Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/111

Not only our friendship wherein I take such pleasure, my excellent Melior, who are as faultless in your literary judgement as in every phase of life, but also the actual circumstances of the poems I am presenting to you are responsible for the whole of this book of mine being directed towards you, even without an introductory letter. For its first subject is our beloved Glaucias, whose charming infancy—a charm so often bestowed on the unfortunate—is lost to you now; I loved him when I took him in my arms at your house. While that wound was yet fresh, I wrote as you know a poem of consolation, with such dispatch that I felt my promptness owed an apology to your feelings. Nor am I boasting of it now to you who know, but warning others not to criticize too sharply a poem written in distress and sent to one in sorrow, seeing that sympathy must be timely or else superfluous. The Surrentine Villa of my friend Pollio which follows should have been written with greater care if only in honour of his eloquent tongue, but he has displayed a friend’s indulgence. Certainly the trifling pieces on your tree, Melior, and on the parrot were as you know dashed off like epigrams. A like facility of pen was