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Book 12 - Introduction
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1. I have now arrived at by far the most important part of the work which I had contemplated. Had I imagined, when I first conceived the idea of it, that its weight would have been so great as that with which I now feel myself pressed, I should have earlier considered whether my strength would be able to bear it. But at the commencement, the thought of the disgrace that I should incur if I did not perform what I had promised kept me to my undertaking, and afterwards, though the labor increased at almost every stage, I resolved to support myself under all difficulties that I might not render useless what had been already finished. 2. For the same reason at present, also, though the task grows more burdensome than ever, as I look towards the end, I am determined rather to faint than to despair.
What deceived me was that I began with small matters, and though I was subsequently carried onwards like a mariner by inviting gales, as long as I treated only of what was generally known and had been the subject of consideration to most writers on rhetoric, I seemed to be still at no great distance from the shore and had many companions who had ventured to trust themselves to the same breezes. 3. But when I entered upon regions of eloquence but recently discovered and attempted only by very few, scarcely a navigator was to be seen that had gone so far from the harbor as myself. And now, when the orator whom I have been forming, being released from the teachers of rhetoric, is either carried forward by his own efforts or desires greater aid from the inmost recesses of philosophy, I begin to feel into how vast an ocean I have sailed and see that there is
Caelum undique et undique pontus,
On all sides heaven, and on all sides sea.
I seem to behold, in the vast immensity, only one adventurer besides myself, namely Cicero, and even he himself, though he entered on the deep with so great and so well equipped a vessel, contracts his sails, lays aside his oars, and contents himself with showing merely what sort of eloquence a consummate orator ought to employ. But my temerity will attempt to define even the orator's moral character and to prescribe his duties. Thus, though I cannot overtake the great man that is before me, I must nevertheless go farther than he, as my subject shall lead me. However, the desire of what is honorable is always praiseworthy, and it belongs to what we may call cautious daring to try that for failure in which pardon will readily be granted.
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