Letter 1022: Recently, when I sent the usual service owed to your eminence on the occasion of the apostolic feast, you said — in...
Bishop Avitus to the lord Sigismund.
Recently, when I sent the usual service owed to your eminence on the occasion of the apostolic feast, you said — in words as elegant for their civility as they were striking for their eloquence — that you had deliberately delayed your reply so that my humble self, which rightly refrains from the boldness of writing, might suffer the torments of drought all the longer and thirst all the more for the splendid fountain of your conversation. This "punishment," as you graciously call it, would be that my messenger was dispatched more slowly — giving me more time to pine. I accept the sentence gladly: if this is how you punish, I beg to be punished often.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
Avitus episcopus domno Sigismundo.
Nuper cum officia culmini vestro semper debita pro apostolicae festivitatis con-
suetudine destinavi, non minus civilitate pretioso quam declamatione conspicuo sermone
dixistis idcirco vos tardius dedisse rescriptum, ut humilitas sui conscia, quae a scri-
bendi audacia iure temperat, eo diutius ariditatis supplicia penderet, quo fontem splen-
didum vestri alloquii plus sitirem. Vindictae, sicut dignamini scribere, genus esset,
ut portitor a me segnius destinatus vobiscum diutius moraretur. O retributio ultionis
blandissimae! o sententia crudelitatis optandae! Quis scilicet tam intolerabilem poenam
aequanimiter ferat, ut paradiso vestri conspectus inclusus mora beatiore vos videat?
Timeo plane, ne frequenter me iubeatis scribere, si disponitis tarditatem taliter vindi-
care. Aut si ego certus forem huiusmodi me animadversione plectendum, ipse procul
dubio scripta porrigerem, quae iusto rarius exarassem. Et utinam mihi vobiscum
posito negaretur celeritas revertendi: verba quae longum tempus sinerer legere, diutius
ex ipso meatus tramite donarer audire. Certe deus viderit, quid ego apud iudicium
vestrum vel audacia servitii vel trepidatione promerear: tamen officii mei portitoribus
reus ero, si eos prolixitate praesentiae vestrae delicti, quo arguitis, emendatione frau-
davero.
Related Letters
I know that a letter of service intrudes importunely on the cares and occupations in which, under heaven's help, you...
You reproach me for not having reported to you about the royal conference.
Ad Sigimundum et Alagisilum
It might seem like a failure of trust in divine promises for anyone to be anxious about your prosperity.
Detained for two days by the presence of your glorious father, I organized the bearer somewhat late — the one...