Letter 8008: O queen with power, to whom gold and purple are worthless,

From: Venantius Fortunatus, poet, in Poitiers To: Queen Radegund, at Holy Cross monastery, Poitiers Date: ~578 AD Context: A verse letter accompanying a gift of flowers to Radegund, with characteristic self-deprecation about the smallness of the gift. O queen with power, to whom gold and purple are worthless, the loving one honors you with small flowers. And though the thing is nothing, the feeling is not — may the rose-giver's heart be accepted by your heart. I know gold and purple are worthless to you. I have watched you for years now. You give them away as fast as they come. What you value cannot be given in a basket. So I give flowers. Small things, the best I have. They will wilt by tomorrow. But today they carry whatever I mean by them: gratitude, affection, the particular respect one feels for someone who has chosen a harder path and walks it with what looks, from the outside, like ease. You make it look easy. I suspect it is not. I suspect there are nights when the world you gave up seems, briefly, like a loss rather than a gift. But you never let that show, which is its own kind of courage. Accept the flowers.

VIII Item ad eandem pro floribus transmissis O regina potens, aurum cui et purpura vile est, floribus ex parvis te veneratur amans. et si non res est, color est tamen ipsa per herbas: purpura per violas, aurea forma crocus. dives amore dei vitasti praemia mundi: illas contemnens has retinebis opes. suscipe missa tibi variorum munera florum, ad quos te potius vita beata vocat. quae modo te crucias, recreanda in luce futura, aspicis hinc qualis te retinebit ager. per ramos fragiles quos nunc praebemus olentes perpende hinc quantus te refovebit odor. haec cui debentur precor ut, cum veneris illuc, meque tuis meritis dextera blanda trahat. quamvis te expectet paradisi gratia florum, isti vos cupiunt iam revidere foris. et licet egregio videantur odore placere, plus ornant proprias te redeunte comas.