Long Sapphic Poem to Gregory
With a joyful heart and a charming pen, you write letters with eager desire, composing a pleasant series of greetings, dear Gregory.
Recently demanding that I produce the new meters that Sappho [the great lyric poet of Lesbos, c.630-570 BC] sang with elegance — recalling thus the Dionean loves [Venus/Dionea — the erotic themes of Sapphic lyric poetry], the learned girl.
Greek Pindar [the great ode-poet, c.522-443 BC] and then my own Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65-8 BC, who adapted Sapphics into Latin] — playing softly as a citharist with plucking plectrum on the Sapphic meter — played with a pleasing song.
Why do you impose lyric modes on me, father? My pen does not know that field. It is as if you ordered a sailor to guide his ship across the mountains, or a shepherd to ply the oar on the sea.
The Muses gave me other tools: the flowing elegiac couplet, the epic hexameter. In these I can move, however badly. But Sappho's meter — where every syllable must be weighed and every foot measured — this is the instrument of a master, and I am a student still.
Yet since you ask, I have tried. What I send is not worthy of Sappho, or of Pindar, or of Horace. It is barely worthy of Fortunatus. But it is sent with the desire to please the one who asked for it.
And now let me say what I really want to say: Gregory of Tours [Gregory, c.538-594, author of the History of the Franks and the most important historian of the early medieval West], you are the reason that these times will not be forgotten. Other men fight the wars and build the walls. You write the history. When the Franks who now seem so powerful are dust, your books will tell the world what they were.
The History of the Franks will outlast every king it describes. The Lives of the Fathers will be read when the monasteries they describe are ruins. The glory of the confessors and martyrs that you have recorded will be remembered when the councils that tried to erase them are forgotten.
Write, Gregory. Keep writing. There is no better use for a bishop's Latin.
VII
Item ad Gregorium episcopum
Corde iucundo, calamo venusto
litteras mittis cupiente voto,
blanda conscribens Serie salutis,
care Gregori:
exigens nuper nova me movere
metra quae Sappho cecinit decenter,
sic Dionaeos memorans amores,
docta puella.
Pindarus Graius, meus inde Flaccus
Sapphico metro, inodulante plectro
molliter pangens citharista, blando
carmine lusit.
cur mihi iniungis lyricos melodes,
voce qui rauca modo vix susurro?
eloqui chordis mea dextra nescit
pollice dulci.
qui vel haec olim mihi si fuissent
nota prudentum docili Camena,
per tot oblitus fueram benignam
tempora Musam:
cum labor doctis sit, ut ista pangant
dogma nec quisquam rapienter intret
et satis constent resonare paucis
metra poetis.
non leve est nautae rate transfretare
vincere aut vastum pelagus natatu;
vix procelloso repetunt sub austro
carbasa portum.
arduum nobis iter et profundum,
quo iubes pergi: tamen ibo votis;
si minus possum pedibus viare,
ducor amore.
praestitit, pastor, tua mi voluntas
codicem farsum tumido cothurno
quemque paupertas mea vix valebat
tangere sensu.
regiis verbis humili repugnat,
divites versus inopi recusans
et mihi Mopso reserare nolens
docta sophistis;
disputans multum Variante milto
quaeque sunt rythmis vel amica metris,
Sapphicum quantum trimetrumve adornet
dulcis epodus.
multus auctorum numerus habetur
plura dicentum modulo canoro,
quae volens isto memorare metro
nomina frango.
maxime qui nunc resolutus arte
postque bis denos loquor istud annos,
clara quod scripsit citharam terendo
Lesbia virgo.
scire qui vult haec, Libycas harenas
ante per litus numerare tendat,
cuncta quam metris ratione cauta
carmine cingat.
nam moras feci, remoratus ipse,
pluribus causis modo hinc et inde,
nec vacans legi placida quiete
dulce sophistae.
scito nam, pastor, nec adhuc cucurri
ordinem totum religens libelli;
sed satis, crede, est, satis est amanti
sola voluntas.
ergo laxatus celeri volatu
ad patrem sacrum comitante voto
et sibi nostrum renovans amorem
perge, libelle.
forte non possum piger ire gressu
quo vocat blandus meus ille vultus:
in vicem nostram, rogo te, libelle,
redde salutem.
sit memor fili pater, ore dulci
hunc precans qui nos, mare et astra fecit,
ac piis votis bene se colentem
pectore servet;
feminae carae, sibi mente nexae
quem colunt, Agnes, Radegundis: idem,
sicut exposcunt vice filiarum,
solve salutem.
adde Iustinam pariter precantem,
nempe commendans famulam propinquam,
et refer quantum sibi cara profert
neptis honorem.
haec tibi promptus prece voce mente
solvo, vix implens, ego pauper arte,
sed tamen largo refluens amore,
care Gregori.
Domine et dulcis ora pro me et tibi reputa qui me in Galliis posito post tot annos ...
VIII
Ad Baudoaldum episcopum
Summe sacerdotum, bonitatis opima facultas,
culmen honore tuo, lumen amore meo,
officiis venerande sacris, pietatis alumne,
pignore amicitiae corde tenende meae,
florens in studiis et sacra in lege fidelis,
semper agens animae dona futura tuae:
te, pater, ergo precans terram freta sidera testor,
ut velis ore sacro me memor esse tuum.
IX
Ad Sidonium episcopum
Reddita ne doleas, felix Magantia, casus:
antistes rediit qui tibi ferret opem.
ne maerore gravi lacrimans orbata iaceres,
te meruisse fame
porrigit ecce manum genitor Sidonius urbi,
quo renovante locum prisca ruina perit;
iura sacerdoti sacro moderamine servans,
per cuius studium crevit et ipse gradus.
parturis assidue gravidos, ecclesia, fructus ,
quam vir apostolico iunctus amore regit;
suscipit heredes caelesti germine natos,
tali nupta viro quando marita placet.
te vigili custode lupus non diripit agnos,
te pascente gregem non ovis ulla perit:
cautius in tuto per mitia pascua ducis,
toxica ne noceant, florea rura paras.
sis cibus ut populi, placide ieiunia servas
et satias alios subtrahis unde tibi.
nudos veste tegis captivo vincula solvens,
deposito reddens libera colla iugo.
exulibus domus es, [set] et esurientibus esca:
felix cui Christus debitor inde manet!
te doctrina probum, providentia sacra modestum
facit eloquio vincere mella tuo.
templa vetusta novans specioso fulta decore
inseris hinc populis plus in amore deum.
ut plebem foveas et Rheni congruis amnes:
quid referat terris qui bona praebet aquis?
hic quod fana micant, a te instaurata quod extant,
vivis in aeterno laude fluente tibi.
haec [habeas] longos meritorum fruge per annos
et crescente diu de grege vota feras.
◆
Long Sapphic Poem to Gregory
With a joyful heart and a charming pen, you write letters with eager desire, composing a pleasant series of greetings, dear Gregory.
Recently demanding that I produce the new meters that Sappho [the great lyric poet of Lesbos, c.630-570 BC] sang with elegance — recalling thus the Dionean loves [Venus/Dionea — the erotic themes of Sapphic lyric poetry], the learned girl.
Greek Pindar [the great ode-poet, c.522-443 BC] and then my own Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65-8 BC, who adapted Sapphics into Latin] — playing softly as a citharist with plucking plectrum on the Sapphic meter — played with a pleasing song.
Why do you impose lyric modes on me, father? My pen does not know that field. It is as if you ordered a sailor to guide his ship across the mountains, or a shepherd to ply the oar on the sea.
The Muses gave me other tools: the flowing elegiac couplet, the epic hexameter. In these I can move, however badly. But Sappho's meter — where every syllable must be weighed and every foot measured — this is the instrument of a master, and I am a student still.
Yet since you ask, I have tried. What I send is not worthy of Sappho, or of Pindar, or of Horace. It is barely worthy of Fortunatus. But it is sent with the desire to please the one who asked for it.
And now let me say what I really want to say: Gregory of Tours [Gregory, c.538-594, author of the History of the Franks and the most important historian of the early medieval West], you are the reason that these times will not be forgotten. Other men fight the wars and build the walls. You write the history. When the Franks who now seem so powerful are dust, your books will tell the world what they were.
The History of the Franks will outlast every king it describes. The Lives of the Fathers will be read when the monasteries they describe are ruins. The glory of the confessors and martyrs that you have recorded will be remembered when the councils that tried to erase them are forgotten.
Write, Gregory. Keep writing. There is no better use for a bishop's Latin.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.