A letter from Guido de Basochis ()

Translated letter:

To H, lady of Basochis, his mother most worthy of honor, G. her son, if she desires to relieve what is desired by her perishing son, not to write back but to come. I thought truly to dictate a letter to be sent to you, mother sweetest to me of [all] things, no less compelling than misery worthy of commiseration demands, worthy, I say, of maternal commiseration. That you might know, most beloved parent, by which chains I am held bound, how much the Lord weighed down my shackles, an hour is scarcely free from care consumed by excessive anguish of pressure, pale brow, failing eyes, sunken cheeks and empty veins, the breast heaves, the tongue palpitates, the hand fails, unable to write. The whole external man is corrupted, that the internal may be seduced to salvation. For corruption is to be desired from which correction may be generated; that part perishes usefully which redeems its ruins by emendation of the whole. It ought to suffice to the shipwrecked in the flood of this sea and bitterness of the present life to have avoided the strife of conflicting waves and shatterings storms, naked, and to have held the desired shore. Therefor from natural twin heats in me not that which inheres in bodies from composing elements of which the power to perish in death the body can not be despoiled joined with the individual embrace to the other benefits of nature, but proceeding from influences which are spirits and humors, which is coeval with life and called actual, the congealing torpor of sickness swiftly compels to sleep as in semidead coals. Whose innate heat and surmounting course of nature, consuming the vitals, and almost consuming life which every power of health in me almost completely exhausted, since my powers to sustain are not virile enough nor are they carried by a high ship but closed by a narrow boundary! O how miserable in me is the conflict of death and life, which invites not only those who know [me] to tears, but even those who don’t! It compels who sees [me] to spare envy; it makes not only friends but enemies weep. O how violent is the storm of this disease, which permits no remedies of doctors to help in my drowning, but turning all good signs to flight, overturns the defense of all hope of my health with the flooding of despair. Your absence, most beloved parent, adds to these evils, and seems to assent not a little, which increases the heap of my troubles and mounds up the pile of so many adversaries. For just as to the mother nothing outside herself is dearer than a son in human things, nothing should be sweeter to the son than a mother. Whence who gives rain over the face of the earth, if he would grant me among so much bitterness to be sprinkled with the dew of this sweetness, it would disperse whatever hurts me, one of the two at least either to relieve more swiftly or to endure the harsh more easily. For who knows how to aid a son more faithfully than a mother when disease presses, to ask more devotedly, to warn more diligently, to rule more confidently, to console better, to be more truly compassionate, to sigh more sweetly, than she who bore him? Therefore I have much to lament at your absence, since your presence would confer so many goods on me, at the same time to feel your absence takes them away, brings on evils to the body, afflicts the mind with so much harm, applies torments, multiplies tortures. This is, dear parent, what has the face of one hastening, That the present letter urges with such prods. This is that help that my afflicted parts seek from your love, this the aid that the whole and so great excursus of letters asks from your pity. Certainly individuals can have a great number of relatives, a great number of friends. But of fathers and mothers, we do not have more than one each. There is indeed a natural friendship among those close, yet not truly simple but complex, since the reason they love is not only because of closeness but also of usefulness. There is true and not natural [friendship] among certain friends but not an innumerable multitude of those, whom the favor of coming fortune does not bring, nor the wrath of receding [fortune] drive away. There is not true nor natural [friendship] among friends who are called such but are not, who putting the cloth of simulated favor over a changeable mind, belie friendship with the cloak of a white forehead. Between parents however and their children there is a natural and true [friendship] and so much more true and sincere as the stream of generation descends more closely from the source. But truly true friendship is that most generic kind which the coeternal and consubstantial love of the genitor and the engendered infuses in holy breasts, that harmony whose embrace binds all things. Since therefore you owe that natural and true friendship to me, I wish you to show the not natural but true in my so many and unceasing needs. For prior affection pertains to carnal [beings], has no affection except with the body, unless it has effects more dear with time; it is the same for it with the nature of the natal flesh and the common end. This truly which I deservedly called true friendship flesh and blood do not make, but a charity diffused through our hearts by the holy Spirit. It does not know how to end with the body, to pass away with time, not to be subject to the laws of death. For it will not perish with the present life but will be much greater in the future, much greater in the fatherland than in exile, when having crossed from the mortal winter into the summer of resurrection, the most shining face of eternal beatitude will smile, the clouds of fear will be dissolved by the brightness of perfect charity, the ash will be raised to a crown, mourning converted to the oil of joy and the spirit of sorrow will don the mantle of praise. Therefore since the course of my life hastens to its coming end, since the loan [cf 1 Petr.1:24] of my body, which the earth germinated in your uterus, for the excessive heat of languor is converted to dryness, the flower to its fall, since what is born of flesh is flesh, [cf.John3:6] the kind of friendship set [forth] before, which looks to the flesh, is fitting that it take its end with the flesh and, as it comes with the coming, leave with the leaving. Of this friendship, however, by which you alone ought to help me, it is necessary that you as mother expend the wealth.(1) If it should happen with God ruling that the burden of the muddy fragility under which my soul sighs gravely bent over be put down, I beg that with my things set in order by the judgment of your disposition, you have this song placed on my tombstone, so that whoever sees it might help me with prayer, who needs the help for the many and great exigencies of the faults I have incurred.
My name is Guido, my origin of the family Basochis;
he who is the lord of the castle is my father.
In the sacred hall of the protomartyr of Chalons (2)
The fifth order conferred the office on me(3).
I was greater than the brief, briefer than the great,
a man having the years almost of a youth, more or less.
And given to play but rare in those studies,
Frequent in these, I was taught and to be taught.
Not wealthy nor poor but in such moderation
I was a mean between both fortunes.
The seventh month approached with more than half the Virgin(4)
when nothing remained to me but to die.
You Who read these verses, turned to heaven for me
with devout mind offer prayers in my memory.

Original letter:

H. domine de Basochis, honorande sibi plurimum matri sue, G. filius suus, si desiderata pereunti filio desiderat subuenire, non rescribere sed uenire. Mittendam ad te, rerum michi dulcissima mater, epistolam cogitaui nimirum dictare non minus cogentem quam exigere comprobatur digna miseracione miseria, digna, inquam, miseracione materna. Vt autem noueris, dilectissima parens, quibus tenear uinculis alligatus, quantum Dominus aggrauauerit compedes meos, pre nimio langoris angore consumptis auribus, pallida fronte, marcentibus oculis, genis exhaustis et uenis uacuis hora uix uacat, hebet pectus, linga palpitat, manus deficit nec sufficit ad scribendum. Totus exterior homo corrumpitur, ut corripiatur interior ad salutem. Desideranda namque corrupcio de qua correccio generatur; pars illa perit utiliter que ruinam suam redimit emendacione tocius. Sufficere debet naufragantibus in fluctibus huius maris et uite presentis amaritudine undarum confligentium et confringentium se procellarum nudos euasisse littigium et tenuisse littus optatum. Naturalibus igitur ex geminis in me caloribus non illum, qui corporibus inest ex componentibus elementis cuius et in morte potentia perire non potest spoliatum aliis nature benefitiis corpus indiuiduo comitata complexu, sed procedentem ex influentibus, que sunt spiritus et humores, qui uite coeuus est et dicitur actualis, congelatiuus egritudinis torpor cito conpulit tamquam in semimortuos obdormire carbones. Eius quoque calor innaturalis et supergrediens cursum nature, consumens uitalia uitamque pene consummans quam fere funditus omne robur in me sospitatis exhausit, cum non essent michi uires ad sustinendum satis uiriles nec alto ueherentur alueo sed angusto margine clauderentur! 0 quam miserabilis in me mortis et uite conflictus, qui non solum notos ad lacrimas sed etiam inuitat ignotos! Videntem parcere cogit inuidiam; non solum amicos flectit ad fletum sed etiam inimicos. 0 quantum est pestis huius uiolenta tempestas, que nulla meis naufragiis suffragia medicorum subuenire permittit sed in fugam omnia bona signa conuertens tocius spei de salute mea presidium inundacione desperacionis euertit. Accedit hiis malis absentia tua, dilectissima parens, et uidetur assentire non parum, que molestiarum mearum moles exaggerat et tantorum cumulum cacuminat aduersorum. Nam sicut matri preter se ipsam nichil filio carius in rebus humanis, nec filio matre dultius esse debet. Vnde qui dat pluuiam super fatiem terre, si me concederet inter tot amara rore dulcedinis huius aspergi, dispergi contingeret omne quod nocet, e duobus unum ad minus, aut releuari leuius aut lenius aspera sustinere. Quis enim filio matre fidelius nouit adsistere, cum morbus insistit, rogare deuotius, monere diligentius, confidentius imperare, melius consolari, compati uerius, gemere dulcius ea que genuit? Idcirco michi plurimum de absentia tua conquerendum, quoniam si presentiam tuam constat tot michi bona conferre, totidem auferre, tot inferre corpori mala, tot mentem affligere nocumentis, applicare tormenta, multiplicare tortores et absentiam tuam sentiendum. Hinc est, cara parens, quod habet uultum properantis, Quod stimulis presens urgetur epistola tantis. Hoc est illud auxilium quod afflicte mee partes a tua dileccione requirunt, hunc totus et tantus litterarum excursus petit a tua pietate succursum. Multa certe propinquorum numerositas, multa potest esse singulis amicorum. Patres autem et matres nisi singuli singulos non habemus. Et est quidem inter propinquos amicitia naturalis, non uera tamen tamquam non simplex sed composita, cum scilicet non solum propinquitatis sed etiam utilitatis se diligunt causa. Vera et non naturalis inter quosdam amicorum sed eorum quorum non est innumera multitudo, quos scilicet nec fauor adducit aduenientis fortune nec ira recedentis abducit. Nec uera nec naturalis inter amicos qui dicuntur et non sunt sed uarie menti pannum simulate gracie superponentes amictu candide frontis amicitiam mentiuntur. Inter parentes autem et filios naturalis et uera consistit et tanto uerior atque sincerior quanto propinquior generacionis riuus a fonte descendit. At uero amicitia uera illud est amicitie generalissimum genus quod ingeniti genitoris et eius geniti coeternus et consustantialis amor sanctis infudit pectoribus, ilia concordia cuius omnia ligat amplexus. Cum igitur naturalem et ueram amicitiam debeas michi, non naturalem sed ueram exhibere te uolo tot et tantis et non cessantibus necessitatibus meis. Nam prior affectus pertinet ad carnales nec habet suos nisi cum corpore, nisi cum tempore carius effectus; idem est ei cum carnis natura natalis et communis occasus. Hanc uero quam merito ueram amicitiam appellaui non fatiunt caro et sanguis sed per Spiritum sanctum diffusa caritas in cordibus nostris. Finiri cum corpore, cum tempore transire non nouit nec mortis legibus subiacere. Cum presenti namque uita non preterit sed erit multo magis in futura, multo maior erit in patria quam in exilio, cum scilicet hieme mortali transacta in resurreccionis estate beatitudinis eterne florentissima faties arridebit, timoris nubila perfecte caritatis claritate soluentur, cinis eleuabitur ad coronam, conuertetur in oleum gaudii luctus et spiritus meroris induet pallium laudis. Igitur quia uite mee cursus uicinam sibi festinat ad metam, quia fenum corporis mei, quod terra germinauit uteri tui, pre nimio languoris feruore conuertitur in ariditatem, flos ad occasum, quia, quod natum est ex carne, caro est, premissa speties amicitie, que spectat ad carnem, oportet ut cum carne finem accipiat et, cum qua ueniente uenit, cum recedente recedat. Huius autem amicitie, qua sola subuenire michi nunc debes, opus est ut opem mater inpendas. Quod si contigerit imperante Domino lutee fragilitatis honus, sub quo gemit anima mea grauiter incuruata, deponi, precor, ut ordinatis rebus meis pro tue dispositionis arbitrio carmen hoc fatias meo tumulo superponi, ut, cuius occurret occulis, oracione michi succurrat, qui, ut michi succurri sit necessarium, multis et magnis exigentibus culpis incurri. Guido michi nomen, generis Basochis origo; Qui castri dominus, et pater ille meus. In Cathalaunensi sacra protomartiris aula Offitium quintus contulit ordo michi. Maior eram breuibus, breuior maioribus, annos Vir iuuenisue fere, plusue minusue ferens. Et ludis datus et studiis sed rarus in illis, Creber in his, doctus atque docendus eram. Nec diues nec egens sed sub moderamine tali Fortunam medius inter utramque fui. Septimus instabat media plus Virgine mensis, Cum michi restabat preter obire nichil. Qui legis hos uersus, conuersus ad ethera pro me Promere deuota mente memento preces.

Historical context:

Guido writes to tell his mother how sick he is, how he longs for her, and what epitaph to put on his tomb.

Scholarly notes:

1. Guido makes a play on opus (need) and ops (wealth). 2. Stephen. 3. Cantor. 4. Late August,beginning of September.

Printed source:

Liber Epistularum Guidonis de Basochis, ed. Herbert Adolfsson, Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis, Studia Latina Stockholmiensia, 18 (Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell, 1969), 115-17, ep. 27.