Prologue to Plato’s Timaeus.

By Hercules, I am never so busy that I am not permitted, nor so negligent that I am unwilling, to respond to those who write to me even about the slightest matters. And yet you, a most prudent man, in your excellent display of duty toward me, almost seem to suspect otherwise. I saw your previous letters as if they were nothing original: "tam... quam nihil" - likely meaning they were lost or arrived empty. Indeed, I am so eager to see whatever it was that was intercepted—since I highly value that most beautiful specimen of antiquity recently unearthed in your mountains—that I shall not be at rest in my mind until, with diligent care, you send me a copy of the inscription epigramma: a carved inscription concerning the ancient boundaries between the Genoese and the Veiturii. (I learned these names from Matthew of Castelnuovo, who told me they were contained on that tablet which had the small verses incised upon it). I contend with the greatest prayers I can muster that you might transcribe such a lovely piece of antiquity for me again.

Regarding what you wish to know about Chalcidius, I cannot fully explain. However, the author ought to be considered as timely as a guide who shows the way is necessary to one walking through unknown places. For the ancient Platonic philosophy, in order to avoid the contamination of the masses and to exercise the wits of students, lies hidden, placed entirely as if within a certain wrapper. Therefore, Chalcidius did not hesitate to bring to the Timaeus a certain light and fire—received, as the fables sing of Prometheus, from heaven—opening the sacred inner sanctuary adytum: the innermost shrine of a temple in which the majesty of things was kept enclosed. As for what age he wrote his commentaries, where he was born, or what kind of life he lived: since I have not inquired into it until now, I do not yet hold enough information. I will, however, investigate diligently since you so desire, to see if anything of him has been handed down to memory; lest we ever be thought to cherish the man’s praise less than the benefit he provided, for we wish to be free of ingratitude. Farewell. Milan. September 14, 1507.

Three days later, Matthew, your fellow monk, returned and brought the desired copy to me while I was rejoicing and exulting. I owe more to him and to you for this than can be estimated by human opinion.

PROLOGUE TO PLATO’S TIMAEUS.

SOCRATES, in his exhortations praising virtue, when he said that the cause of all good things and of all prosperity rests with her, added that she alone is the one who reduces impossible things to a possible ease. Nobly said! For why should noble greatness of soul shrink from approaching a task, or grow weary of one begun, so as to refrain from labor as if conquered by difficulties? The same, I believe, is the power of friendship: an equal untangling of almost impossible things, when one friend is aided by the obligation of commanding and the other by the vow of obeying, toward the completion of a pleasing work.

You had conceived in your mind—flourishing as it is with those studies of humanity and your excellent talent—a hope worthy of the success of a work intended for this time; and you had decided that its use should be borrowed for the Latin language from the Greeks. And although you yourself could do this both more easily and more conveniently, I believe that because of your admirable modesty, you preferred to enjoin it upon him whom you judge to be your "other self" A classical reference to a close friend as an "alter ego".. Could I, I ask you, excuse myself from the enjoined task when such an honor was held by one who judged me so, even if the matter were arduous? And since I would never have refused any duty even in solemn and customary wishes, how could I contradict this so great and so honest a desire? In such a case, a declination of a splendid gift by the excuse of ignorance would be a crafty pretense of future knowledge.

And so I have obeyed, certain that this gift was enjoined upon me by you not without divine instinct. Therefore, with a more eager mind and the confirmation of hope, I have approached the first parts of Plato’s Timaeus: I have not only translated it, but I have also made a commentary on that same part, thinking that the likeness of a hidden thing would be somewhat more obscure than the example itself without the explanation of an interpretation. The reason for dividing the book into parts was the length of the work; at the same time, it seemed more cautious if I were to send it as if it were a small offering libamen: a ritual pour-offering or sample for your ears and mind to taste. If it is written back that this did not displease you, it would create the confidence to dare greater things.