Kitap 13
31
Then, as many others who were there present agreed with me and made the same request, I handed him an ancient copy of the satire, of tested correctness and clearly written. But he took it with a most disturbed and worried expression. But what shall I say followed? I really do not dare to ask you to believe me. Ignorant schoolboys, if they had taken up that book, could not have read more laughably, so wretchedly did he pronounce the words and murder the thought. Then, since many were beginning to laugh, he returned the book to me, saying, You see that my eyes are weak and almost ruined by constant night work; I could barely make out even the forms Apices here seems to refer to the strokes of which the letters were made up; cf. Cassiodorus vii. 184. 6 K., digamma nominatur quia duos apices ex gamma littera habere videtur, and Gell. xvii. 9. 12. of the letters. When my eyes have recovered, come to me and I will read the whole of that book to you. Master, said I, I hope your eyes may improve; but I pray you, tell me this, for which you will have no need of your eyes; what does caninum prandium mean in the passage which you read? And that egregious blockhead, as if alarmed by the difficulty of the question, at once got up and made off, saying: You ask no small matter; I do not give such instruction for nothing.
