LETTER VI
Sidonius to his lord Bishop Ambrosius, greetings.
1. Your holiness prevailed with Christ on behalf of our dearest friend (why should I mention his name or person? You will recognize everything). You had often complained, sometimes openly before chosen witnesses and sometimes groaning inwardly in silence, about the youthful weakness of his disposition. This man recently broke off his association with a most shameful slave girl, to whom he had bound himself entirely through an obscene habit.
2. The credit for this reformation belongs to your prayers and your counsel, not to any strength of his own. For a man entangled in such chains cannot free himself; he must be cut free by those who love him enough to tell him the truth without sparing his feelings. You did precisely that, and God honored your intercession with its result.
3. I ask now only that you continue to watch over him, as a physician watches over a patient who has survived a fever but is not yet fully well. The temptation to relapse is strong, and the old habits wait like wolves around a campfire -- held at bay by the light, but not driven away. Your prayers are the light. Do not withdraw them. Farewell.
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.
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LETTER VI
Sidonius to his lord Bishop Ambrosius, greetings.
1. Your holiness prevailed with Christ on behalf of our dearest friend (why should I mention his name or person? You will recognize everything). You had often complained, sometimes openly before chosen witnesses and sometimes groaning inwardly in silence, about the youthful weakness of his disposition. This man recently broke off his association with a most shameful slave girl, to whom he had bound himself entirely through an obscene habit.
2. The credit for this reformation belongs to your prayers and your counsel, not to any strength of his own. For a man entangled in such chains cannot free himself; he must be cut free by those who love him enough to tell him the truth without sparing his feelings. You did precisely that, and God honored your intercession with its result.
3. I ask now only that you continue to watch over him, as a physician watches over a patient who has survived a fever but is not yet fully well. The temptation to relapse is strong, and the old habits wait like wolves around a campfire -- held at bay by the light, but not driven away. Your prayers are the light. Do not withdraw them. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.