Letter 6: Your Holiness has prevailed with Christ through the power of intercession on behalf of our dearest friend -- why...

Sidonius to his lord Bishop Ambrosius, greetings. 1. Your Holiness has prevailed with Christ through the power of intercession on behalf of our dearest friend -- why should I name the name and person? You will recognize everything. You had often complained about his youthful weakness, sometimes openly with witnesses called in, sometimes groaning in silence. Well, this man has recently broken off his liaison with a most disgraceful slave woman, to whom he had bound himself entirely through obscene habit, and has consulted the interests of his patrimony, his descendants, and his reputation through a sudden self-reformation. 2. For, drained by the ruin of his family estate, as soon as he began to understand and reflect upon how much of his modest ancestral and paternal resources the extravagance of this domestic Charybdis had squandered, although coming to his senses late, he at last, as they say, bit the bridle and tossed his head. Like Ulysses, he stopped his ears with wax and fled, deaf to the blandishments of this amorous shipwreck, and the praiseworthy man took as his wife a maiden of unblemished reputation, a woman of the highest birth and character as well as of substantial fortune. 3. This would indeed be more glorious had he abandoned his pleasures without taking a wife at all. But even if it happens that a man passes from error to good conduct, it is given to few to begin with the greatest sacrifices, and those who have long indulged themselves in everything cannot be expected to cut off everything at once. 4. It is therefore your task to obtain through earnest prayer for this couple the hope of children as soon as possible. It will follow that, once one or two sons have been born (and I say too much even with that), he will henceforth abstain from what is lawful who once presumed upon what was unlawful. For the spouses themselves, though recently wed, conduct themselves with such character and such modesty that you would truly recognize, if you saw them even once, how vastly different is the most honorable love of a married man from the deceits and enticements of a concubine. Deign to remember me, my lord bishop.

EPISTULA VI Sidonius domino papae Ambrosio salutem. 1. Viguit pro dilectissimo nostro (quid loquar nomen personam? tu recognosces cuncta) apud Christum tua sanctitas intercessionis effectu; de cuius facilitate iuvenali saepe nunc arbitris palam adscitis conquerebare, nunc tacitus ingemiscebas. igitur hic proxime abrupto contubernio ancillae propudiosissimae, cui se totum consuetudine obscena vinctus addixerat, patrimonio posteris famae subita sui correctione consuluit. 2. namque per rei familiaris damna vacuatus ut primum intellegere coepit et retractare, quantum de bonusculis avitis paternisque sumptuositas domesticae Charybdis abligurisset, quamquam sero resipiscens, attamen tandem veluti frenos momordit excussitque cervices atque Ulixeas, ut ferunt, ceras auribus figens fugit adversum vitia surdus meretricii blandimenta naufragii puellamque, prout decuit, intactam vir laudandus in matrimonium adsumpsit, tam moribus natalibusque summatem quam facultatis principalis. 3. haec quidem gloria, si voluptates sic reliquisset, ut nec uxori coniugaretur; sed, etsi forte contingat ad bonos mores ab errore migrare, paucorum est incipere de maxumis, et eos, qui diu totum indulserint sibi, protinus totum et pariter incidere. 4. quocirca vestrum est copulatis obtinere quam primum prece sedula spem liberorum; consequens erit, ut filio uno alterove susceptis (et nimis dixi) abstineat de cetero licitis, qui inlicita praesumpsit. namque et coniuges ipsi, quamquam nupti nuper, his moribus agunt, hac verecundia, vere ut agnoscas, si semel videris, plurimum esse quod differat ille honestissimus uxorius amor figmentis inlecebrisque concubinalibus. memor nostri esse dignare, domine papa.