Letter 10: the commissioned letter might neither be denied to friendship when written, nor subjected to your censure when read.

[The opening is lost; the surviving text begins:] ...the letter imposed upon you, so that what was written should not be denied to friendship, nor what was read be subjected to censure. 2. Let us pass over these matters. You bid me send a copious page once again. To obey, the will is at hand for one who hastens, but the occasions are lacking. For a greeting, unless an active subject-matter carries some business along with it, is brief; and whoever stretches it out with unnecessary words strays and wanders, swerved aside from the rule of the Sallustian path, who blames Catiline for having had eloquence enough but too little wisdom. Therefore, having said "hail," we presently say "farewell." Pray for us. 3. But it is well, it is well, because, just as I was about to fold up this little sheet, a matter chanced to come to my aid; and if either my joy or my anger should restrain itself any longer from reproaching you with it, I shall myself judge that I deserve the affront I have received. You have fallen, master, into my hands (and I do not so much exult as I insult), you have fallen, and indeed such as my longings have long awaited this great while past. I doubt, to be sure, whether you fell even unwillingly, but at any rate like one unwilling, since it was with your foreknowledge -- or, if you nevertheless deny this too strongly, with your acquiescence -- that I was passed by unsaluted by your books, and these books (which is far more injurious), when they crossed the territory of Auvergne, grazed not only my walls but even my very flanks. 4. Or were you afraid that we might envy your words? But by God's indulgence we are addicted to no vice less than this; and if I were as subject to it as others are, even so the despair of attaining it would take away all rivalry of contending. Or did you dread my arrogance, as of a hard and rigid applauder? But what man's neck is so stiff with expertise, or what man so dropsical with conceit, that he would not attend even your lukewarm efforts with the most fervent praises? 5. Or did you take care that I should be disdained and neglected for this reason, that you despised me as a younger man? This I scarcely believe. Or because I am unlearned? This I bear more readily, yet in such a way that I, who know not how to speak, do not also fail to know how to listen; for even those who attended the games of the Circus do not therefore pass judgment on the chariots. Or were we at variance through some chance, so that I should be thought likely to disparage these little books you had published? And yet, with God as our protector, not even enemies can pretend that our friendship is thin. 6. "To what end all this?" you ask. Lo, now I disclose both what I rejoice to have tracked down and what I am angry at you for having concealed from me. I have read your volumes, which Riochatus -- a bishop and a monk, and twice a stranger in this world -- carries back to your Britons on your behalf, he being already blessed even in the present circumstances, who does not grow old, and who, not destined to fail the living after his burial, becomes through the very things he wrote his own survivor. And so this same venerable man, while he was tarrying at our town, until the storm of the aroused nations should roar itself out -- whose monstrous whirlwind had then bristled up on this side and on that -- so unveiled the rest of your gifts that, very courteously, he kept covered the more excellent things he was carrying, declining to illuminate my thorns with your flowers. 7. But after two months or more, when, even so, he had departed swiftly from us, since certain of the travelers had betrayed that he was secretly carrying treasures of mystic wealth in closed wrappings, I pursued him as he went away with swift horses, which could easily outstrip the previous day's stages of his journey, and I leapt with a kiss upon the throat of the robber thus caught, in human jest but with the gesture of a wild beast, just as if to shake off any one of her whelps from the neck of the ravisher, a Parthian tigress robbed of her young darts ahead on flying foot. 8. Why say much? I embrace the knees of my captured guest, I halt his beasts of burden, I bind the reins, I loose the baggage, I find the sought-for volume, I bring it forth, I read it eagerly, I make excerpts, cutting away the greatest headings from the great matters. The leaping rapidity of my scribes also afforded me a certain shorthand for dictating in haste, who grasped by signs what they could not hold by letters. With what tears we were indeed mutually moistened, bedewed each in turn by the other's weeping, then when we were parted after an embrace often repeated, it is long to tell and matters not; this is enough for triumphal joy, that, laden with the spoils of affection and possessed of spiritual plunder, I returned home. 9. You ask now what I judge concerning my booty; I would be unwilling to disclose it yet, so that you might hang longer in expectation; for I should avenge myself the more if I kept silent what I felt. But by now you yourself are not vainly proud, inasmuch as you understand that there is in you a power of pleading so great that it strikes out for your reader, whether reluctant or willing, the necessity of acclamation by the force of its delight. Accordingly, receive what we, who have also suffered an injury, think concerning your writings. 10. We have read a most laborious, manifold work, keen, sublime, arranged under headings and heaped up with examples, divided into two parts under the form of a dialogue, and into four parts under the theme of the questions at issue. You had written very many things ardently, more things pompously; these plainly yet not rustically; those subtly yet not craftily; weighty matters maturely, profound matters carefully, doubtful matters steadily, argumentative matters in the manner of a debater, certain things severely, certain things winningly, all things morally, choicely, powerfully, most eloquently. 11. And so, having followed you through such kinds of narrating over the whole field of your most far-ranging composition, I readily perceived nothing in the eloquence of the rest, nothing in their talents, equal to your polish. That I truly think these things you sufficiently approve, since, not being offended, I judge no otherwise. In short, the discourse of an absent man, so far as we suppose, cannot grow greater, unless perhaps the voice, the hand, the movement, the modesty of the author speaking face to face should add something to these. 12. Endowed therefore with these gifts of mind and of letters, you have, my lord bishop, joined to yourself as a wife a beautiful woman -- yet one wedding you with Deuteronomy's sanction; her, while still a young man, you spied amid the hostile bands, and there, on the battle line of the opposing party, having fallen in love with her, repelled by no resisting warriors, you carried off, with the conquering arm of desire -- Philosophy, that is, who, violently removed from the number of sacrilegious arts, with the hair of superfluous religion shaved off and the eyebrow of secular knowledge plucked away, and with the wrinkles of her very ancient garments cut off -- that is, the windings of gloomy dialectic that veil falsehoods of morals and unlawful things -- now purified, joined her limbs to yours in a mystic embrace. 13. She, from your years long since the handmaid following your foremost concerns, she the inseparable companion at your side, whether you are exercised in the city's wrestling-schools or are mortified in hidden solitudes, she the partner of the Athenaeum, she of the monastery, with you renounces worldly disciplines, with you proclaims the supernal. Whoever shall provoke you, coupled to her in this marriage, will perceive that the Academy of Plato does military service to the Church of Christ, and that you philosophize more nobly; first, that you assert the ineffable Wisdom of God the Father together with the eternity of the Holy Spirit; 14. then, moreover, that you neither feed long hair nor glory in cloak or club as in sophistic insignia, nor affect arrogance from the distinction of garments, ostentation from elegance, boastfulness from squalor; nor do you sufficiently emulate this, that throughout the gymnasia there are painted, Areopagite-fashion or in the council-halls, Speusippus with bent neck, Aratus with stooped, Zeno with contracted brow, Epicurus with skin distended, Diogenes with flowing beard, Socrates with falling hair, Aristotle with arm thrust out, Xenocrates with leg drawn up, Heraclitus with eyes closed in weeping, Democritus with lips opened in laughter, Chrysippus with fingers clenched on account of the reckonings of numbers, Euclid with them spread apart on account of the spaces of measurements, Cleanthes with them gnawed away on account of both. 15. Rather, whoever shall contend with you will find that the Stoics, Cynics, and Peripatetics, those heresiarchs, are shaken by their own weapons and by their own engines as well. For their followers, if they shall resist Christian doctrine and sense, presently, bound by you their master with native fetters, will be entangled headlong into their own nets, while the hooked syllogisms of your proposition catch as on a hook the slippery tongue of those who shuffle, since you rather knot up the slippery questions with categorical coils, after the manner of keen physicians, who, when reason compels, prepare a remedy against poisons even out of the serpent. 16. But in these times this belongs to you alone, whether by the contemplation of your conscience or by the virtue of your learning. For who could follow your footsteps with equal step, to whom alone it has been granted to speak better than you learned, to live better than you speak? Wherefore all good men will deservedly celebrate you as most blessed, and that above all men in your age, you whose life by deeds and whose words have so doubly become illustrious that, since indeed the right hand has already numbered your years, proclaimed by your own generation, to be longed for by another, praiseworthy in both kinds of action, you may depart, about to leave yourself to strangers, your own qualities to those nearest you. Deign to be mindful of us, my lord bishop.

epistula iniuncta nec negaretur scripta amicitiae nec subderetur lecta censurae. 2. ista omittamus. mitti paginam copiosam denuo iubes. parere properanti adsunt vota, causae absunt. nam salutatio, nisi negotium aliquod activa deportet materia, succincta est; quam qui porrigit verbis non necessariis, a regula Sallustiani tramitis detortus exorbitat, qui Catilinam culpat habuisse satis eloquentiae sapientiae parum. unde ave dicto mox vale dicimus. orate pro nobis. 3. sed bene est, bene est, quia chartulam iam iamque complicaturo res forte succurrit, de qua exprobranda si diutius vel laetitia sese mea vel ira cohibuerit, ipse me accepta dignum contumelia iudicabo. venisti, magister, in manus meas (nec exulto tantum, verum insulto), venisti, et quidem talis, qualem abhinc longo iamdiu tempore desideria nostra praestolabantur. dubito sane utrum et invitus, at certe similis invito, quippe quo providente vel, si tamen hoc nimis abnuis, adquiescente sim tuis libris insalutatus hisque, quod multo est iniuriosius, territorium Arvernum cum praeterirent, non solum moenia mea, verum etiam latera radentibus. 4. an verebare, ne tuis dictis invideremus? sed dei indultu vitio nulli minus addicimur; cui si ita ut ceteris a mea parte subiaceretur, sic quoque auferret congrediendi aemulationem desperatio consequendi. an supercilium tamquam difficilis ac rigidi plosoris extimescebas? ecquaenam est cuiquam peritiae cervix tanta quive hydrops, ut etiam tepida vestra non ferventissimis laudibus prosequatur? 5. an ideo me fastidiendum negligendumque curasti, quia contemneres iuniorem? quod parum credo. an quia indoctum? quod magis fero, ita tamen, ut qui dicere ignorem, non et audire; quia et qui Circensibus ludis adfuerunt, sententiam de curribus non ferunt. an aliquo casu dissidebamus, ut putaremur his quos edidissetis libellis derogaturi? atqui praesule deo tenues nobis esse amicitias nec inimici fingere queunt. 6. 'ista quorsum?' inquis. ecce iam pando, vel quid indagasse me gaudeam vel quid te celasse succenseam. legi volumina tua, quae Riochatus antistes ac monachus atque istius mundi bis peregrinus Britannis tuis pro te reportat, illo iam in praesentiarum fausto potius, qui non senescit quique viventibus non defuturus post sepulturam fiet per ipsa quae scripsit sibi superstes. igitur hic ipse venerabilis apud oppidum nostrum cum moraretur, donec gentium concitatarum procella defremeret, cuius immanis hinc et hinc turbo tunc inhorruerat, sic reliqua dona vestra detexit, ut perurbane quae praestantiora portabat operuerit, spinas meas illustrare dissimulans tuis floribus. 7. sed post duos aut his amplius menses sic quoque a nobis cito profectum cum quipiam prodidissent de viatoribus mysticae gazae clausis involucris clam ferre thesauros, pernicibus equis insecutus abeuntem, qui facile possent itineris pridiani spatia praevertere, osculo in fauces occupati latronis insilui, humano ioco, gestu ferino, veluti si excussura quemcumque catulorum Parthi colla raptoris pede volatili tigris orbata superemicet. 8. quid multa? capti hospitis genua complector iumenta sisto, frena ligo sarcinas solvo, quaesitum volumen invenio produco, lectito excerpo maxima ex magnis capita defrustans. tribuit et quoddam dictare celeranti scribarum sequacitas saltuosa compendium, qui comprehendebant signis quod litteris non tenebant. quibus lacrimis sane maduerimus mutuo vicissim fletu rigati, tunc cum ab amplexu saepe repetito separaremur, longum est dixisse nec refert; quod triumphali sufficit gaudio, spoliis onustum caritatis et spiritalis compotem praedae me domum rettuli. 9. quaeris nunc, quid de manubiis meis iudicem; nollem adhuc prodere, quo diuturnius expectatione penderes; plus me enim ulciscerer, si quod sensi tacerem. sed iam nec ipse frustra superbis, utpote intellegens tibi inesse virtutem sic perorandi, ut lectori tuo seu reluctanti seu voluntario vis voluptatis excudat praeconii necessitatem. proinde accipe, quid super scriptis tuis et iniuriam passi censeamus. 10. legimus opus operosissimum multiplex, acre sublime, digestum titulis exemplisque congestum, bipertitum sub dialogi schemate, sub causarum themate quadripertitum. scripseras autem plurima ardenter plura pompose; simpliciter ista nec rustice; argute illa nec callide; gravia mature profunda sollicite, dubia constanter argumentosa disputatorie, quaedam severe quaepiam blande, cuncta moraliter lecte, potenter eloquentissime. 11. itaque per tanta te genera narrandi toto latissimae dictationis campo secutus nil in facundia ceterorum, nil in ingeniis facile perspexi iuxta politum. quae me vera sentire satis approbas, cum nec offensus aliter iudico. denique absentis oratio, quantum opinamur, plus nequit crescere, nisi forsitan aliquid his addat coram loquentis auctoris vox manus, motus pudor. 12. artifex igitur his animi litterarumque dotibus praeditus mulierem pulchram sed illam deuteronomio astipulante nubentem, domine papa, tibi iugasti; quam tu adhuc iuvenis inter hostiles conspicatus catervas, atque illic in acie contrariae partis adamatam, nil per obstantes repulsus proeliatores, desiderii brachio vincente rapuisti, philosophiam scilicet, quae violenter e numero sacrilegarum artium exempta raso capillo superfluae religionis ac supercilio scientiae saecularis amputatisque pervetustarum vestium rugis, id est tristis dialecticae flexibus falsa morum et illicita velantibus, mystico amplexu iam defaecata tecum membra coniunxit. 13. haec ab annis vestra iamdudum pedisequa primoribus, haec tuo lateri comes inseparabilis, sive in palaestris exerceris urbanis sive in abstrusis macerarere solitudinibus, haec Athenaei consors, haec monasterii, tecum mundanas abdicat, tecum supernas praedicat disciplinas. huic copulatum te matrimonio qui lacessiverit, sentiet ecclesiae Christi Platonis academiam militare teque nobilius philosophari; primum ineffabilem dei patris asserere cum sancti spiritus aeternitate sapientiam; 14. tum praeterea non caesariem pascere neque pallio aut clava velut sophisticis insignibus gloriari aut affectare de vestium discretione superbiam, nitore pompam, squalore iactantiam neque te satis hoc aemulari, quod per gymnasia pingantur Areopagitica vel prytanea curva cervice Speusippus Aratus panda, Zenon fronte contracta Epicurus cute distenta, Diogenes barba comante Socrates coma cadente, Aristoteles brachio exerto Xenocrates crure collecto, Heraclitus fletu oculis clausis Democritus risu labris apertis, Chrysippus digitis propter numerorum indicia constrictis, Euclides propter mensurarum spatia laxatis, Cleanthes propter utrumque corrosis. 15. quin potius experietur, quisque conflixerit, Stoicos Cynicos Peripateticos haeresiarchas propriis armis, propriis quoque concuti machinamentis. nam sectatores eorum, Christiano dogmati ac sensui si repugnaverint, mox te magistro ligati vernaculis implicaturis in retia sua praecipites implagabuntur, syllogismis tuae propositionis uncatis volubilem tergiversantum linguam inhamantibus, dum spiris categoricis lubricas quaestiones tu potius innodas acrium more medicorum, qui remedium contra venena, cum ratio compellit, et de serpente conficiunt. 16. sed hoc temporibus istis sub tuae tantum vel contemplatione conscientiae vel virtute doctrinae. nam quis aequali vestigia tua gressu sequatur, cui datum est soli loqui melius quam didiceris, vivere melius quam loquaris? quocirca merito te beatissimum boni omnes idque supra omnes tua tempestate concelebrabunt, cuius ita dictis vita factisque dupliciter inclaruit, ut, quando quidem tuos annos iam dextra numeraverit, saeculo praedicatus tuo, desiderandus alieno, utraque laudabilis actione, decedas te relicturus externis, tua proximis. memor nostri esse dignare, domine papa.