A letter from Fortunatus (after 567)

Translated letter:

[Again for milk] I looked at the fingers fixed/imprinted on the milky gifts, and the depicted hand stays here where you seize the cream/butter. Say, I ask, who compelled the tender nails to sculpt [it] so? Was Daedalus your master in the art? O venerable love whose image comes to me without the form, seized by the maker! There was hope, but then it broke with the thin covering: for not a small part was there to be given to me. May you make these through long years, with the lord giving [them], and the mother remaining long in this light together.

Original letter:

[Item aliud pro lacte] Aspexi digitos per lactea munera fixos, et stat picta manus hic ubi crama rapis. dic, rogo, quis teneros sic sculpere conpulit ungues? Daedalus an vobis doctor in arte fuit? o venerandus amor cuius faciente rapina subtracta specie venit imago mihi! spes fuit, haec quoniam tenui se tegmine rupit: nam neque sic habuit pars mihi parva dari. haec facias longos domino tribuente per annos, in hac luce simul matre manente diu.

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), 264, Librum XI, xiv.

Date:

after 567