Letter 22

From: Avitus, bishop of Vienne To: Prince Sigismund Date: ~513 AD Context: A charming reply to Sigismund, who had teased Avitus by withholding his letter as a playful punishment for the bishop's verbose style. 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.

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.