Sender
Fortunatus
Receiver
Agnes, abbess of the Holy Cross
Translated letter:
[Again]
Anxious, afflicted, I am bent over with the weight of cares,
I can not give words from my confused breast;
under doubtful murmuring I am torn apart, I can not release songs,
I don’t know how to say certain things with my mind wandering from me.
Alas, if desires wish to hire the sad one speaking,
messenger clouds would immediately carry me to you;
if I knew how to take wings in a Daedalian fall,
the lover would have flown to you the sooner:
for the lord knows, who moves hidden hearts,
what care overcomes my innards, but silently.
Give back, since I can not, the promises of the benign lady;
yet do not believe this was my fault:
excuse, if perhaps you can, with the stars as witness,
I did not want wild delays in the ear of the mother.
Let her pray for the servant: I shall swifly prepare to return,
and when I am present, she may overcome me with lash, with voice.
Original letter:
[Item aliud]
Anxius, afflictus curarum pondere curvor,
pectore confuso nec dare verba queo;
murmure sub dubio laceror neque carmina laxo,
nescio certa loqui mente vagante mihi.
heu, tristem si vota velint audire fatentem,
me subito ferrent nubila missa tibi;
Daedalico lapsu si pinnas sumere nossem,
ad vos quantocius iam revolasset amans:
novit enim dominus, qui corda latentia pulsat,
quae mea, sed tacite, viscera cura domet.
reddite, cum nequeo, dominae promissa benignae;
nec tamen hic culpam crede fuisse meam:
excusa, si forte potes, per sidera testor,
me neque velle moras matris in aure feras.
oret pro famulo: citius remeare parabo,
et cum praesentor, verbere, voce domet.
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:
Venantii Fortunati, Opera Poetica, ed. Fridericus Leo (Berlin: Weidmann, 1881), 288, Appendix, xxiv.
Date:
after 567
