A letter from Gerbert of Aurillac/Reims ()
Sender
Gerbert of Aurillac/ReimsReceiver
Theophanu, empressTranslated letter:
I am deeply aware that you understand my feelings, and therefore I love and embrace you and yours even more. I remember most honorably the warning by which you suspended me for a long time from association with certain princes; you let me know what you wished. I pray therefore by the venerable name of my father A[dalbero], by the involate faith with which I have always held him and his, that I not be compelled to forget the men whom I always especially loved, for love of him, neglecting my own good. May it come to the memory of my ruler/lady Theophanu that I have kept faith with her and her son, let her not permit me to become the glory of her enemies whom, for her sake, when I could, I led to shame and contempt. I pray again openly, I ask, I beseech, let his service not displease you, whom your empire, honor, and power have up to now pleased. Make yours with generosity, lest in the absence of honor, in the flight of the best arts, I may be made a partisan of Catiline who in leisure and in business was a diligent follower of the precepts of Tully [Cicero].Original letter:
Plurimum intelligo vos intelligere motus animi mei, eoque amplius vos ac vestra diligo et amplector. Recordor quippe honestissime ammonitionis, qua me satis diu a communione quorundam principum suspendistis, quid velletis, significastis. Oro ergo per venerabile nomen patris mei A., per inviolatam fidem, qua se suosque semper colui, ne cogar eorum hominum oblivisci, quos ob eius amorem meis commodis neglectis praecipue semper dilexi. Veniat in memoriam domine mee Th. servata fides circa se suumque filium, nec sinat me fore gloriam suorum hostium, quos propter se, si quando valui, abduxi in obprobrium et contemptum. Iterum in commune oro, rogo, obsecro, ne eius vobis displiceat servitus, cui vestrum imperium, honor, potestas hactenus placuerunt. Facite vestra liberalitate, ne absentia honestatis, fuga obtimarum artium efficiar sectator Catiline, qui in otio et negotio praeceptorum M. Tullii diligens fui executor.