1I said of a certain orator of our time, correct indeed and sound, but not grand or ornate enough, aptly, I think: 'His only fault is that he has no faults.' 2For an orator ought to rise and soar, sometimes even to boil over and be carried away, and often to approach the edge of the precipice; 2for as a rule sheer drops lie next to high and lofty places. 2The road across the plain is safer, but lower and more sunken; 2falls are more frequent for those who run than for those who crawl, but the latter win no praise for not falling, while the former win some even if they fall.
3For as with certain arts, so nothing commends eloquence more than its risks. 3You see those who climb up to the heights along a rope, what loud shouts they usually raise, when they seem at every moment about to fall. 4For the things most to be marvelled at are those most unexpected, most dangerous, or, as the Greeks express it better, 'recklessly venturesome'. 4So a helmsman's merit is by no means equal when he sails on a calm sea and on a stormy one: in the first case, with no one admiring him, he enters harbour unpraised and inglorious, but when the ropes creak, the mast bends and the rudder groans, then he is famous and next to the gods of the sea.
5Why do I say this? 5Because you seemed to me to have marked in my writings certain things as bombastic which I thought sublime, as reckless which I thought daring, as excessive which I thought full. 5But it makes a great difference whether you mark passages for blame or for distinction. 6For everyone notices what stands out and projects; 6but it must be decided with keen attention whether it is immoderate or grand, lofty or monstrous. 6And to touch on Homer above all, whom, pray, can it escape, in one direction or the other, 'and all around the great heaven trumpeted' ... 6'and his spear leaned upon the air', and that whole passage 'not so loud does the wave of the sea roar'?
7But there is need of weighing and of scales, to decide whether these are incredible and empty or magnificent and heavenly. 7Nor do I think now that I have said, or could say, anything like these — I am not so mad — but I want this to be understood: that the reins of eloquence should be slackened, and the onrush of talent not broken in the narrowest of rings. 8'But the situation of orators is one thing, that of poets another.' 8As if Marcus Tullius were any less daring! 8However, I pass him over; 8for I do not think there is any doubt about him. 8But does Demosthenes himself, that very standard and rule of the orator, restrain and check himself when he says those most famous words: 'foul men, flatterers and avenging fiends', and again 'I did not wall the city with stones or with bricks', and straight after 'did I not set Euboea on the side of the sea as a bulwark before Attica?', and elsewhere: 'for my part I think, men of Athens, by the gods, that he is drunk with the greatness of his achievements'?
9Then what could be more daring than that most beautiful and very long digression: 'for a disease'? 9What of these, shorter than the earlier ones but equal in daring: 'then I, when Python was blustering and pouring over you in full flood'? 9Of the same stamp: 'but when someone, like this man, has grown strong through greed and wickedness, the first pretext and a small stumble throws everything off and breaks it up.' 9Similar to these: 'roped off from all the rights in the city', and in the same speech: 'you have betrayed the pity due in these matters, Aristogeiton, or rather destroyed it utterly.' 9And he had said: 'but for this man I see none of these places that can be walked on, but all of them precipices, ravines, chasms.' 9And next: 'I fear lest you seem to some to be training up whoever in the city wishes to be wicked', and that is not enough: 'for I do not suppose that your ancestors built these courts for you so that you might nurture such men in them', and besides: 'but if he is a huckster of wickedness, a retailer and a dealer in it', and a thousand such things, to pass over those which Aeschines calls 'monstrosities, not words'.
10I have stumbled on an argument against myself: you will say that he too is criticised for these things. 10But see how much greater is the man who is criticised than the man who criticises him, and greater precisely because of these things too; 10for in other passages his force shines out, in these his grandeur. 11But did Aeschines himself refrain from the things he carped at in Demosthenes? 11In another place: 'then he is revealed on every point in the decree.' Again in another: 'but sitting in ambush and lying in wait during the hearing, you drive him into unlawful arguments.' 12He liked this so much that he repeats it: 'but as in the horse races, drive him into the very course of the matter.' 12Then are these more guarded and restrained: 'but you cause wounds' ...
13I expect that you will stab certain things in this letter, such as 'the rudder groans' and 'next to the gods of the sea', with the same marks as the passages I am writing about; 13for I realise that, while asking pardon for the earlier ones, I have fallen into the very things you had marked. 13But stab them by all means, provided that you now fix a day on which we can discuss both those passages and these face to face. 13For either you will make me timid or I shall make you rash. 13Farewell.