The Erotic Essay (6-10)

Consequently I have felt all the more a moved to write this essay, feeling sure I should not fail to secure two most honorable rewards.[*] For when I have described the good qualities you possess, I hope that at one and the same time I shall prove you to be worthy of admiration and myself not senseless if I love you, being what you are; and secondly, in tendering the advice that is most urgently needed I believe I shall present proof of my own goodwill and furnish a basis for our mutual friendship.

And yet it does not escape me that it is difficult to describe your character in keeping with your deserts and that it is more hazardous still to give advice when the adviser is bound to make himself answerable for his advice to the one who accepts it.[*] It is my judgement, however, that, while it becomes the recipients of merited eulogies to baffle by the excess of their real virtue the ability of those who praise them, yet in my counsel I shall not miss the mark, being well aware that no advice could be innocently carried out if proffered by men who are senseless and quite ruined by incontinence, not even if they advise supremely well, but that not even the advice that is only moderately pondered can altogether miss the mark if tendered by men who choose to live pure and self disciplined lives.

Cherishing such hopes I enter upon my theme. All men would agree with me, I believe, that it is of the utmost importance for young men of your age to possess beauty in respect of person, self-discipline in respect of soul, and manliness in respect of both, and consistently to possess charm in respect of speech. As for these two kinds of qualities, natural and acquired, Fortune has so generously blessed you with nature’s gifts that you consistently enjoy distinction and admiration, and the other kind you are bringing to such perfection through your own diligence that no fair-minded person could have fault to find with you.

And yet what ought he to possess who is worthy of the highest eulogies?[*] Must he not manifestly be loved by the gods and among men be admired, for some qualities on his own account, for others because of his good fortune? Now the longer list of your virtuous qualities it will perhaps be fitting to describe summarily later on, but the praise I have to utter for each of the gifts of Fortune I shall now try to declare with truthfulness.

I shall begin by praising that quality of yours which all who see you will recognize first, your beauty, and the hue of your flesh, by virtue of which your limbs and your whole body are rendered resplendent. Wondering what fitting comparison for this I may offer, I find none, but it is my privilege to request those who read this essay to see you and contemplate you, so that I may be pardoned for declaring that I have no suitable simile.