§pr.1.1efflagitasti cotidiano convicio, ut libros, quos ad Marcellum meum de Institutione oratoria scripseram iam emittere inciperem.
You have demanded with daily importunity that I should now begin to publish the books which I had written to my dear Marcellus on the Education of an Orator.
nam ipse eos nondum opinabar satis maturuisse, quibus componendis, ut scis, paulo plus quam biennium tot alioqui negotiis districtus impendi; quod tempus non tam stilo quam inquisitioni instituti operis prope infiniti et legendis auctoribus, qui sunt innumerabiles, datum est.
For I myself did not think they had yet matured sufficiently, in the composition of which, as you know, I spent a little more than two years, distracted as I was by so many other affairs; which time was devoted not so much to writing as to the research required for a project of almost infinite scope and to reading authors, who are innumerable.
§pr.1.2usus deinde Horatii consilio, qui in arte poetica suadet, ne praecipitetur editio nonumque prematur in annum, dabam iis otium, ut, refrigerato inventionis amore, diligentius repetitos tanquam lector perpenderem.
Followed then by the advice of Horace, who in his Art of Poetry counsels that publication should not be rushed and that a work should be kept back until the ninth year, I was giving them some rest, so that, the passion of creation having cooled down, I might re-examine them more carefully, weighing them like a reader.
§pr.1.3sed si tanto opere efflagitantur quam tu adfirmas, permittamus vela ventis et oram solventibus bene precemur.
But if they are demanded with as great an urgency as you assert, let us commit our sails to the winds and pray for a good voyage to those who loose from the shore.
multum autem in tua quoque fide ac diligentia positum est, ut in manus hominum quam emendatissimi veniant.
Much, however, depends also on your loyalty and diligence, that they may come into the hands of men as free from error as possible.