A letter from Fortunatus (after 567)

Translated letter:

[Again about the same thing] Multiple feasts flock together, poured from all sides; what I might take first, good wandering/error holds me. A swelling silver bowl (?) bears gifts of flesh/meat, where the vegetable swam in overly fat broth. A marble dish brings what is born in the gardens, whose honeyed savor flowed in my mouth. A glass-turned tray swelled with chickens, without the feathers, having such a heavy weight! Many fruit rune together from painted baskets, whose sweetly diffusing odor filled me. A dark pot gives very white goblets of milk and comes proud which was what would please. These gifts serving the lady mother, these the daughter I shall speak of as the third joined in pious love.

Original letter:

[Item aliud de eadem re] Multiplices epulae concurrunt undique fusae; quid prius excipiam, me bonus error habet. carnea dona tumens argentea gavata perfert, quo nimium pingui iure natabat holus. marmoreus defert discus quod gignitur hortis, quo mihi mellitus fluxit in ore sapor. intumuit pullis vitreo scutella rotatu, subductis pinnis quam grave pondus habens! plurima de pictis concurrunt poma canistris, quorum blandifluus me saturavit odor. olla nigella nimis dat candida pocula lactis atque superba venit quae placitura fuit. haec dominae matri famulans, haec munera natae iunctus amore pio tertius ipse loquar.

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.

Printed source:

Venanti Fortunati Opera Poetica, ed. Fridericus Leo (Berlin: Weidmann, 1881), 262-63, Librum XI, x

Date:

after 567