Letter 8009: Radegund, mind fertile for God, life of the sisters —

From: Venantius Fortunatus, poet, in Poitiers To: Queen Radegund, at Holy Cross monastery, Poitiers Date: ~580 AD Context: A verse letter to Radegund written as she undertook a period of stricter enclosure and fasting. Radegund, mind fertile for God, life of the sisters — you who burn your limbs in subduing them, to nourish your soul: observing your yearly vows, today you shut yourself away and seek for yourself the harder path of discipline. I do not pretend to understand this fully — the way that restriction becomes, for you, a kind of freedom. The world offers me more food and company than I need, and I take more than I should. You do the opposite and seem the better for it. I think of the athletes I have read about in the old books — how they denied themselves in training for a contest. But your contest is not with other men. Your contest is with whatever in yourself falls short of God. And you win, year by year, by the evidence of your face, which carries a peace I have not seen on many faces. I will not visit during your enclosure — that would defeat the purpose. But I will be nearby, writing bad verse and eating too much, and thinking of you with the particular admiration one reserves for people who are genuinely better than oneself. Your Fortunatus

IX Ad eandem cum se reclauderet Mens fecunda deo, Radegundis, vita sororum, quae ut foveas animam membra domando cremas: annua vota colens hodie claudenda recurris: errabunt animi te repetendo mei. lumina quam citius nostris abscondis ocellis! nam sine te nimium nube premente gravor. omnibus exclusis uno retineberis antro: nos magis includis, quos facis esse foris. et licet huc lateas brevibus fugitiva diebus, longior hic mensis quam celer annus erit. tempora subducis, ceu non videaris amanti, cum vos dum cerno hoc mihi credo parum. sed tamen ex voto tecum veniemus in unum et sequor huc animo quo vetat ire locus. hoc precor, incolumem referant te gaudia paschae, et nobis pariter lux geminata redit.