EPISTLE.

of this God and Goddess. He then instructs us in all the most beautiful fables and fantasies of antiquity that can be suitable and proper for painting, which is nothing other than mute poetry painting expressed without words: but it is only with half-words and such brevity that one must have a steady foot and a sharp eye to understand what he means. By this means, those who know what the effort is worth* original: "ce qu'en vault l'aune", a merchant's idiom for knowing the true value of something will be able to judge for themselves the trouble it has been for me to draw this so constrained translation out of its shell and kernel: and how many authors I have had to flip through to give it some light. For he deliberately studies how to make himself obscure, as if he composed himself entirely on purpose not to be understood except by the learned: banishing the low common people and the ignorant from reading it through the difficulty of his work; just like a high-born lady who would abhor being served and loved by any but brave, virtuous, and honest gentlemen, worthy by this means of her good grace and love: thus things of merit are willingly difficult and disdainful. Seeing the weakness of my shoulders for such a heavy and laborious undertaking, I abstained from it (notwithstanding that I always had the courage for it) for more than twelve or fifteen whole years; continually exercising myself in other lighter and easier subjects; in imitation of an Athlete or Gladiator, who tests himself here and there in many ways before entering the combat in earnest: or like a young bird that hops from branch to branch, to feel if it should hazard and commit itself freely to the air: until, seeing my master feathers the primary flight feathers of a bird *now lengthened and sufficiently hardened, I have taken the boldness to take flight; with the help and support of him to whom I vow