Epistula Ad Homerum

Cantori amatissimo, magistro deoque vero poetarum:

I first met you when I was young: like Vergil before Ovid, you passed before me when I was no Ovid, and your shadow like St. Peter’s cured me of the ills of the melancholy of this life by the daylight of your verse. The wrath of Thetis’ son taught me joy; the exuberance of Diomedes my patience; the tear…