Petrarch knew of two additional sources for the story. He refers to Macrobius (I, 24, 6), in a marginal note to Servius’ “praecepit incendi. Augustus vero,” saying, “de hoc Macrobio” (Sabbadini, op. cit., p. 193). And lastly, though Petrarch nowhere makes direct reference to it, he may have used also Pliny, N. H., vii, 30, 31.
Summary of sources in order of importance: Anthologia Latina, Macrobius, Donatus.
X. TO HOMER
(Fam., XXIV, 12)
I have long desired to address thee in writing, and would have done so without hesitation if I had had a ready command of thy tongue. But alas! Fortune was unkind to me in my study of Greek.[109] Thou, on the other hand, seemest to have forgotten the Latin which it was formerly customary for our authors to bring to thy assistance, but which their descendants have failed to place at thy disposal.[110] And so, excluded from the one and the other means of communication, I kept my peace.
One man has once again restored thee to our age as a Latin.[111] Thy Penelope did not longer nor more anxiously await her Ulysses than I thee. My hopes, indeed, had been deserting me one by one. Excepting the opening lines of several books of thy poem,[112] wherein I beheld thee as one sees, from a distance, the doubtful and rapid look of a wished-for friend, or perhaps, catches a glimpse of his streaming hair—with this exception, then, no portion of thy works had come into my hands in Latin translation. Nothing, in fine, warranted the hope that I might some day behold thee nigh at hand. For that little book which commonly passes as thine, though it is clearly taken from thee and is inscribed with thy name, is nevertheless not thine.[113] Who the author of it may be is not certain. That other person (to whom I have already referred) will restore thee to us in thy entirety, if he lives.[114] Indeed, he has already begun his task, in order that we may derive pleasure not merely from the excellent contents of thy divine poem, but also from the charms of conversing with thee. The Greek flavor has recently been enjoyed by me from a Latin flagon.[115]
This experience brought forcibly home to me the fact that a vigorous and keen intellect can all things. Cicero was, in many instances, merely an expounder of thy thoughts; Vergil was even more frequently a borrower; both, however, were the princes of the Latin speech. And though Annaeus Seneca assert that Cicero loses all his eloquence when dabbling in verse and that Vergil’s felicity of expression deserts him when venturing into the realms of prose,[116] still I maintain that it is but right that each of them be compared with himself and not with the other. From such comparison it would clearly result that each should be considered as having fallen below his own highest level. Judged by themselves, I insist that I have read verses of Cicero that are not mere doggerel, and prose letters of Vergil that are not disagreeable.[117]
I am now experiencing the same emotions in thy case, for thy great work, too, is a poetical masterpiece. In obedience to the maxim laid down by St. Jerome (a Latin author of exceptional skill in languages), I wrote once upon a time that if thou wert to be translated literally, not merely into Latin prose, but even into Greek prose, from being most eloquent of poets thou wouldst be made of none effect.[118] Now, on the contrary, thou dost still retain thy hidden power to please, though turned into prose, and what is more, into Latin prose.[119] This fact compels admiration. Whatever, therefore, may be said of me, let no one marvel that I have addressed Vergil in verse, but thee in the more tractable and yielding prose.[120] Him I addressed of my own free will; in thy case, I am answering a letter received.[121] Furthermore, with Vergil I employed the idiom which we possessed in common; with thee I have adopted, not thy ancient language, but a certain new speech in which the letter I received was couched, a speech which I use daily, but which is not, I suppose, the one to which thou art accustomed.