A letter from Fortunatus (after 567)

Translated letter:

[For other delights and milk] Among the multiple feasts you send fasts and you burn my spirits seeing more things. My eyes see what the doctor orders not to be used, and that hand forbids what our throat asks for. Yet before anything else you serve the best things with milks, you conquer royal presents with your gifts. Now be a sister rejoicing with the pious mother, we beg: for the benign table of joy holds us.

Original letter:

[Pro aliis deliciis et lacte] Inter multiplices epulas ieiunia mittis atque meos animos plura videndo cremas. respiciunt oculi medicus quod non iubet uti, et manus illa vetat quod gula nostra rogat. attamen ante aliud cum lactis opima ministras, muneribus vincis regia dona tuis. nunc cum matre pia gaudens soror esto, precamur: nam nos laetitiae mensa benigna tenet.

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), 266, Librum XI, xix.

Date:

after 567