Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, On the Education of Boys:
One must not always press on in literature and serious affairs, nor should young students be tasked with immense labors, under which they lapse under exhaustion and find themselves oppressed by the burden of their grievances, such that they understand their studies with less ready facility. Just so, plants may be nourished by seasonable applications of water, but drowned by an excess of the very same. We should remember that our life is divided into two parts: study and relaxation. Just as there is waking and sleep, war and peace, summer and winter, work days and holidays, so is leisure the condiment of labor. And so, one should neither take on too much work, or indulge in excessive leisure. For as Plato says, the enemies of learning are work and sleep.
Non est semper litteris seriosisque rebus incumbendum, nec immensi labores sunt pueris adiiciendi, sub quibus defessi corruant et alioquin pondere molestiarum oppressi, doctrinam minus mansuete percipiant. Plantae namque cum modicis alantur aquis, quae multis suffocantur. Nosse oportet vitam nostram in duas partes esse divisam: in studium ac remissionem. Sic vigiliae somnus, pax bellum, aestas hiems, operosi festique dies, laboris condimentum est otium. Itaque nec laborem sumere nimium nec otio nimis indulgere oportet. Hostes enim disciplinarum, ut a Platone dictum est, labores atque somni.
But come on, let’s not attribute everything to Homer and the Greeks. Just consider how much we should value the wisdom of our own Vergil, when he reveals those words as if from an oracle or one of nature’s secret recesses:
In the first place, the inward spirit nourishes the sky and the stars and the clear fields and the shining orb of the Moon and the Titan stars, and the mind poured through the limbs drives on the entire mass and mixes itself in a huge body. From there come the races of humans and herds, and the lives of the birds, and the monsters which Pontus bears under the marble sea. Those seeds possess a fiery strength and a celestial origin…
and so forth. When we read this, what philosopher do we not despise? Who ever wrote in such stark and knowledgeable terms about the nature of the soul?
Age vero, ne cuncta ad Homerum Graecosque referamus, Maronis nostril sapientia quam multi facienda est! Cum tamquam ex oraculo quodam adytoque naturae illa revelat:
Principio caelum ac terras camposque liquentis
lucentemque globum lunae Titaniaque astra
spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet.
inde hominum pecudumque genus vitaeque volantum
et quae marmoreo fert monstra sub aequore pontus.
igneus est ollis vigor et caelestis origo
seminibus
et reliqua. Quae cum legimus, quem philosophum non contemnimus? Aut quis umquam de natura animi tam enucleate scienterque locutus est?
“I would also have her read and understand the poets. For, who among the most learned men do we see without this knowledge? Aristotle certainly loaded his works with citations of Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Euripides, and the other poets; he held them in memory and brought them forth with such great ease that he appears to have been no less studious of poetry than he was of philosophy. Even among Plato there is the most frequent citation of poets; they occur in him everywhere – nay, are even brought in needlessly – and he often shores up his own authority by reference to theirs. I have spoken thus far about the Greeks, but what about our authors? Does Cicero appear to have been insufficiently versed in poetry, because he was not content simply to cite Ennius, Pacuvius, Accius, and our other poets, but even translated Greek poems into Latin and published entire books of them? What about Seneca? Sure, he was a hard and severe man, but did he himself not write poems and on occasion gush forth with verses? I don’t even bother to mention Augustine, Jerome, Lactantius, and Boethius; their writings make sufficiently clear just how much poetry they knew.”
Poetas insuper ut et legat et intelligat, volo. Quem enim summorum virorum expertem huius cognitionis fuisse videmus? Aristoteles certe Homeri, Hesiodi, Pindari, Euripidis, ceterorumque poetarum versus frequentissime ponit tenetque omnes memoriter et facillime reddit, ut appareat illum non poetarum fere minus quam philosophorum studiosum fuisse. Apud Platonem quoque poetarum usus frequentissimus est, occuruntque illi ubique atque ultro se offerunt, auctoritateque illorum sua saepe confirmat. Dixi de Graecis. Quid autem nostri? An Cicero parum structus poetarum cognitione videtur, qui, non contentus Ennio, Pacuvio, Accio, ceterisque nostris, Graecorum insuper poemata in Latinum convertit totosque libros suos illos refersit? Quid Seneca, durus profecto vir atque severus: nonne et ipse poemata scripsit et totus interdum scaturit versibus? Mitto Augustinum, Hieronymum, Lactantium, Boethium, in quibus quanta cognitio poetarum fuerit, scripta eorum disputataque ostendunt.
Preface to the Batrachomyomachia, addressed to Marrasio Siculo (Part 1/2)
Recently, my sweetest Marrasio, when I had praised Homer among some youths who were most eminent and dedicated to the pursuit of the humanities, and when I had talked about how much power he had to show his genius not only in great things, (which usually offer the greatest field for speaking to the orator or the poet), but even in that war of frogs and mice which he wrote in his youth, my listeners urged me with prayers and with force to translate that poem into Latin and argued that, should I not have the strength to do it in verse, I should at least attempt to give a prose translation of it. And so, since I was in no way able to resist their entreaties, I embarked upon the project of translating it in prose. But when I had translated just a few of the verses, the whole text seemed to me so unformed and so lacking in composition that there appeared in it nothing sweet, nothing elegant, and nothing Homeric.
So I changed my plan and called upon the Muses to inspire me and sprinkle upon my lips, if not the sacred waves of Parnassus, at least the waters of the Fonte Gaia, about which you recently published the most charming elegies. I promised them a hecatomb if I should suddenly come forth a poet from a crow (as that man says). On the very next night, I dreamt that I was born upon the lap of the Muses and submerged in the Fonte Gaia. For that reason, when I awoke a little later, I flew to writing with all mental haste and translated this little work into our language. If there seems to be anything elegant in it, you should attribute it both to Homer (that most excellent poet) and especially to those waters, with which, as you say, your own poems constantly drip. But if you think that anything in the translation is poorly done, you can attribute it to me.
The Crowne of all Homer’s Worckes, eh?
Nuper, suavissime Marrasi, quom apud quosdam praestantissimos iuvenes studiis humanitatis mirifice deditos Homerum summopere laudassem dixissemque eum non solum in rebus magnis, quae mediocri oratori vel poetae maximum orationis campum praestare solent, verum etiam in eo bello quod adolescens de ranis muribusque finxit quantum iam ingenio valeret ostendisse, et precibus et vi a me exegerunt ut id in Latinum converterem ac, si non valerem versu, saltem id, quoquo modo possem, soluta oratione transferrem. Itaque, cum eorum studiis nullo pacto obsistere quirem, liber omni pede id traducere aggressus sum; sed, cum perpaucos transtulissem versus, ita ea oratio incondita et incomposita mihi visa est, ut nihil suave, nihil elegans, nihil denique Homericum resonare videretur.
Itaque mutato consilio, Musas invocavi, ut mihi aliquantulum aspirarent meaque labra si non Parnasi sacris undis, saltem lymphis illius Gaii fontis, de quo nuper quam plures suavissimos elegos edidisti, aspergerent. Ac si repente ex corvo (ut inquit ille) poeta prodirem, eis hecatombem pollicitus sum. Proxima deinde nocte in somnus mihi visum est Musarum gremio sublatum in Gaio fonte esse demersum, quamobrem paulo post experrectus, alacri animo ad scribendum accessi et hoc opusculum in nostram linguam transtuli. In quo si quid elegans visum fuerit, tum Homero, omnium poetarum praestantissimo, tuo maxime illis undis, quibus tua carmina uda esse dicis, attribuito; sin autem aliquid ineptum offenderis, id a me editum esse credas.
For anyone interested in a contemporary translation and commentary on the Batrachomyomachia, a couple of your favorite bloggers may have something published in that line:
Cato spent much of his time in Athens. It is said that a speech which he delivered to the people was preserved, in which he said that he was an enthusiast for the excellence of the ancient Athenians and had been pleased as a spectator of their city on account of its beauty and magnificence. This was not, however, the truth. Rather, he always mingled with the Athenians through the mediation of a translator, even though he himself was able to speak Greek. He stuck to the ways of his own country, and derided those who marveled at the achievements of the Greeks.
de Ingenuis Moribus et Liberalibus Adulescentiae Studiis (§2):
But while it is right that all people (especially parents) should be such as to seek to educate their children properly and since it is fitting that children should be such that they seem worthy of good parents, yet it is especially true for those who occupy a lofty place in society, whose every saying and deed is exposed to the public eye, that they should be educated in the most important subjects, so that they can be considered worthy of the fortune and rank of dignity which they achieve. It is only fair that those who think that all the best is owed to them should be examples of the best themselves. Nor is there any more sure or stable principle of ruling than that those who get hold of power should be judged by all to be the most worthy of it.
“But there’s got to be a better way!”
Verum cum omnes homines deceat (parentes quidem in primis) eos esse qui recte erudire suos liberos studeant et filios deinde tales qui parentibus bonis digni videri possint, praecipue tamen qui excelsiore loco sunt, quorumque nihil neque dictum neque factum latere potest, decens est ita principalibus artibus instructos esse, ut et fortuna et gradu dignitatis quam obtinent digni habeantur. Aequum est enim qui sibi summa omnia deberi volunt, debere et eos summa omnia de se praestare. Nec est ulla certior aut stabilior regnandi ratio quam si hi qui regna obtinent, ab omnibus dignissimi omnium regno iudicentur.
“So much for Oldie’s; but the year was not all term. Life at a vile boarding-school is in this way a good preparation for the Christian life, that it teaches one to five by hope. Even, in a sense, by faith; for at the beginning of each term, home and the holidays are so far off that it is as hard to realise them as to realise heaven. They have the same pitiful unreality when confronted with immediate horrors. To-morrow’s geometry blots out the distant end of term as to-morrow’s operation may blot out the hope of Paradise. And yet, term after term, the unbelievable happened. Fantastical and astronomical figures like “This time six weeks” shrank into practicable figures like “This time next week”, and then “This time to-morrow”, and the almost supernatural bliss of the Last Day punctually appeared. It was a delight that almost demanded to be stayed with flagons and comforted with apples; a delight that tingled down the spine and troubled the belly and at moments went near to stopping the breath. Of course this had a terrible and equally relevant reverse side. In the first week of the holidays we might acknowledge that term would come again–as a young man, in peace time, in full health, acknowledges that he will one day die. But like him we could not even by the grimmest memento mori be brought to realise it. And there too, each time, the unbelievable happened. The grinning skull finally peered through all disguises; the last hour, held at bay by every device our will and imaginations knew, came in the end, and once more it was the bowler-hat, the Eton collar, the knickerbockers, and (clop-clop-clop-clop) the evening drive to the quay. In all seriousness I think that the life of faith is easier to me because of these memories. To think, in sunny and confident times, that I shall die and rot, or to think that one day all this universe will slip away and become memory (as Oldie slipped away into memory three times a year, and with him the canes and the disgusting food, the stinking sanitation and the cold beds)–this is easier to us if we have seen just that sort of thing happening before. We have learned not to take present things at their face value.”
de Ingenuis Moribus et Liberalibus Adulescentiae Studiis (§2):
“Anyone is allowed by law to change their name (as long as it does not involve fraud) or to move their home. But if someone is not trained in the liberal arts from youth, or if they be infected by corrupt methods of education, they may not entertain the hope of easily casting aside the bad lessons or learning the good ones straightaway. Therefore, we ought to lay the foundations of living well and form the mind for virtue at an early age, when it is soft and ready easily to admit any impression whatsoever. For whatever form the mind takes now will be preserved through the rest of life.”
Nam et mutare sibi nomen, dum id sine fraude fiat, unicuique per leges licet et transferre, quando libeat, domicilium nemo prohibetur. Artibus vero bonis, nisi quis ab adulescentia fuerit institutus aut si perversis infectus exstiterit, non facile de se speret in aetate provectiori posse aut has abicere aut illas continuo sibi parare. Iacienda sunt igitur in hac aetate fundamenta bene vivendi et conformandus ad virtutem animus, dum tener est et facilis quamlibet impressionem admittere: quae ut nunc erit, ita et in reliqua vita servabitur.
But perhaps the most poetical thing Pompeii has yielded to modern research, was that grand figure of a Roman soldier, clad in complete armor; who, true to his duty, true to his proud name of a soldier of Rome, and full of the stern courage which had given to that name its glory, stood to his post by the city gate, erect and unflinching, till the hell that raged around him burned out the dauntless spirit it could not conquer.
We never read of Pompeii but we think of that soldier; we can not write of Pompeii without the natural impulse to grant to him the mention he so well deserves. Let us remember that he was a soldier—not a policeman—and so, praise him. Being a soldier, he staid,—because the warrior instinct forbade him to fly. Had he been a policeman he would have staid, also—because he would have been asleep.
There are not half a dozen flights of stairs in Pompeii, and no other evidences that the houses were more than one story high. The people did not live in the clouds, as do the Venetians, the Genoese and Neapolitans of to-day.
We came out from under the solemn mysteries of this city of the Venerable Past—this city which perished, with all its old ways and its quaint old fashions about it, remote centuries ago, when the Disciples were preaching the new religion, which is as old as the hills to us now—and went dreaming among the trees that grow over acres and acres of its still buried streets and squares, till a shrill whistle and the cry of “All aboard—last train for Naples!” woke me up and reminded me that I belonged in the nineteenth century, and was not a dusty mummy, caked with ashes and cinders, eighteen hundred years old. The transition was startling. The idea of a railroad train actually running to old dead Pompeii, and whistling irreverently, and calling for passengers in the most bustling and business-like way, was as strange a thing as one could imagine, and as unpoetical and disagreeable as it was strange.
