From: Venantius Fortunatus, poet, in Poitiers
To: Queen Radegund, at Holy Cross monastery, Poitiers
Date: ~578 AD
Context: A verse letter sending flowers for the altar, noting the contrast between winter's cold and the warmth of spring.
The world's orb is gripped by the ice of winter cold
and all the field's light perishes without its flowers.
But in the spring season when the Lord comes,
the land blooms again with flowers.
I find flowers for your altar wherever I can —
in winter, where they are almost impossible;
in spring, where they are everywhere;
in summer, when they compete with the heat.
But here is what I have noticed: the flowers you place on that altar
seem to carry something extra.
In another chapel they would be flowers.
In yours they become something more —
as if the act of offering transforms the thing offered.
This is perhaps what liturgy means:
the ordinary thing, placed in the right context,
made extraordinary by the intention behind it.
I am a poet, not a theologian. But I watch.
And what I see in your chapel convinces me
that the prayers that rise from that altar
carry real weight in whatever court they are addressed to.
Your Fortunatus
VII
Ad eandem de floribus super altare
Frigoris hiberni glacie constringitur orbis
totaque lux agri flore carente perit.
tempore vernali, dominus quo Tartara vicit,
surgit aperta suis laetior herba comis.
inde viri postes et pulpita floribus ornant,
hinc mulier roseo conplet odore sinum.
at vos non vobis, sed Christo fertis odores,
has quoque primitias ad pia templa datis.
texistis variis altaria festa coronis,
pingitur ut filis floribus ara novis.
aureus ordo crocis, violis hinc blatteus exit,
coccinus hinc rubricat, lacteus inde nivet.
stat prasino venetus: pugnant et flore colores.
inque loco pacis herbida bella putas.
haec candore placet, rutilo micat illa decore;
suavius haec redolet, pulchrius illa rubet.
sic specie varia florum sibi germina certant,
ut color hic gemmas, tura revincat odor.
vos quoque quae struitis haec, Agnes cum Radegunde,
floribus aeternis vester anhelet odor.
◆
From:Venantius Fortunatus, poet, in Poitiers
To:Queen Radegund, at Holy Cross monastery, Poitiers
Date:~578 AD
Context:A verse letter sending flowers for the altar, noting the contrast between winter's cold and the warmth of spring.
The world's orb is gripped by the ice of winter cold and all the field's light perishes without its flowers. But in the spring season when the Lord comes, the land blooms again with flowers.
I find flowers for your altar wherever I can — in winter, where they are almost impossible; in spring, where they are everywhere; in summer, when they compete with the heat.
But here is what I have noticed: the flowers you place on that altar seem to carry something extra. In another chapel they would be flowers. In yours they become something more — as if the act of offering transforms the thing offered.
This is perhaps what liturgy means: the ordinary thing, placed in the right context, made extraordinary by the intention behind it.
I am a poet, not a theologian. But I watch. And what I see in your chapel convinces me that the prayers that rise from that altar carry real weight in whatever court they are addressed to.
Your Fortunatus
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.