Laudator Temporis Acti

Erasmus, Ciceronianus (LeClerc I 978; tr. Betty I. Knott):

Bulephorus Quite so. But tell me, Nosoponus, surely you don't spend the whole night on one letter?

Nosoponus What do you mean, one letter? I feel the Muses have accepted my devotions if a winter's night produces one single period.

Bulephorus So you write a great long letter on this rather insignificant topic?

Nosoponus No, indeed, I write a very short one, you can be sure of that, not longer than six periods.

Bulephorus So naturally six nights will be enough to complete it?

Nosoponus As if it were enough to write things once! You must reshape what you've written ten times, check it against your word-lists ten times, in case some tiny illegitimate word has slipped past your guard. Then you have to check it again for figures of speech and idioms, and finally for rhythms and word order.

Bulephorus That really is doing the job thoroughly.

Nosoponus My dear fellow, even that's not enough. When you've worked it over as carefully as you can, you must put it aside for several days so that in the interval your affection for your brain-child may cool off, and you read your own words as if they were somebody else's. It's at this point that you exercise really severe criticism. This is where we have that strict impartial judgment, ἀδέκαστος 'immune to bribery,' as the Greeks call it, where the author ceases to be a parent and becomes an Areopagite. At this point one very often takes one's eraser and rubs it all out.

BVL. Quidni? Verum age Nosopone. Num tota nox vni datur epistolae?

NOSOP. Quid mihi narras vnam? Musis pulchre videor litasse, si periodum vnicam absoluerit nox hyberna.

BVL. Ita ne de re tam non magna, tam prolixas scribis litteras?

NOSOP. Imo perbreues, ne sis insciens, vt quae sextam periodum non excedant.

BVL. Quin igitur sex noctes sufficiunt his absoluendis?

NOSOP. Quasi satis scripsisse semel. Decies refingendum quod scripseris: decies ad indicem exigendum, ne qua forte dictiuncula te fefellerit adulterina. Rursus altera superest examinatio de tropis ac formulis, postrema de numeris et compositione.

BVL. Hoc nimirum est opus absoluere.

NOSOP. Ne id quidem satis ô bone. Dehinc quod elaboratum est cura, quanta potest maxima, seponendum est in aliquot dies, vt ex interuallo, refrigerato iam inuentionis amore, velut aliena legas, quae tua sunt. Hic demum grauis agitur censura: Hoc seuerum, incorruptum, et, vt Graeci vocant, ἀδέκαστον iudicium, vbi qui scripsit ex parente fit Areopagites. Hic saepenumero fit, vt verso stilo, nihil relinquas.

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