The slender Danaïds endure, with ceaseless toil opprest;
From the bleak cliff of Caucasus unchain the fettered Titan,
And scare away the bird of prey that tears his mangled breast.[178]
I naturally said to myself on the spot: If I were Machaon, or Chyron, or Æsculapius, I should be glad to remedy this matter. But what if I were to make such slight effort as I can? Might I not be able to be of service? Perhaps; at least, I should have tried, and I should have had this object in view: to make him somewhat more free from faults.
And if my powers of song should fail—to dare were surely fame:
Enough that I have had the will; no higher praise I claim.
Proper. ii, ad Musam (ad Augustum?).
I have accordingly added a very few annotations; provided with which, under the protection of your name (for you are a devoted admirer of letters and lettered men), under, as the saying is, favourable auspices, let Pomponius Mela now go forth in greater security than before. Farewell.
Paris, vj no. Decemb. MCCCCCVII.[179]
At the end of the text, on folio xlv, we find the following:[180]—
Here, then, you have, most illustrious Philibert, Pomponius Mela, purged of the many errors in which he abounded. I took the trouble to put him in the hands of a very careful printer, one who was, besides, the first Parisian to give to the Greek characters a form of superior elegance. I have been pleased to revise the text with special care and to add a very few annotations, so that, when it should come into your hands, and later on into the hands of the public, it might come in a more polished and finished form. You, now, with Mela in hand, may, like Phiclus, who, as the story goes, ran over the tops of the grain-fields without breaking the ears, traverse and re-traverse, not only in security, but confidently and resolutely, the whole world. If you wish to lay hold of tigers, swiftest of animals, and to see from a safe vantage the catoblepas, if you wish to meet dragons and wild beasts, Satyrs, Pans, and Silvani, if you wish to see the Indians, 'the Britons, separated by a world between,' the Sauromatae, the Africans, and all the peoples that lie between these, and learn of their wonderful habits, then take but this world, I mean Pomponius, many times in hand, and without doubt you will there be able to see and to know them all as in no other way. Farewell and forget not yours ever faithfully.