1I know how much you favour the liberal arts, and how much joy you take if young men of noble birth do something worthy of their ancestors. 1All the more eagerly, then, I tell you that I was today in the audience of Calpurnius Piso. 2He was reciting a poem on the transformation into stars, a truly learned and splendid subject. 2It was written in elegiacs that were flowing, tender and smooth, and also lofty, as the passage demanded. 2For aptly and with variety he now rose, now sank; 2he alternated the lofty with the low, the slender with the full, the pleasant with the severe, all with equal talent.
3He commended all this with a very sweet voice, and his voice with modesty: much blushing, much anxiety in his face, great ornaments in one who recites. 3For somehow diffidence suits men in literary pursuits better than confidence. 4Not to say more — though I would like to say more, since such things are finer in a young man and rarer in a nobleman — when the recitation was over I kissed the young man warmly and long, and, since praise is the keenest spur to encouragement, urged him on with praises to continue as he had begun, and to carry before his descendants the torch which his ancestors had carried before him.
5I congratulated his excellent mother, and congratulated his brother too, who carried away from that recitation no less glory for brotherly devotion than the other did for eloquence: so conspicuous was first his anxiety and then his joy as his brother recited. 6May the gods grant that I can often bring you such news! 6For I am on the side of our age, that it may not be barren and worn out, and I wonderfully desire that our nobles should not have nothing fine in their houses except the portrait masks of their ancestors; 6and these now seem to me silently to praise and encourage these young men and, what is great enough for the glory of both, to acknowledge them as their own.
6Farewell.