with more eager expectation for her Ulysses than I did for you. At last, though, my hope was fading gradually away. Except for a few of the opening lines of certain books, from which there seemed to flash upon me the face of the friend whom I had been longing to behold, a momentary glimpse, dim through distance, or, rather, the sight of his streaming hair, as he vanished from my view,—except for this no hint of a Latin Homer had come to me, and I had no hope of being able ever to see you face to face. For as regards the little book that is circulated under your name, while I cannot say whose it is I do feel sure that it is yours only as it has been culled from you and accredited to you, and is not your real work at all.[1] This friend of ours, however, if he lives, will restore you to us in your entirety. He is now at work, and we are beginning to enjoy not only the treasures of wisdom that are stored away in your divine poems but also the sweetness and charm of your speech. One fragment has come to my hands already, Grecian precious ointment in Latin vessels[2].…
To turn now to details, I am very eager for knowledge, and consequently was delighted be-
- ↑ The reference here is to the metrical abridgment of the Iliad by Silius Italicus. This contains 1070 lines, half of them condensed translation of passages from books I.-V., the remainder little more than the driest epitome. Poor as it is, it was widely accepted in the middle ages, in some confused sort of a way, as 'Homer.' But Petrarch was able to look below the surface and see just what it was.
- ↑ De Nolhac has shown (op. cit., pp. 342, 354) that Pilatus probably had made for Petrarch alone, more than a year before this epistle was written, a preliminary translation of the first five books of the Iliad.
