DEDICATION.

original: Dedicatio

* 3

(fortune was breathing favorably on me in the beginning) to dedicate to your Father, the Most Powerful Prince, the most sublime poet of ancient Rome original: Latii, referring to Latium, the region of Italy where Rome is located., Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 99–55 BC), a Roman poet and philosopher famous for De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)., corrected by my own efforts as far as they were able; and to dedicate to you, Most Serene Prince, Longinus The Greek author of the treatise On the Sublime, a foundational work on aesthetics and literary excellence.—who lived at a later time but opened the path to that same height of eloquence—now illustrated with a new translation and notes.

But that malignant, envious fortune I mentioned, which always stands in the way of my best endeavors, did not allow it. She laid her hand upon me The author uses the Latin legal phrase injecit manum, a metaphor for being arrested or having one's property seized by fate., cast delays in my path, and in place of things constant and certain, she substituted things uncertain and Accidental. I hesitated for some time whether it was right to offer to a Prince of such high standing a little book that was the product of fortune rather than a fruit of my own talent. I feared not the [judgments] The text breaks off here; the catchword ju- suggests the word "judicia" (judgments or opinions). of the people...