Letter 23

From: Avitus, bishop of Vienne To: Ceretius, vir illustrissimus Date: ~514 AD Context: A playful letter urging Ceretius to leave the pleasures of Chalon-sur-Saone and return to Vienne, with gentle humor about the culinary rivalry between the two cities. Bishop Avitus to the most illustrious Ceretius. Having dispatched my service of a letter to our common lord, I also pay the respects always owed to your dear excellency — not merely suggesting but, since you have been so stubborn about it, begging you to give your palate a rest from the many delicacies of the Saone and toughen it up instead with the leaner fasting of your own Isere. If you so utterly refuse to repay longing with longing and still do not think your absence has been long enough, then I am forced by this insult to wish — and I take my revenge on the bearer of this curse — that the tables may be turned: let Chalon have what Vienne has in abundance. We have nothing here that could tempt you to come back — except, perhaps, the people who miss you.

Avitus episcopus viro illustrissimo Ceretio. Ad domnum communem litterarum servitio destinato etiam dilectae mihi sublimi- tati vestrae officia semper debenda persolvo: suadens, immo. quia tantum obduruistis, supplicans, ut stomachos multis Sauconnae deliciis nauseantes tandem parcioribus Iaeriae vestrae ieiuniis atteratis. Quodsi adeo nescitis desiderio vicissitudinem repen- sare, ut nondum vobis videatur absentia vestra sufficere, iniuria coactus hoc opto meque baiulo huius imprecationis ulciscor: ut mutentur praesentiae vices, quod Vienna abundat, Cabillonus obtineat. Hic non habemus, quod debeat expeti: illuc mittamus, quod libeat declinari. Et quia, quod dico, in via est, iam, si adhuc in loco retardatis, excipite, si iam redire disponitis, praeterite.