Letter 9016: If you recall, my dear son, you had asked that this ninth book — specially composed for you — be added to the eight...

To Firminus [the dedicatee of Book 9]. If you recall, my dear son, you had asked that this ninth book — specially composed for you — be added to the eight I wrote for Constantius, a man of singular genius, sound counsel, and an eloquence in public affairs that surpasses all others, whether they argue different cases or similar ones. The pledge is fulfilled — not perfectly, perhaps, but at least promptly. For when I returned home after traveling through my dioceses, whatever rough drafts happened to be lying around on rotting, age-stained scraps, I hurriedly gathered and copied them out as fast as I could. The winter weather did not slow me: I completed your orders immediately, even though the ink froze on the page and the drops from the pen were harder than the quill — you would have thought they broke rather than flowed under the pressing fingers. Even so, I made sure to finish before the warm winds of Favonius and the rains of February married themselves to our twelfth month [the last month of the old Roman calendar]. It remains for you, as my judge, to grant me the two incompatible things of care and speed. For whenever a book is ordered quickly, the author looks not so much for honor from merit as from obedience. Since you have declared that you liked the iambic poems I recently sent to the very kind Gelasius, I will also present you with these verses in the Sapphic meter of Mytilene: My boat has now run its bold course across a double sea of composition, and did not fear to steer its helm through both the prose and poetic currents. It furls its sails, takes in the canvas, lays down its oar, and its benches touching shore, it seeks to kiss the welcoming sand. Though the muttering chorus of the envious betrays its rage with doglike snarling, nothing is said openly — they fear the public verdict. They batter the stern, they shake the hull, they beat against the rounded flanks, and sinister tongues hiss and whistle around the mast. But I, my prow held straight by art, fearing no swelling storms, have reached my port, winning the double crown — The crown the Roman people granted me, the one the purple-wearing Senate bestowed, and the one the assembled body of learned judges gave, When Nerva Trajan [the forum of Trajan in Rome, where Sidonius's statue was placed] saw a lasting statue placed among his inscriptions, fixed between the authors of both libraries; And the honor I received, seen up close, after nearly a decade's wait — the office that once governed both patrician and plebeian law [the urban prefecture of Rome]. Beyond heroic verse, I wove much lighter work of many patterns; I often turned elegiac couplets in paired clausulae. Accustomed to riding on eleven syllables, I played in swift hendecasyllables, and sang often in Sapphics — rarely in iambics. I cannot recall how much I wrote in my first youthful fire — and would that the greater part could be silenced and hidden! For as old age draws near, whatever we associate with our final years, the more it shames us to remember youthful frivolities. Which is why, in dread, I have transferred all my care to the art of letters [prose epistolography], lest being guilty in too playful a song I become guilty in deed; Lest I be thought dissolute for charming language, and the fame of the poet stain the rigor of the cleric. Henceforth I will not rush to compose any epigram, nor will I soon be forced to produce any poem, light or grave — Unless perhaps I may speak of the questions put to persecutors and of the martyrs who earned heaven by purchasing life at the price of death... [He names Saint Saturninus of Toulouse, dragged to death by a wild bull from the steps of the Capitol, and pledges to hymn the patron saints who have aided him.] Let us return at the end to prose, to finish the present subject in the order we began, lest — closing a prose work with musical epilogues — it should seem, as Horace warns, that we began building a wine-jar but ended up producing a jug. Farewell.

EPISTULA XVI Sidonius Firmino suo salutem. 1. Si recordaris, domine fili, hoc mihi iniunxeras, ut hic nonus libellus peculiariter tibi dictatus ceteris octo copularetur, quos ad Constantium scripsi, virum singularis ingenii, consilii salutaris, certe in tractatibus publicis ceteros eloquentes, seu diversa sive paria decernat, praestantioris facundiae dotibus antecellentem. sponsio impleta est, non exacte quidem, sed vel instanter. 2. nam peragratis forte dioecesibus cum domum veni, si quod schedium temere iacens chartulis putribus ac veternosis continebatur, raptim coactimque translator festinus exscripsi, tempore hiberno nil retardatus, quin actutum iussa complerem, licet antiquarium moraretur insiccabilis gelu pagina et calamo durior gutta, quam iudicasses imprimentibus digitis non fluere sed frangi. sic quoque tamen compotem officii prius agere curavi, quam duodecimum nostrum, quem Numae mensem vos nuncupatis, Favonius flatu teporo, pluviisque natalibus maritaret. 3. restat, ut te arbitro non reposcamus res omnino discrepantissimas, maturitatem celeritatemque. nam quotiens liber quispiam scribi cito iubetur, non tantum honorem spectat auctor a merito quantum ab obsequio. de reliquo, quia tibi nuper ad Gelasium virum sat benignissimum missos iambicos placuisse pronuntias, per hos te quoque Mitylenaei oppidi vernulas munerabor. Iam per alternum pelagus loquendi egit audacem mea cymba cursum nec bipertito timuit fluento flectere clavum. Solvit antennas, legit alta vela, palmulam ponit manus, atque transtris litori iunctis petit osculandum saltus harenam. Mussitans quamquam chorus invidorum prodat hirritu rabiem canino, nil palam sane loquitur pavetque publica puncta. Verberant puppim, quatiunt carinam, ventilant spondas laterum rotundas, arborem circa volitant sinistrae sibila linguae. Nos tamen rectam comite arte proram, nil tumescentes veriti procellas, sistimus portu, geminae potiti fronde coronae, Quam mihi indulsit populus Quirini, blattifer vel quam tribuit senatus, quam peritorum dedit ordo consors iudiciorum, Cum meis poni statuam perennem Nerva Traianus titulis videret, inter auctores utriusque fixam bybliothecae; Quamque post, visus prope, post bilustre tempus accepi, capiens honorem, qui patrum ac plebis simul unus olim iura gubernat. Praeter heroos ioca multa multis texui pannis; elegos frequenter subditos senis pedibus rotavi commate bino. Nunc per undenas equitare suetus syllabas lusi celer atque metro Sapphico creber cecini, citato rarus iambo. Nec recordari queo, quanta quondam scripserim primo iuvenis calore; unde pars maior utinam taceri possit et abdi! Nam senectutis propiore meta, quicquid extremis sociamur annis, plus pudet, si quid leve lusit aetas, nunc reminisci. Quod perhorrescens ad epistularum transtuli cultum genus omne curae, ne reus cantu petulantiore sim reus actu; Neu puter solvi per amoena dicta, schema si chartis phalerasque iungam, clerici ne quid maculet rigorem fama poetae. Denique ad quodvis epigramma posthac non ferar pronus, teneroque metro vel gravi nullum cito cogar exhinc promere carmen: Persecutorum nisi quaestiones forsitan dicam meritosque caelum martyras mortis pretio parasse praemia vitae. E quibus primum mihi psallat hymnus qui Tolosatem tenuit cathedram, de gradu summo Capitoliorum praecipitatum; Quem negatorem Iovis ac Minervae et crucis Christi bona confitentem vinxit ad tauri latus iniugati plebs furibunda, Ut per abruptum bove concitato spargeret cursus lacerum cadaver cautibus tinctis calida soluti pulte cerebri. Post Saturninum volo plectra cantent, quos patronorum reliquos probavi anxio duros mihi per labores auxiliatos, Singulos quos nunc pia nuncupatim non valent versu cohibere verba; quos tamen chordae nequeunt sonare, corda sonabunt. 4. Redeamus in fine ad oratorium stilum materiam praesentem proposito semel ordine terminaturi, ne, si epilogis musicis opus prosarium clauserimus, secundum regulas Flacci, ubi amphora coepit institui, urceus potius exisse videatur. vale. Apollinaris Sidonius The Miscellany The Latin Library The Classics Page