Complete Poems

Creeping through all tracks, and insinuating myself into every corner, I have fed my mind with a vast and varied medley, if by any means I might dip into the nectar of truth, extricating the straight from the crooked, and being embittered against the iniquitous. Therefore, although I am a physician and a drudge of the Lyceum, yet I would not disdain even inept trifles, whether a headlong German ambition satiates us, with territories rashly inverted and borders dissolved, or whether hesitation has destroyed hopes by killing them. I often contemplate a coin fixed even in the crossroads: not, indeed, that I might pick it up, but that I might be able to discern it. So much the more earnestly do I admire and venerate that which, by sharp care and meditation, bears away the palm under your judgment—to whom nothing is untouched, and nothing unknown, when removed from whatever that faction, bristling with petulant dissensions, either retains tenaciously or spurns with disgust. Wherefore, among your distinguished and select labors, aid this burden, although I am now heavy with years, which I carry on stooped shoulders. Why do you ask? So that the light which has arisen for others may not be darkness for my reputation. This you have accomplished before now: do not, I beseech you, abandon your duty. Just as you often lifted me up, when I was in need of books and grieving among a barbaric people, and, being entreated, sent me those which by chance I lacked—so now, do the same. Truly, I burn to know what Lilius felt concerning the poets, both in Greek and in Latin. Therefore, it is in you alone that I might be able to attain this and now apply myself to that work, as the ancient Saturnalia draw near, most welcome amidst inhuman cares.

He condemns the harshness of the Stoics,

and all extremes.