Myrtilus will add this prize to the others, and grant me with all his heart the one for the Arachne.

The subject, at any rate, is better adapted to my art than to his, and so I should be tolerably certain of my cause.

Yet my anxiety about the verdict of the judges remains, for surely you know how much the majority are opposed to my tendency.

I, and the few Alexandrians who, following me, sacrifice beauty to truth, swim against the stream which bears you, Myrtilus, and those who are on your side, smoothly along.

I know that you do it from thorough conviction, but with other acknowledged great artists and our judges, you, too, demand beauty--always beauty.