A letter from Fortunatus (after 567)

Translated letter:

All celebrate the feast today: I alone in the world lament being absent from your[s] birthday; who if perhaps I were hidden in another region, I ought to get to you[pl] more swiftly. Now others give you[s], I [give] no gifts for the sister, rather I give what I could, little apples, small blackberries. But though I am absent in form, I am present in my breast and I ask that you willing take the gifts I sent: so may god omnipotent spare the mother and the sister, who do not need to retain me for themselves. This pious feast long through many years, may you when you are old [senis?] celebrate together with the happy mother, and me also your brother.

Original letter:

Cuncti hodie festiva colunt: ego solus in orbe absens natali conqueror esse tuo; qui si forte latens alia regione fuissem, ad vos debueram concitus ire magis. nunc alii tibi dant, ego munero nulla sorori, vel dare qui potui pomula, mora ioti. sed quamvis absens specie, sum pectore praesens et rogo quae misi dona libenter habe: sic deus omnipotens parcat matri atque sorori, quae non egerunt me retinere sibi. haec pia festa diu multos, senis ipsa, per annos laeta matre simul, me quoque fratre colas.

Historical context:

Bishop Venantius Fortunatus met Agnes and her patron, Radegund, when he visited Poitiers. They became good friends and exchanged epistolary poems and small gifts until the women died. After her death, Fortunatus wrote a life of Radegund emphasizing her ascetic qualities.

Printed source:

Venanti Fortunati Opera Poetica, ed. Fridericus Leo (Berlin: Weidmann, 1881), 285, Appendix, xviii.

Date:

after 567