"I applaud, then, with all my heart and strength your enterprise.... I am sorry to see so much solicitude for the bad and so much negligence of the good. But what would you? One must resign oneself to it....
"I hope also here and now to prevent you in one thing, so as not to repent myself later for having passed it by in silence. You say that the translation will be word for word. Hear how on this point S. Jerome expresses himself in the preface to the book _De Temporibus_ of Eusebius of Cæsarea that he translated into Latin. It pleases me to send you the very words of one so learned in both tongues and in many others, and especially in the art of translation. 'Let him who says that in translation one does not lose the grace of the original try to translate Homer literally into Latin, and into any tongue which he has, and he will see how ridiculous is the order of the words and how the most eloquent of poets is made tostammer like a child.' I tell you this for your advice whilst there is yet time, so that such a great work may not be useless.
"For myself I desire only that the thing be well done.... In truth the portion I have which the same Leon translated for me into Latin prose--the beginning of Homer--has given me a foretaste of the complete work.... It contains indeed a secret charm.... Go on then with the aid of Heaven; give us back Homer who was lost to us....
"In asking me at the same time for the volume of Plato that I have with me and that escaped the fire in my house across the Alps, you give me a proof of your ardour, and I will hold this book at your disposition when you want it. I will second with all my power such noble enterprises. But take care that the union of these two great Princes of Greece be not unseemly, and that the weight of these two geniuses does not crush the shoulders of mortals.... And remember that the one wrote many centuries before the other. Good-bye. Milan, 18 August (1360)."[463]
From that letter we may gather how eagerly Boccaccio had turned to this new labour. Was it in order to escape from himself? Certainly it might seem that in his new enthusiasm he found for a time, at any rate, a certain consolation; but the crisis was not long delayed. In those long months while the wretched Pilatus was with him, however, he was able for a time to ward off the danger; and realising this, the comedy of that friendship is almost pathetic.