The Sleepwalkers (61 page)

The
84th
Epistle
–
Chrysippa
to
Sosipater
(amorous)

"'Thou
art
caught
in
the
nets
of
love,
Sosipater,
thou
lovest
Anthusia.
Well
deserving
of
praise
are
the
eyes
that
turn
in
love
to
a
beautiful
maiden.
Do
not
complain
that
thou
hast
been
conquered
by
love;
for
greater
is
the
delight
that
will
reward
thy
labour
of
love.
Though
tears
pertain
to
grief,
those
of
love
are
sweet,
for
they
are
mixed
with
joy
and
pleasure.
The
gods
of
love
bring
delight
at
the
same
time
as
sadness;
with
manifold
passions
is
Venus
girded."

The
85th
Epistle
–
Plato
to
Dionysius
(moral)

"If
thou
wouldst
wish
to
obtain
mastery
over
thy
grief,
wander
among
graves.
There
thou
wilt
find
the
cure
for
thine
ailment.
At
the
same
time
thou
wilt
realise
that
even
the
greatest
happiness
of
man
does
not
survive
the
grave."

What
on
earth,
or
in
the
skies,
moved
Canon
Koppernigk
to
spend
his
labours
just
on
this
collection
of
pompous
platitudes?
He
was
not
a
schoolboy
but
a
mature
man;
not
an
uncouth
provincial,
but
a
humanist
and
a
courtier
who
had
spent
ten
years
in
Italy.
This
is
what
he
has
to
say
in
explanation
of
this
curious
choice
–
in
his
dedicatory
preface
to
Uncle
Lucas:

TO
THE
MOST
REVEREND
BISHOP
LUCAS
OF
ERMLAND

DEDICATED
BY
NICOLAUS
COPERNICUS

MOST
REVEREND LORD AND FATHER OF THE FATHERLAND

"With
great
excellence,
so
it
seems
to
me,
has
Theophylactus
the
scholar
compiled
these
moral,
pastoral
and
amorous
epistles.
He
was
certainly
guided
in
his
work
by
the
consideration
that
variety
is
pleasing
and
should
therefore
be
preferred.
Very
varied
are
the
inclinations
of
men,
and
very
divers
matters
delight
them.
One
likes
weighty
thoughts,
the
other
responds
to
levity;
one
likes
earnestness,
the
other
is
attracted
by
the
play
of
fancy.
Because
the
public
takes
pleasure
in
such
different
things,
Theophylactus
alternates
light
subjects
with
weighty
ones,
frivolity
with
earnestness,
so
that
the
reader,
as
if
in
a
garden,
may
choose
the
flower
which
pleases
him
best.
But
everything
he
offers
yields
so
much
profit
that
his
prose
poems
appear
to
be
not
so
much
epistles
as
rather
rules
and
precepts
for
the
useful
ordering
of
human
life.
Proof
of
this
is
their
substantiality
and
brevity.
Theophylactus
took
his
material
from
various
writers
and
compiled
it
in
a
short
and
very
edifying
manner.
The
value
of
the
moral
and
pastoral
epistles
will
hardly
be
denied
by
anyone.
A
different
judgment
is
perhaps
invited
by
the
epistles
on
love,
which,
because
of
their
subject,
may
seem
lighthearted
and
frivolous.
But
as
the
physician
softens
the
bitter
medicine
by
the
admixture
of
sweet
ingredients
to
make
it
more
agreeable
to
the
patient:
even
so
are
the
lighthearted
epistles
added;
they
are,
incidentally,
kept
so
pure
that
they
could
just
as
well
be
called
moral
epistles.
Under
these
circumstances
I
considered
it
unfair
that
Theophylactus'
epistles
could
only
be
read
in
the
Greek
language.
To
make
them
more
generally
accessible,
I
have
tried
to
translate
them,
according
to
my
powers,
into
the
Latin.

"To
thee,
most
reverend
Lord,
I
dedicate
this
small
offering
which,
to
be
sure,
bears
no
relation
to
the
benefactions
I
received
from
thee.
Whatever
I
achieve
through
my
mind's
capacity,
I
regard
as
thy
property
by
right;
for
true
beyond
doubt
is
what
Ovid
once
wrote
to
Caesar
Germanicus:
'According
to
the
direction
of
thy
glance,
falls
and
rises
my
spirit'."
²²

One
must
remember
that
this
was
an
age
of
spiritual
fermentation
and
intellectual
revolution.
It
is
depressing
to
compare
Canon
Koppernigk's
taste
and
style
with
that
of
his
illustrious
contemporaries
–
Erasmus
and
Luther,
Melanchton
and
Reuchlin,
or
Bishop
Dantiscus
in
Copernicus'
own
Ermland.
However,
the
translating
enterprise
was
not
a
random
whim;
and
if
we
look
closer
into
the
matter,
the
choice
of
the
obscure
Theophylactus
was
a
shrewd
one.
For
this
was
a
time
when
translating
the
rediscovered
Greek
texts
of
antiquity
was
regarded
as
one
of
the
foremost
and
noblest
tasks
of
the
humanists.
It
was
the
time
when
Erasmus'
translation
of
the
Greek
New
Testament,
by
revealing
the
corruptions
of
the
Roman
vulgate,
"contributed
more
to
the
liberation
of
the
human
mind
from
the
thraldom
of
the
Clergy
than
all
the
uproar
and
rage
of
Luther's
many
pamphlets";
²³
and
when
a
different
kind
of
intellectual
liberation
was
effected
through
the
rediscovery
of
the
Hyppocratics
and
Pythagoreans.