Twelve Books of Letters and Lectures

...would believe how much these works of mine do not satisfy me, and how, even in those that please me more, I nevertheless fear lest I be, as that man says, a Suffenus. Therefore, I ask that you do not deny your assistance in an honorable and liberal matter to a most friendly man. Farewell.

ANGELO POLIZIANO TO GIOVANNI PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA, GREETINGS.

Truly, you are a charming man to try to pit me against your loves, and to demand that they be received so severely and sternly by me—a man certainly not of a wrinkled brow—when those boys are so beautiful. One Cupid (so they say) tripped up the god Pan when challenged in the wrestling ring. How do you think I can contend with the whole flock of Venus? But nevertheless, you demand this—you, Pico, to whom it would be an outright sin to deny anything. Therefore, I have entreated some of them to allow themselves to be slightly troubled by me. Nor have I put on the mask of a judge (as you love me), but that of Momus, of whom they say that he finally found fault with Venus's sandal, since he could not find fault with Venus herself. I have, therefore, struck out some verses, not because I disapproved of them, but because, being as it were of the equestrian order, they seemed to give way to the rest, as if to Senators and Patricians. I found nothing plebeian. But even in these, I know for certain that it was not so much judgment that was lacking in you as will, since to your Naso also, a face seemed more comely (as they say) in which there was a mole. I am sending them back to you, and I add a Stoic companion, whom I wish [you would treat] with such retaliation...