On the Names of Plants

...of yours, had compelled. For just as I acknowledge that I have performed nothing great or extraordinary in translating this work, so have I exposed myself to no small danger. For there exists no kind of study which has more labor but truly less praise and reward set before it than the translation itself of authors from this language into that. And indeed it might have been borne if no glory or remuneration were added to it, provided that so much vituperation and calumny were not to be expected from malignant men. For you may find very many who, since they themselves either cannot or will not serve the Commonwealth in this kind of study (born, as I suppose, only to consume the fruits of the earth), sometimes deter and call away from their undertakings others who apply themselves to it with all their might—so that they might adorn the Sparta which has fallen to them—by their own censures and the virulence of their tongues. And yet the efforts of these men ought to have been pursued with favor and promoted; and those unjust judges of things should have considered that which was most prudently said by the Greeks: to find fault is easy, but to imitate is altogether difficult. For it is very easy to criticize another’s work, but not so easy to elaborate and complete something similar or superior, especially in this course of study which may benefit many. But even among the more learned (which I think is greatly to be deplored), you may find some whom nothing pleases except what they themselves have produced by midnight oil, and who cannot bear others, whether equal or unequal to themselves. Hence those emulations, hence contentions, hence calumnies, and hence finally the reproaches with which men of letters (if indeed they are to be named men of letters who are most estranged from all humanity) frequently consume and set upon one another. Thus one may see today very many writings which, for no other reason, render their authors odious to good and modest men, than that they [devote themselves] to calumny rather than to truth...