Liber Protrepticus ad Nepotem

22.pr. Ausonius to his son Hesperius. The little book which I had composed for my little grandson — the lily of your sister — after the manner of an exhortation (protreptic), I have sent on ahead, myself about to come, for you to read. For I preferred this to reciting it myself, that your judgement might be the freer — which is wont to be hindered by two causes: because things heard pass our ears more swiftly than things read, and because the sincerity of judging is burdened by the presence of the reciter. Now both are unimpaired for you, since the reader has a free leisure, and our bashfulness does not stand in the way of one about to judge. But, mark you, sweetest son, I have something to advise: if any things in these little verses shall seem to you (for I fear they are many) to be put together more for paint than for truth, and to have more colour than juice, I myself, knowing it, allowed them to flow, that they might be more pretty than strong — like maidens; you know the rest. It remains, then, for you to say: why do you delay my judgement about that which you yourself pronounce to be faulty? I shall say, of course, that I blush abroad over verses of this kind, but among ourselves I am less abashed; for I wrote these things for his years rather than my own — or perhaps for mine too: "old men are twice children." In sum, let your severity be dismissed: with me it is a matter of an infant. Farewell, sweetest son.

22.po. To his Grandson Ausonius. The Muses too have their sports: leisure is mingled with the songs, my honey-sweet grandson; nor does the imperious voice of the harsh master ever exercise the boys without ceasing, but rest and the turns of study keep their fixed times. And it is enough for a retentive boy to have read gladly, and it is allowed to pause. School is named by a Greek name (scholē, leisure): let just leisures be granted to the toil-bearing Muses. Wherefore learn the more gladly that alternating play surely follows: we give the intervals that shall soothe the long labour. A boy's zeal grows weary, unless glad things be varied with austere, holidays with workdays. Learn gladly, and do not detest, grandson, the reins of a stern teacher: never is the look of a master a thing of horror. Though he, sad with age and not serene of voice, threaten the harsh quarrels of a knit brow, he will never be monstrous, who has once steeped his face in a placid habit. He will love the wrinkles of his nurse who flees his mother; grandfathers and trembling grandmothers the late-born prefer to their fathers — grandsons, a new care. So neither did Chiron, mingled with the Thessalian horse, terrify Achilles son of Peleus, nor the pine-bearing Atlas the boy son of Amphitryon (Hercules), but each, gentle, soothed his tender charges with mild addresses. Do you too not fear, although the school resound with many a stroke and the old master wear a truculent face: fear convicts degenerate spirits; but do you stand firm, undismayed, and let no shout and sounding blows, no dread under the morning hours, agitate you. That the sceptre of the rod is brandished, that there is much furniture of switches, that the deceitful soft leather covers the scourge, that your benches seethe with anxious tumult — these are the pomp of the place, and the scene is painted with a vain terror. These things once your father and your mother followed, and soothed my untroubled old age into peace for me. Do you, who bear your grandfather's name, in your first promise, my first grandson, hold out to me, whether in reality or in hope, an old age — whatever, as the years glide on, the fates shall give — to be enjoyed. Now I shall behold you a boy, soon in your youthful years, and now a man, if chance so bid; or if there be envy in it, I shall hope nonetheless, nor shall my prayers grow weary, that, mindful both of your father and of me, you may ever, eloquent, desire the lofty rewards of the Muses, and one day walk this road, on which we went before, and which your father the proconsul, your great-uncle the prefect, press upon. Read through whatever is memorable; I shall give the first counsels. The author of the Iliad and the lovely beginnings of Menander must be unrolled by you: do you, with the bending and keenness of your voice, bring out the numberless numbers (rhythms) with learned accents, and, as you read, put on the feelings: division increases the sense, and the intervals give vigour to the dull. And when shall those gifts fall to my old age? When will you renew for me, declaiming, so many poems forgotten, and so many strung through the ages of history — the comic shoes and the curtains of kings, the melic and lyric measures — and make the senses, overlaid in an old man, grow young again? With you leading the way, grandson, it is right to learn over again the measured poems of Flaccus (Horace) and high-sounding Maro. And you, dear Terence, who run over the stages in chosen speech, courteous, in the tight-laced sock of Latium, compel my scarce-remembering old age to your new dialogues. Now your crime, Catiline, and the tumult of Lepidus; now, beginning from Lepidus and Catulus, the affairs and times of Rome I connect in a series through twice six years. Now I read of the war mingled with civil strife, which Sertorius the exile stirred up with his Iberian ally. Nor do I, an unskilled grandfather, give these counsels; but, having trained a thousand talents, I myself, in my boastful years, reared many; and, cherishing them in my bosom and loosing their murmurs, I snatched their tender age from the coaxing nurses; soon, by soft admonition and gentle fear, I enticed the boys, that, mild, they might seek their advancement through hard things, about to pluck the sweet fruit of a bitter root. The same boys, taking on the toga in the stir of grown age, I led forward to good morals and arts and the vigour of speech, although they refused to bear the rein upon their neck, and would not offer their mouths to the inserted bits. Hard is the temperance, hard the experience, rare the outcome, proved by a long use of affairs, that a mild censorship should rule unteachable youth — which was endured by me, until at last the toil grew pleasant, and good habit, by use, lightened the labour; until I was summoned to the pious duties of the Augustan instruction, and, increased, was girded with various honour, when I was bidden to obey at the golden palace. Let Nemesis stand aloof, and let Fortune bear with me as I jest: I presided over the empire, while the prince, still wearing the boy's gown in the purple, set before himself, with his sceptre and his throne, the rights of his master, and Augustus thought our honours the greater. These, soon ripe, he brought forth with lofty increase: that I should be made quaestor to the Augusti, father and son; that I should put on a double prefecture and the curule chair, the consular robe and the embroidered toga — my rewards, a consul — and be held foremost in my own annals. By these I sought for my grandson how great a merit, a consul and grandfather, and I shine forth as the light of your life. Although you have long been famous by your father's name, and could be held adorned, or could be held burdened; yet from us a renowned honour has accrued. Now do you bring it to pass that it be no burden, that through yourself, striving upward to the heights, you may climb, and may hope for your own fasces with you as consul.