Letter 3004: Ad Felicem episcopum Namneticum

To Felix, Bishop of Nantes To my holy lord and most worthy of the apostolic see, my dear lord and father Bishop Felix [bishop of Nantes, a prominent figure in western Gaul] — Fortunatus sends greetings. I was dozing near the seaside, lulled by the comfortable laziness of nature, lying too long on the shoreline, when your letter suddenly washed over me like waves of eloquence breaking on rocks and scattering spray. At first I could only be moistened, not yet woken — still drowsing in my usual heavy sleep, I barely managed to stand up at last amid the rolling thunder of your words. When I had read your letter carefully, each sentence ringing out like a trumpet, suffused with something like starlight, I felt as though the brilliant light of your coruscating words had dazzled my eyes — like the flash of lightning that opens sleepy eyes and then closes them again with its glare. Such was the brightness that shone from the clarity of your practiced conversation, such was the vibrating light of your gleaming eloquence, that it seemed to me the sun was rising from the west — from your speech, in the form of radiant words. I thought, as I read, that it was some piece of Pindaric construction [Pindar — the great Greek lyric poet], compacted in four-line stanzas with a pedestrian glue — as if a fertile oration had flowed in spirals of intertwined thought, a chain of linked enthymemes with foreign sophistication. As for the depth of your expression, you had made me wander like a man lost at a crossroads, steering between rocks and reefs [the Echinades — a rocky island group in the Ionian Sea], had you not lit the lamp yourself to guide my way. When you added in your letter that my voice had been heard even in the farthest corner of the world, rising above all the clamor of acclamations — reading that back, I began to wonder at myself for having grown so suddenly in the conversation of one so great: I, who would not deserve praise on my own merits, was glad to be elevated by the warmth of so generous a patron, while acknowledging my own intellectual poverty. Oh, how much love prevails — when the tongue of one who praises adds what the vein of the one praised does not contain! One should hope, of course, that for a man as humble as me, such a witness is more to be believed than the subject himself. For Polydeuces [Castor and Pollux — here used as an example of celebrated excellence] would never have been commended by the flowing richness of his gifts had he not been touched by the prophetic spring of the Smyrnaean source [Homer's spring at Smyrna]. As for what you said about seeming to inhabit the ends of the world — that is entirely just: you should believe what I say of you, since you so pleasantly persuade me to be believed about myself. For though the place is remote by geography, it is first-rank with you as its citizen. If cities claim precedence by the merit of their people, then no place is inferior where Bishop Felix, in his actions, upholds whatever is required of praise. The frozen north and the regions locked in arctic cold do not hold you — through you, the region blooms in constant breezes as if the seasons had changed. And what you complain of — that my brief stay in Tours gave you only a little conversation — I, for my part, am embarrassed to have revealed my ignorance in so short a time, and glad to have hidden the privilege of so great a bishop's acquaintance. But if you consider the state of my heart, even if I had spent longer in your presence, I would have been stimulated but never satisfied. For who, once struck by the fragrance of sweet roses, ever thinks himself sated, or consents to turn away? The longer I had remained close to you, the more love would have been kindled in me as I came to know you better. As for what you suggested — "if you had come with me up the Loire, the current would have brought us to Nantes together" — I know indeed that with you as my guide through the Cheruscan [a Germanic reference — here probably just meaning barbaric sea-peoples] escort, I would have steered safely through the clashing Symplegades [the mythical rocks that snapped shut at the entrance to the Black Sea], and if need be, I would have struck the mountain of Oeta [Mount Oeta — where Heracles died] with the resonance of Pindar [the great victory ode poet]. And with what eagerness I read the lines that pure love compelled you to write — where you said that not even the Volscians [a barbarian people] coming to drag me away could have torn me from you! I believe truly, as my mind inspects it, that even Rome herself could scarcely have given me as much support as you have given me in words; and for me, nothing exceeds in value what the will offers as a gift: for when the sweetness of conversation flows back, there is no need for anything more. And to your witty addition — "without the spur of praise, the rustic pen wouldn't have turned" — though such a tiller of Christ's field has often plowed the most fertile acres, I confess that you, in these recent pages, have made that field resound with the Amphionean lute [Amphion — the legendary musician who built the walls of Thebes by playing his lyre] in very ithyphallic [triumphant, processional] tones. And what you added so delightfully — about me being enclosed in my lady Radegund's [Queen Radegund, Fortunatus's closest patron, abbess of the Holy Cross monastery at Poitiers] wall of love — I know well that this is not from my merits, but gathered from her habit of extending warmth to everyone. And to whatever extent you touch my person in poetic panegyric, that much have you written of her deserved praise in history. Still, in your words I have merited to read what I have already experienced in her grace. But since you paint great things about me when I am small — please, I beg you, proclaim the greatest things about the great. And so, commending myself humbly to your lordship and holiness, I beseech you through our Lord the redeemer of souls — who will make you, predestined, his companion in light — to deign to remember me in your holy prayers with an eye of kindness. It will be great help to my hope, obtaining from you what I ask. If the tongues of both Greeks and Latins were to join together, they could not repay all your merits. You are revered for your praise, worshipped for your prayers — Felix, who will live in the light of eternal understanding.

IV Ad Felicem episcopum Namneticum DOMINO SANCTO ET APOSTOLICA SEDE DIGNISSIMO DOMNO ET PATRI FELICI PAPAE FORTVNATVS. Oscitantem me prope finitima pelagi, blandimento naturalis torporis in- lectum et litorali diutius in margine decubantem subito per undifragos vestri fluctus elo- quii quasi scopulis incurrentibus elisa salis spargine me contigit inrorari; sed ad pri- mos evigilandi stimulos infundi poteram, non tamen excitari: qui adhuc more solito graviter obdormitans tandem aliquando inter crepitantia verborum vestrorum tonitrua vix surrexi. (2) Igitur cum considerarem dicta singula de more tubarum clangente sermone prolata et sidereo quodammodo splendore perfusa, velut coruscantium radio- rum perspicabili lumine mea visi estis lumina perstrinxisse et soporantes oculos, quos mihi aperuistis tonitruo, clausistis corusco: tantus enim exercitati claritate conloquii vestrae linguae iubar effulsit, tanta se renidentis eloquentiae lux vibravit, ut converso ordine mihi videretur verbis radiantibus ab occidentali parte te loquente sol nasci. (3) Credebam enim, quasi sofo Pindarico conpactus tetrastrophos pedestri glutine suggil- latus et ac si enthymematum parturiens catenatum vinculum fecunda fluxisset oratio spiris intertexta, sofismate peregrino. denique quantum ad profunditatem vestrae dic- tionis adtinet, feceratis ignorantem per sermonum conpitos velut inter cautes Echinadas oberrare, nisi a vobis ipsis lampas praeviatrix itineris occurrisset. (4) Quod vero vestris inseruistis epistulis vocem meam nec adclamatione laudum superatam in Ultimo orbis angulo personasse, haec ipsa dum relego, coepi me mirari vestro subito crevisse conloquio qui favorem proprio non mererer ornatu, gavisus usque adeo affectu fautoris erigi qui me recognoscerem ingenii qualitate substerni. (5) O quantum caritas prae- valet, cum illud lingua laudantis adicit quod laudati vena subducit! optandum est si- quidem, ut de me humillimo tali credatur testi potius quam auctori. non enim Poly- deucen suae commendasset venae salientis ubertas, nisi Smyrnaei fontis fatidico latice fuisset adtactus. (6) Illud itaque quod dixistis, in ultimo orbis angulo quasi vestram habitare praesentiam, satis hoc fieri iustum est: ut de vobis mihi credatis qui de me vobis credi blandius suadetis; quoniam loca, quamvis regione ultima, te cive sunt prima, nam si personae merito urbes sibi vindicant principatum, nulli per vos est ille locus inferior, ubi quidquid de laude requiritur Felix actibus pontifex est adsertor. denique non Cecaumene rabida nec ursae situs frigoribus intertextus respirat, sed per vos mutatis sedibus assiduo Favoni sibilo modulante vernatur. (7) Hoc etiam, quod sanctitas vestra conqueritur, me invento Turonis parva prolixitate potitam se fuisse con- loquiis (cum me e contra pudeat in brevi spatio prodidisse inscitiam, sed latere tanti gratiam pontificis adquisitam) : tamen, si nostri animi partes considerare velitis, quam- vis protracto spatio aspectu vestro fruerer, incitari poteram, non expleri. (8) Quis enim semel odore suavium rosarum adflatus vel satiatum quandoque se iudicet vel patiatur reddere fastidentem? cum, si diuturnius fuissemus incomminus, tanto magis dilectione succenderer quanto plus agnoscerem quem amarem. (9) Quod enim in- tulistis: 'si Ligerem vobiscum ascendissem, secundis fluctibus Namnetas occurrissem', novi quidem, te mihi Canobo, Cherucis adcersientibus myoparonem praepetem, catus arte armoniaca tutus inter Symplegadas se mordentes exissem, et si res exigeret plausu creperegico Oetam Tirynthiacum Pindo respirante pulsassem. (10) Qua vero avidi- tate illud me creditis perlegisse (quod vos intexere mera caritas imperavit) quod dixi- stis: 'nec si vulsci venissent in solacio, me vobis abripere valuissent'? credite, quan- tum meus animus inspicit, ipsa vix Roma tantum mihi dare ad auxilia poterat quan- tum praestitistis in verba; nec apud me plus aliquid est factis inpendere, quam vota voluntatis offerre : nam alloquii refluente dulcedine nihil opus est plus egere. (11) Quod vero facetiis addidistis: 'nisi sollicitatus laudibus rusticus calamus non turnasset', licet talis cultor Christicola feracissima iugera saepius exaravit, attamen nuper illum, id est vos, confiteor ludos ithyfallicos Amphioneo barbito reboasse. (12) Hoc quoque quod delectabiliter adiecistis me domnae meae Radegundae muro caritatis inclusum, scio quidem quia non ex meis meritis. sed, ex illius consuetudine, quam circa cunctos novit inpendere, conlegistis et quantum in mea persona panegyricum poetice tan- gitis, tantum in eius laudis historiam retulistis. tamen in verbis vestris illud rele- gere merui quod in eius gratia iam percepi. sed qui de me parvo magna depingitis, quaeso de magnis maxima praedicetis. (13) Quapropter dominationi et sanctitati vestrae me humili supplicatione commendans deprecor per dominum redemptorem ani- marum nostrarum, qui vos praedestinatos sua facturus est in luce consortes, ut me in sanctis orationibus pietatis intuitu dignemini memorare. magnum enim erit spei meae auxilium a vobis obtinere quod posco. Si veniant linguae pariter Graeca atque Latina, pro meritis nequeunt solvere cuncta tuis. laudibus obsessus, votis venerandus haberis, Felix, qui sensus luce perennis eris.