, a new cleric and an old sinner, light in knowledge and heavy in conscience — with the result that if I sent out whatever I had written, my person would not then be absent from the mockery of those who judged it, even though it had been absent from their sight. I beg you, lord bishop, do not too insistently require my modesty — which is hiding as best it can — to be made unsightly by the rashness of this undertaking, since the malice of detractors is such that material which you send tends more quickly to incur reproach when it has been started than approval when it has been finished. Deign to be mindful of us, lord bishop.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.