Dear Cicero,
I've just read your speech, ProArchias
How can I praise a work of such
exquisite eloquence, without doing it the grave injustice of
describing it in language less praiseworthy than your own? If I am
unequal to the task of description, what could I possibly write to
you about this magnificent speech, that would not fall short of mere
mimicry?
Yet, mimicry, it is said, is the
sincerest form of flattery.
To study the lives of the great heroic
men and women of history, and being inspired by their legendary
virtues and actions, is, by your standard, a righteous way to live.
These great people of our collective ancestry continue to weave their
influence into every succeeding era, through the subtle charms of
poetry, and through the sledge-hammer gravity and sweeping tidal
force of historiography.
You Cicero, live on through your works.
The world is made from the particles of, not only your flesh and
bones, turned to clay in the earth, but of the substance and
imagination of your written work. Through the ever fruitful minds of
translators every bit as poetic as yourself, people of many nations,
and in many centuries have become inspired to speak as you speak, to
write as you write, to think and feel and to believe as you believe.
“Who then can reproach me, or who
has any right to be angry with me, if I allow myself as much time for
the cultivation of these studies as some take for the performance of
their own business, or for celebrating days of festival and games, or
for other pleasures, or even for the rest and refreshment of mind and
body, or as others devote to early banquets, to playing at dice, or
at ball?”
Who indeed, could
reproach you Cicero, for your adherence to such study. “Because
he supplies us with food whereby our mind is refreshed after this
noise in the forum, and with rest for our ears after they have been
wearied with bad language.”
Archias, whom you
spoke the preceding lines in support of, must have been quite a man
for you to praise him so highly, and to defend his right to Roman
citizenship in the courts.
“Let then, judges, this name of
poet, this name which no barbarians even have ever disregarded, be
holy in your eyes, men of cultivated minds as you all are. Rocks and
deserts reply to the poet's voice; savage beasts are often moved and
arrested by song; and shall we, who have been trained in the pursuit
of the most virtuous acts, retire to be swayed by the voice of
poets?”
Oh let me be
swayed, let me be lifted up by such sentiment. Yet, Cicero, in the
study of your great style, in the careful reading of many great poets
and authors, in my attempts to better my own skill in these arts, I
must tread with humility and caution, lest my own natural confidence
be turned through arrogance and into hubris.
Why, look you now how unworthy a
thing
you make of me! You would play upon
me; you
would seem to know my stops; you
would pluck
out the heart of my mystery; you
would sound me
from my lowest note to the top of my
compass;
and there is much music, excellent
voice, in this little
organ, yet cannot you make it speak.
'Sblood, do
you think I am easier to be played
on than a pipe?
Call me what instrument you will,
though you can
fret me, you cannot play upon me
Shakespeare: Hamlet. Act 3, scene
2, line 370 - 380
Humility then, is
the act of maintaining a space, nay, a broad field, a verdant meadow,
a sweeping vista within my mind, reserved as vacant space wherein
MYSTERY may dwell. As Socrates is so oft quoted, to admit that the
only wisdom is in knowing that I know nothing, is to admit that as my
skill in writing and oratory develops, so too does the horizon of my
ignorance. The more I learn, the more I am able to see the borders
of my development, and to see beyond them into the unknown space of
knowledge as yet unlearned, into the field of potential, lit by the
pink glow of an ever rising dawn. Arcane flowers and trees and herbs
grow there in that space in my mind, where I may walk at my leisure,
leafing through the pages of history and listening to the echoing
voices of the long dead.
Long may you be in
the grave, but the night has yet to take from us all the light of
your past glory, and it is by that glow, Cicero, that I am able to
see.
With Love,
Sincerity, Gratitude and Respect, I bow my head to you, Cicero.
Morgan
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