Letter 31

PAULINUS TO AUSONIUS This is now the fourth summer returning for the hardy reapers, and just as often has winter stiffened with hoary frost, since no letter has come to me from your lips, since I have seen no writing marked by your hand -- until at last a happy page with its health-bringing little book gave me, multiplied many times over, the gifts so long denied. For a threefold letter blossomed with varied texture, and the triple page was a many-versed poem. Sweet things, somewhat soured in places by manifold complaints, an anxious affection had mingled with rebuke; but with me the father's gentleness has settled deeper than the censor's bitterness, and from your kindly words I weigh the harsh against them in my mind. Yet those charges must be sent back to their own proper place and be driven home in the weightier sound of avenging heroic verse. Meanwhile, more lightly, a brief iambus shall run on ahead, paying back your words in turn with its discoursing measure. Now my elegiacs bid you hail, and, the greeting once spoken, just as they have made for others a beginning and a step forward, they fall silent. [PAULINUS TO AUSONIUS] Why, father, do you bid the renounced Muses return to my care? Hearts dedicated to Christ refuse the Camenae [the Italian Muses] and lie not open to Apollo. There was once between me and you a harmony in this -- equal not in power but in zeal -- to summon deaf Phoebus from his Delphic cave, to call the Muses as divine powers, and to seek the gift of speech, that gift granted by the gift of a god, from groves or from mountain ridges. Now another force drives my mind, a greater God, and demands another manner of life, reclaiming for himself from man his own gift: he forbids us to spend ourselves on empty things, whether in leisure or in business, and on fable-filled letters, that we may live for the Father of life; that we may obey his laws and behold his light, which the cunning craft of the wise and the art of orators and the fictions of poets cloud over -- men who steep our hearts with what is false and vain and only equip our tongues, bringing nothing that might confer salvation, nothing that might lay bare the truth. For what good or true thing can they hold who do not hold the head of all -- God, the kindling-spark and the fountain of the true and the good, whom no one sees except in Christ? He is the light of truth, the way of life, the strength, the mind, the hand, the power of the Father, the sun of righteousness, the fount of good things, the flower of God, the Son born of God, the begetter of the world, the life of our mortality and the death of Death. He is the master of the virtues, God to us and Man for our sake; to be put on by us, he put us on, joining men and God in everlasting exchange, giving himself to both. When, therefore, he has flashed his radiance from heaven into our hearts as into his own, he wipes away the sick neglect of our sluggish body and renews the disposition of the mind. He drains out everything that pleased us before, giving in its place the delight of a chaste pleasure, and wholly, by his right as Lord, he claims our hearts and lips and time: he wills to be thought upon, to be understood, to be believed, to be read; he wills to be feared and to be loved. The empty surgings stirred up by the toil of life along the path of this present age -- faith in a life to come with God abolishes them. That faith does not cast away, as profane or worthless wealth, the things we seem to spurn, but rather counsels that they be laid up, as more precious, in heaven, entrusted to Christ our God, who has promised more than is given to him: the things now scorned, or rather deposited with him, he will repay at much heavier interest. As a guardian without fraud, a good debtor, he will return their money increased to his creditors, and God will restore the money we have despised with great profit added. Do not, I beg, think me -- a man at leisure for him, devoted and given over to him, laying up all things in him -- think me neither idle nor perverse, nor accuse me of being impious. How can piety be absent from a Christian? For it is a mutual proof: of piety, to be a Christian; of impiety, not to be subject to Christ. When I am learning to hold this fast, can I fail to show it toward you, that is, toward my father, to whom God has willed that I owe all sacred duties and dear names? To you I owe my learning, my rank, my letters, the glory of my tongue, my civic dignity, my reputation -- I, advanced, raised up, and instructed by you: my patron, my teacher, my father. But you charge me, why have I lived so long withdrawn, and with a loving impulse you are angry. Whether this course profits me, or is necessary, or simply pleases me, whichever it is, it will be pardonable. Forgive one who loves you, if I do what is expedient; rejoice, if I live as I please. That I shall be away from my native land for a full three years, and that I have chosen another world in wandering roamings, forgetful of the cherished fellowship of your life that I once shared -- this you reproach me with, in holy complaints stirred by affection. I embrace these stirrings of a father's heart, to be revered, and the anger that I must be grateful for, your affections still unharmed. But my return, father, I would rather you ask from the source whence it can be granted; I shall believe myself to be recalled to you when you pour out prayers, not barren ones, to the divine -- you, a suppliant to the Castalian Muses, while their godhead is turned away? Not through these powers will you bring me back to yourself and to my homeland. You call upon the deaf and ask of nothings (a light breeze will carry off what is given to nothing) -- the Muses, names without any godhead. Windy storms snatch away such empty prayers, which, not sent to God, cling among the empty clouds and do not penetrate the starry hall of the King on high. If you long for my return, look to that One and pray to him -- who shakes the fiery summits of highest heaven with his thunder, who flashes with the triple-forked fire and mingles no idle rumblings with it, who lavishes suns enough and rains from the sky, who is above all that is, or wholly in all things everywhere, and rules all things through Christ poured into all things; by whom he holds and moves our minds, by whom he disposes our times and our places. And if he should appoint things contrary to our prayers, he is to be bent by prayer toward those things which we desire. Why do you accuse me? If the act displeases you that I perform with God acting through me, there is something prior: let the author be made the defendant, the one who is pleased either to shape my feelings or to change them. For if you reckon up my qualities, the former ones, the ones known to you, I will freely confess that I am now not the man I was in that time when I was not held to be perverse -- and was perverse, seeing in the darkness of falsehood, wise in the folly of God, alive on the food of death. So much the more is it right that I be forgiven, since from this it is the more readily granted to be recognized that I am being made new by the most high Father, in that what is done is not done in my own manner. I shall not, I think, be said in this matter to have confessed an error of a mind changed for the worse, a thing to be marked down, since I have of my own accord professed that it is not my own mind that has changed my former life. A new mind is mine, I confess, a mind not my own: not my own once, but my own now by God as its author -- who, if he has seen anything in my conduct or my talent worthy of his service, the first thanks go to you, to you the glory due, by whose teaching that was produced which Christ might love. Therefore you should rejoice rather than complain, that that son of yours -- sprung from your studies and your character, Paulinus, whose father you do not disown, not even now, when you believe me perverse -- has so turned his counsels that I have earned to become Christ's while I am Ausonius's. He will bring his own rewards to your praise, and from your tree he will offer the first fruit to you. Therefore, I beg, think better thoughts, and do not lose the greatest rewards by detesting good things that have arisen from your own springs. For my mind is not wandering, nor does my life flee from sharing the company of men -- as you write that the rider of Pegasus [Bellerophon] lived in the caves of Lycia. Many, indeed, dwell in trackless places with God's power working in them, just as before them the famous among the sages did for the sake of their studies and their Muses. So now too, those who with chaste minds have taken up Christ are wont to live thus -- not poor in spirit, nor choosing out of savagery to dwell in deserted places; but turned toward the lofty stars and gazing on the stars, contemplating God and intent on perceiving the depths of the true, free from empty cares, they love repose, and they shrink from the din of the forum and the tumults of affairs and all the business hostile to the gifts of God; by the commands of Christ and by love of salvation they recoil, and by hope and faith they follow God for the reward he has pledged, which the author, who is sure, will bring to those who do not despair -- if only present things in their emptiness do not prevail, if a man scorns what he sees so as to deserve what he does not see, his fiery perception penetrating the secret heavenly things. For perishable things lie open to our sight, eternal things are denied to it; and now in hope we follow what we see with the mind, scorning the various forms, the spectacles of things, and the bodily goods that wrongly tempt the eyes. And yet this resolve has seemed to settle upon those to whom the whole light of the true and the good has now lain open -- the eternal nature of the age to come, and the emptiness of the present one. But I, who have not the same glory, why should I have the same reputation? My faith in my vow is equal, but I dwell in pleasant places -- even now I am set upon the soft and alluring shore of a wealthy coast: whence comes this so hasty envy of my location? Would that just resentment might begin to pluck at me: under the name of Christ, insults will be welcome. A mind made firm by God's power does not suffer tender shame, and the praise I despise here returns to me with Christ as judge. Do not, then, venerable father, reproach me as though I were wrongly turned to these pursuits, and do not pluck at me on account of my wife or any fault of mind: my mind is not Bellerophon's, full of anxiety, nor is my wife a Tanaquil [an ambitious, scheming wife], but a Lucretia [a model of virtue]. Nor have I now, as it seems to you, forgotten the heaven of my fathers -- I who look up to the most high Father; for whoever worships him alone is truly mindful of heaven. Believe then, father, that we are neither unmindful of heaven nor live destitute of mind, and that we dwell in places fit for men. The very pursuits of the pious bear witness to the character of men; for an impious race could not have come to know the most high God. Granted that there are many regions, many men uncultivated in their pursuits, lacking in laws -- what region is without rustic worship? Or what harm in those places does another's wickedness do? As for your casting at me the vast woodlands of the Vasconian [the Basque country] and the snowy lodgings of the Pyrenees, as though I were fixed on the very threshold of the Spanish region and had no place anywhere, in country or in town -- where rich Spain stretches all the way to the edge of the world, watching the sinking suns -- yet suppose it had been my fortune to dwell on the ridges of brigands: have I, changed into the natives themselves, grown stiff in a barbarian household, among the settlers with whom I lived in shared savagery? A pure mind takes in no evil, nor do stains sprinkled on cling to delicate fibers: if anyone, in the Vasconian woodland, leads a life pure of crime, he draws, just as whole, no contagion of character from his inhuman host. But why should there be a charge against me from that name, when I dwell, as I have dwelt, in different places, joined to proud cities and most crowded with the happy cultivated fields of men? And if my life had been on the Vasconian shores, why should not the barbarous people, rather, formed after my manner, have laid aside their wild ways, crossing over into our customs? For as to your placing my dwellings among the overthrown cities of Iberia, and your culling deserted towns in your verse, casting at me mountain Calagurris [Calahorra] and Bilbilis [Bambola] hanging from its sharp crags, and Ilerda [Lerida] lying on the same hillside -- as though I lived in these as an exile from home and city, outside the dwellings and the roads of men: do you believe these are the riches of the Iberian land, ignorant of the Spanish world, where heavy Atlas stood beneath the weight of the pole, whose mountain is now the farthest portion and boundary-mark of the earth, shutting off two-shored Calpe [the Rock of Gibraltar] with its lofty peak? Are only Bilbilis, Calagurris, and Ilerda to be noted in this land, which has Caesaraugusta [Saragossa], pleasant Barcino [Barcelona], and Tarraco [Tarragona], looking down with its splendid summit upon the sea? Why should I count over the cities distinguished in their lands and walls, which happy Spain stretches out to the twin seas, where the Baetis [Guadalquivir] swells the Ocean and the Hiberus [Ebro] the Tyrrhenian, and fills the broad partings of the parted seas, setting its boundary in its own circuit at the edge of the world? Or, illustrious lord, if you had a mind to write where you live, would it please you to keep silent about shining Burdigala [Bordeaux] and instead to describe the pitchy Boii [a tribe near Bordeaux]? And when you lavish your leisure on the warm baths of Maroialum, and grant yourself to live among shady groves, dwelling in habitations delightful for their places and marvelous in their buildings -- do you live in blackened huts and cabins woven of thatch and in wastelands fit for the skin-clad Bigerri [the people of Bigorre]? And you who, as consul, scorn the proud walls of your own Rome -- do you not disdain sandy Vasates [Bazas]? Or because the country is fertile for you, green with the fields of the Pictones [the region of Poitiers], shall I lament that the Ausonian curule chair, alas, has sunk to Raraunum, and that the consular robe grows shabby in some old shrine -- the robe which yet, in the august city of Latian Quirinus [Rome], among the Caesars' palm-embroidered robes, with a like inscription of honor, gleams long, venerable, with its gold unworn, keeping fresh the flourishing honor of your living merit? Or, since you keep to the height of your Lucanian estate, dwelling on a summit that rivals the roofs of Romulus, with the place that marks the neighborhood providing the material -- shall it be said that you spend your days in the village of Condate? Let much lie open to jests, let it be allowed too to play with fictions; but to strike a heavy tooth against the soothing tongue, to play with flatteries upon the mind, and to ferment ill-sweet jests with the vinegar of biting satire -- this often befits poets, never fathers. For faith and affection demand that what slander, weaving evil things, slips into chaste ears, the good-hoping mind of a father should not let be fixed and cling fastened in the heart; and that the malignant crowd with its sinister rumor should not always count it a crime to bend one's former character, one's way of life: for to turn well is a thing of praise. When you hear that I am changed, ask after my pursuit and my duty. If the straight is changed into the crooked, the religious into the profane, the frugal into luxury, the honorable into the base -- if I live idle, inert, obscure -- pity a comrade perverted into evil; let anger rouse the fond parent to restore a fallen friend to right ways and to repair him toward better things with stern admonition. But if perhaps you hear, as is the case -- what I have read and what I follow -- that I have vowed my heart to the holy God, following the venerable command of Christ in docile faith, and that I am persuaded by God's admonitions that eternal rewards are being prepared, bought for a mortal at the cost of present losses -- I do not think this has so displeased my holy father that he believes it an error of mind to live for Christ as Christ has ordained. This pleases me, and I do not repent of this error; that I am foolish to those who follow other things, I do not care at all, so long as my judgment is wise before the eternal King. Brief is whatever man is -- man of a sick body, of a setting season, and without Christ but dust and shadow: what such a man approves or condemns is worth as much as the arbiter himself. He himself perishes, and his own error keeps him company, and his judgment, dying, passes away along with the one who pronounced it. And unless, while the present time is granted, we take anxious care to live according to the command of Christ the Lord, too late will be a man's complaint, his limbs once stripped off, that while he feared the trivial reproaches of the human tongue, he did not fear the heavy wrath of the divine Judge -- whom, seated on the throne and at the right hand of the eternal Father, set as King over all, and coming as the years slip by to judge all nations with an even-balanced scrutiny and to render to them their own rewards for their various deeds -- him I do indeed believe in, and, fearing, I labor with hastening zeal that, if it may be granted, I be released by death later than from sin. Against his coming my heart trembles with believing, fearful fibers, and my soul, now wary, longs for what is to come, dreading beforehand lest, bound by sickly cares for the body and weighed down by the burdens of things, should the vast trumpet perchance peal from the unbarred heaven, it be unable to lift itself on light wings into the air to meet the King, flying in heaven among the honored thousands of the saints -- who, light through the void and not bound by the world's fetter, will raise their feet to the lofty stars with easy effort, and, borne on tender clouds, will go through the stars, that they may worship the heavenly King in mid-air and join their bright companies to the adored Christ. This is my fear, this my labor: that the last day not catch me lulled in black shadows in barren action, leading away time lost amid empty cares. For what shall I do if, while I drowse with sluggish prayers, Christ should flash out, revealed to me from his heavenly citadel, and I, struck blind by the sudden beams of the Lord coming from the opened heaven, should seek, confounded by the inrushing light, the grim refuges of murky night? That neither distrust of the truth, nor love of the present life and the pleasure of things and the toil of cares, might bring this upon me, I have resolved to forestall these chances by my plan, and to put an end to cares while life survives, and so, with a heart untroubled, to await grim Death -- the common lot of all things in the ages to come. If this pleases you, rejoice in the rich hope of your friend; if it is otherwise, let me be approved only by Christ.

'Tis the fourth summer now returns for hardy reapers, and as oft has winter grown stark with hoary rime, since any syllable from thy lips reached me, since 1 saw any letter penned by thy hand— ere thy page, auspicious with its message of greeting, bestowed manifold the gift so long denied. For indeed 'twas a triple letter enriched with various flowers of composition, but the melodious sheets were a three-fold poem. Tilings sweet, though somewhat soured with manifold complaints, troubled affection had mingled with criticism. Put with me the father's gentleness rather than the critic's bitterness finds a resting place, and in my heart I draw from the kindly words what may weigh against the harsh. But these charges must be refuted in their proper place and canvassed in the sterner tones of the avenging heroic measure. Meanwhile, though briefly, lighter iambus shall hurry on ahead, in separate metre 1 paying back his debt of words. Now my elegiacs bid thee hail and having hailed thee, since they have made for others a beginning and a step, cease to speak. Paulinus to Ausonius Why dost thou bid the deposed Muses return to my affection, my father? Hearts consecrate to Christ give refusal to the Camenae, are closed to Apollo. Once was there this accord betwixt me and thee, equals in zeal but not in power—to call forth deaf Apollo from his Delphic cave, to invoke the Muses as divine, to seek from groves or hills the gift of utterance by the god's gift bestowed. Now 'tis another force governs my heart, a greater God, who demands another mode of life, claiming for himself from man the gift he gave, that we may live for the Father of life. To spend time on empty things, whether in pastime or pursuit, and on literature full of idle tales, he forbids; that we may obey his laws and behold his light which sophists' cunning skill, the art of rhetoric, and poets' feignings overcloud. For these steep our hearts in things false and vain, and train our tongues alone imparting naught which can reveal the truth. For what good thing or true can they hold who hold not the head of all, God, the enkindler and source of the good and true, whom no man seeth save in Christ. He is the light of truth, the path of life, the strength, mind, hand, and power of the Father, the sun of righteousness, the fount of blessings, the flower of God, born of God, creator of the world, life of our mortality and death of Death. He, the Lord of Virtues, to us God and for us Man, puts on our nature as we must put on his, linking God with man in perpetual intercourse, himself of each partaking. He, then, when he has launched his beams from heaven upon our hearts, wipes off the sorry filth of our dull bodies and renews the disposition of our hearts: he draws forth all which aforetime used to please, giving unsullied pleasure in return, and absolutely with a master's right claims both our hearts and lips and time. He seeks himself to engross our thoughts, our minds, belief and choice, himself to be feared and loved. Those aimless surges, which the toils of life stir up in the course of this present span of time, are brought to naught by faith in a life to come with God. This easts not a way the riches, which we are thought to seorn, as unhallowed or little worth, but, as more dear, bids them be laid up in Heaven in trust with Christ our God, who has promised more than he receives, to pay back with large usury those things now despised or rather laid up in his keeping. A faithful guardian, an unfailing debtor, he will repay with increase wealth entrusted to him, and of his bounty God with abundant interest will restore the money we have spurned. To Him given up, whether waiting or serving, in Him laying up my all, think me not, I beseech thee, slothful nor wayward, nor charge me with want of filial piety. How can piety be wanting in a Christian? For " piety " has the acquired meaning to be a Christian, and " the impious " one not subject to Christ. When I am learning to hold fast this, can I fail to show it toward thee, that is, towards my father, to whom God has willed that I should owe all sacred duties and names of affection? To thee I owe training, honours, learning, my pride of eloquence, of civil rank, of reputation, being by thee advanced, fostered, and instructed, my patron, tutor, father. But why do I live so long retired, thou askest reproachfully, and art stirred with a loving anger. It is expedient, or 'tis necessary, or 'tis my pleasure: whichever of these it be, it will be pardonable. Forgive me, as I love thee, if I do what is convenient; be thankful if I live as pleases me. PAULINUS TO AUSONIUS That I shall be absent from my native land full three years' space, and that I have traversed another world in aimless wanderings, forgetful of that fellowship in thy life, once cherished—thou dost reproach me with complaints hallowed by the love whence they spring. I welcome with reverence due the emotions of a father's heart and the anger which claims my gratitude leaving affection unimpaired. Yet for my return, my father, I would rather thou should'st ask it there where it can be granted. Shall I believe that thou canst call me back to thee while thou pourest forth barren prayers to beings not divine, suppliant to the Castalian Muses while God turns from thee? Not through such deities wilt thou bring me baek to thee and to my country. Thou call'st the deaf, implorest things of naught— a light breeze will bear away what is addressed to a nothing—the Muses, who are names but nonentities. The stormy winds whirl away ineffectual such prayers as these, which, not addressed to God, cateh in the empty clouds nor make their way into the starry court of the King of Heaven. If thou carest for my return, look towards him and pray to him who with his thunder shakes the fiery heights of highest Heaven, who shoots forth his triple flash of flame, nor mingles it with idle sounds, who on the. crops graciously bestows sunshine and rains from heaven, who being above all that is, or wholly in all things everywhere, reigns over all through Christ who permeates all things: through whom he occupies and sways our minds, through whom he orders our times and places. Put if he ordains things opposed to our hopes, by prayer he may be turned aside to that which we desire Why blamest thou me? If thou mislikest the course which I pursue under God's influence, there is an earlier step: let the Author be accused, who is pleased either to shape or change my feelings. For if thou thinkest my nature is as of old and as 'twas known to thee, I will avow of myself that now I am not the man I was about that time when I was not thought wayward though wayward I was, seeing with the darkness of error, wise in what with God is foolishness,1 and living on the food of death. Wherefore thou art the more bound to pardon me, because by this the more readily 'tis permitted thee to recognize that this change is from the most high Father—that 'tis not in accordance with my nature: by this I shall not, methinks, be held to have admitted a lamentable distraction of a mind changed for the worse, since I have openly avowed that not my own mind has caused me to change my former life. I have a new mind, I confess—a mind not my own: not mine aforetime, though mine now through God's influence—and if in my deeds or thoughts he sees anything worthy for his gifts, to thee chief gratitude, to thee the glory falls due, since thy instruction has produced what Christ could love. Wherefore thou shouldst give thanks rather than complain because I—that son of thine, offspring of thy learning and thy character, Paulinus, whose parentage thou dost not deny, even now when thou believest me wayward—have so changed my principles that I have gained grace to become the child of Christ while I am the child of Ausonius. He will confer his rewards upon thy merit and from this tree of thine proffer the first fruit to thee. And so, I pray thee, think nobler thoughts and lose not the highest rewards by execrating good things which have their source from thee. For indeed my mind does not wander, nor even does my life flee from intercourse with men — even as thou writest that Pegasus' rider lived in Lycian caves 1—albeit many dwell in pathless places through God's leading, just as before them men famous among the sages did for the sake of their learning and their inspiration. Even so in these days also, they who with pure hearts have adopted Christ are wont to live—not as beside themselves, nor out of savagery choosing to dwell in desert places; but because—turning their faces to the stars on high, contemplating God, and intent to scan the deep wells of truth—they love repose void of empty cares, and shun the din of public life, the bustle of affairs, and all concerns hostile to the gifts of Heaven both by Christ's command and in desire for salvation. By hope and faith these follow God for the pledged reward which he, whose promise cannot fail, will bestow on such as persevere, if only this present life with its vain interests does not prevail, and the fiery perceptions, penetrating to Heaven's secret places, scorn what they see to gain what they see not. For things perishable are open to our sight, the eternal are denied; and now in hope we pursue what with the mind we see, scorning the various shapes, the images of things, and the attractions which provoke our natural sight. And yet such resolve has been found to lodge in those to whom already is revealed the light of the good and true, the eternity of the world to come and the emptiness of that which is. But I, who have not the same cause for boasting, why do I bear the same reproach? My surety of hope is no less; but since I dwell in pleasant places, and even now abide upon the agreeable shores of a prosperous coast,whence this so premature carping at my abode? I would that jealousy with good grounds may begin to pluck at me: bearing the name of Christ I shall welcome taunts. A mind strengthened by power divine feels no weak shame, and the praise I here despise is restored to me when Christ is judge. Do not, then, chide me, my honoured father, as though I had turned to these pursuits perversely, and do not twit me with my wife or with defect of mind: mine is not the perturbed mind of Bellerophon, nor is my wife a Tanaquil but a Lucretia. Nor am I now forgetful, as thou thinkest, of the heavens 'neath which my fathers dwelt, seeing that I look up to the all-highest Father, and that whoso worships Him alone he is truly mindful of Heaven.1 Believe then, father, that I am not unmindful of the heavens and do not live distraught in mind, but dwell in a civilized place: pursuits themselves bear witness to the character of righteous men; for an unrighteous race will not be able to know the most high God: granted that much of the country, much of the folk is unimproved and ignorant of laws, yet what tract is without its rustic worship? Or what offence in them is wiekeduess common to other parts? 1 And yet thou dost taunt me with the woodlands of Vasconin and snowy lodgings in the Pyrenees, as though I live tied down at the very frontier of the whole realm of Spain and have no place of my own anywhere in country or in town, where wealthy Spain outstretched along the world's boundary watches the suns dip down into the sea. Put suppose it had been my lot to dwell amid the hills of brigands, have I become a block in a savage's hut, changed into the very serfs amid whom I lived, partaking of their wildness? A pure heart admits no evil, even as filth spattered upon smooth bristles does not stick: if one without stain of wickedness spends his life in a Vasconian glade, his character, unblemished as before, draws no infection from his host's barbarity. Put why am I charged on that account when I dwell, as I have dwelt, in a far different country bordering on splendid cities and thickly covered with man's prosperous tillage? And if my life had been led on the borders of Vasconia, why should not the savage folk rather have been moulded after my mode of life, laying aside their barbarous customs to come over to our own? For whereas thou dost fix my Spanish dwelling-place in ruined cities, traversing in thy verse desolate towns, and eastest in my teeth mountain Calahorra, Bambola hanging from its jagged crags, and Lerida prostrate on its hill-side—as though, an exile from home and city, I were dwelling in these far from the dwellings and highways of men; dost thou believe these are the resources of the Iberian land, ignorant of the Spanish world where laden Atlas took his stand beneath the load of Heaven, he whose mountain, now the furthest fragment and boundary of the earth, shuts out with its lofty peak Calpe that lies betwixt two seas? Are only Bambola, Calahorra, Lerida, placed to the credit of this land which has its Saragossa, pleasant Barcelona, and Tarragona looking from majestic heights down to the sea? What need for me to tell over the cities, distinguished for their territories and walls which prosperous Spain thrusts forth between two seas; where Betis 1 swells the Atlantic, Hiberus 2 the Tuscan sea—Spain whose compass occupies the wide intervening tract which parts main from main, setting its bounds at the extreme verge of the world? If thou, O famous master, wert minded to describe the region where thou dwellest, wouldst thou be content to leave unnamed cheerful Bordeaux preferring to write of the pitchy Boii 3? And when thou bestowest thy leisure on the hot springs of Maroiahnn4 and permittest thyself to live amid shady groves, dwelling amid cheerful scenery and habitations marvellously built, dost thou inhabit murky hovels and cabins of twisted straw amid a wilderness fit for the skin-clad natives of Bigorre? Dost thou, a consul, scorn the proud walls of thine own Rome while not disdaining Bazas amid its sand hills? Or because the fertile country and green fields of Poiteau are about thee, shall I lament that the Ausonian consulate—alas! — has sunk to the level of Raraunum,5 and that the official robe grows shabby in some mouldering shrine; whereas in fact it hangs in the renowned city of Roman Quirinus along with the imperial palm-broidered robes, trophies of like distinction, there gleaming, long venerable, with unfrayed gold, keeping fresh the glorious bloom of thy deathless achievement? Or when thou art lodged under the roof of Lucanus,1 thy country house, inhabiting a pile vying with the halls of Rome, shall we take the pretext afforded by the place which gives its name to the vicinity, saying thou dwellest in the hamlet of Condate 2? Let much admit of jests, let sportive fiction also be allowed; but with a smooth tongue to strike against an aching tooth, to sport with stinging-compliments, and to season jests ill-relished with the vinegar of tart satire, oft befits a poet, never a father. For loyalty and natural affection demand that what slander-spinning Rumour instils into guileless ears, that the good-hoping mind of a father should not suffer to take hold and gain firm lodgment in the heart. Even the common herd, malignant in its brutal sneers towards habits formerly observed, does not always hold it crime to alter one's life: for to alter wisely is accounted praise. When thou hearest 1 am changed, ask what is ray pursuit and my business. If 'tis a change from right to wrong, from godliness to wickedness, from temperance to luxury, from honour to baseness, if I live slothful, sluggish, ignoble, take pity on a comrade strayed into evil; a gentle father well may be stirred with anger to restore a fallen friend to right living and by stern reproof to bring him back to better things. But if perchance thou dost likewise hear—and 'tis what I have chosen and what I pursue—that I have vowed my heart to our holy God, following in accord with obedient belief the awful behest of Christ, and that I am convinced by God's word that deathless rewards are laid up for man, purchased by present loss, that, methinks, has not so displeased my revered father that he thinks it a perversion of the mind so to live for Christ as Christ appointed. This is my delight, and this perversion I regret not. That I am foolish in the eyes of those who follow other aims gives me no pause, if only in sight of the eternal King my opinion be wise. A short-lived thing is man at best, man with his frail body and passing season, dust and a shadow without Christ: his praise and blame are so much worth as the arbiter himself. Himself he perishes and his own mistake must bear him company, and with the judge who pronounced it a verdict dies and passes. And unless, while this present time is granted, we take careful heed to live according to the command of Christ our Lord, too late, when man has put off his mortal frame, will be his complaint that while he feared the light rebuke of human tongues, he feared not the severe wrath of the Heavenly Judge. And that He sitteth on the throne at the right hand of the eternal Father, that He is set over all as king, and that as years roll away He will come to try all races with even-balanced judgment, and bestow due rewards upon their several deeds, I for my part believe, and, fearing, toil with restless zeal that, if so it may be, I be not cut off by death ere I am cut off from sin. Against His coming my believing heart trembles with fluttering strings and my soul, even now aware of what shall be, quakes with foreboding lest, shackled with paltry cares for the body and weighted with a load of business, if perchance the awful trump should peal from the opened heaven, it should fail to raise itself on light pinions into the air to meet the Lord,1 flitting in Heaven amid glorified thousands of the saints, who through the void up to the stars on high shall with unlaborious effort uplift light feet, unshackled with the world's fetters, and wafted on soft clouds shall pass amid the stars to worship the Heavenly King in mid air and join their glorious companies with Christ whom they adore. This is my fear, this my task, that the Last Day overtake me not asleep in the black darkness of profitless pursuits, spending wasted time amid empty cares. For what shall I do if, while I drowse amid sluggish hopes, Christ, disclosed to me from his heavenly citadel, should flash forth, and 1, dazzled by the sudden beams of my Lord coming from opened Heaven, should seek the doleful refuge of murky night, confounded by the o'erwhelming light? Wherefore, that neither doubt of the truth, nor love of this present life with delight in worldly things and anxious toil should bring this on me, I am resolved to forestall calamity by my plan of life, to end anxieties while life remains, awaiting with untroubled heart fierce Death, the general doom of things for ages yet to come. If this thou dost approve, rejoice in thy friend's rich hope: if otherwise, leave me to be approved by Christ alone.

AUSONIO PAULINUS Quarta redit duris haec iam messoribus aestas, et totiens cano bruma gelu riguit, ex quo nulla tuo mihi littera venit ab ore, nulla tua vidi scripta notata manu, ante salutifero felix quam charta libello dona negata diu multiplicata daret, trina etenim vario florebat epistula textu, set numerosa triplex pagina carmen erat. dulcia multimodis quaedam subamara querellis, anxia censurae miscuerat pietas, sed milli mite patris plus quam censoris acerbum sedit, et e blandis aspera penso animo, ista suo regerenda loco tamen et graviore vindicis heroi sunt agitanda sono. interea levior paucis praecurret iambus disere to referens mutua verba pede. Nunc elegi salvere iubent dictaque salute, ut fecere aliis orsa gradumque, silent. Quid abdicatas in meam curam, pater, redire Musas praecipis? negant Camenis nec patent Apollini dicata Christo pectora, fuit ista quondam non ope, sed studio pari tecum mihi concordia, ciere surdum Delphica Phoebum specu, vocare Musas numina, fandique munus munere indultum dei petere e nemoribus aut iugis, nunc alia mentem vis agit, maior deus, aliosque mores postulat . sibi reposeens ab homine 1 munus suum, vivamus ut vitae patri, vacare vanis, otio aut negotio, et fabulosis litteris vetat; suis ut pareamus legibus lucemque cernamus suam, quam vis sophorum callida arsque rhetorum et figmenta vatum nubilant, qui corda falsis atque vanis imbuunt tantumque linguas instruunt, nihil adferentes, ut salutem conferant, quod veritatem detegat. quid enim tenere vel bonum aut verum queant, qui non tenent summae caput, veri bonique fomitem et fontem deum, quem nemo nisi in Christo videt? Hic veritatis lumen est, vitae via, vis, mens, manus, virtus patris, sol aequitatis, fons bonorum, flos dei, natus deo, mundi sator, mortalitatis vita nostrae et mors necis. magister hic virtutium, deusque nobis atque pro nobis homo, nos induendus induit, aeterna iungens homines inter et deum in utrumque se commercia, hic ergo nostris ut suum praecordiis vibraverit eaelo iubar, abstergit aegrum corporis pigri situm habitumque mentis innovat: exhaurit omne, quod iuvabat antea, castae voluptatis vice, totusque nostra iure domini vindicat et corda et ora et tempora, se cogitari, intellegi, credi, legi, se vult timeri et diligi, aestus inanes, quos movet vitae labor praesentis aevi tramite, abolet futura cum deo vitae fides. quae, quas videmur spernere, non ut profanas abicit aut viles opes, set ut magis caras monet caelo reponi ereditas Christo deo, qui plura promisit datis, contempta praesens vel mage deposita sibi multo ut rependat faenore, sine fraude custos, aucta creditoribus bonus aera reddet debitor multaque sprctam largior pecuniam restituet usura deus. Huic vacantem vel studentem et deditum, in hoc reponentem omnia ne quaeso segnem neve perversum putes nec crimineris impium, pietas abesse Christiano qui potest? namque argumentum mutuum est pietatis, esse Christianum, et impii, non esse Christo subdilum. hanc cum tenere discimus, possum tibi non exhibere, id est patri, cui cuncta sancta iura, cara nomina debere me voluit deus? tibi disciplinas, dignitatem, litteras, linguae, togae, famae decus provectus, altus, institutus debeo, patrone, praeceptor, pater. Sed cur remotus tamdiu degam, arguis pioque motu irasceris, conducit istud aut necesse est aut placet: veniale, quidquid horum, erit. ignosce amanti, si geram quod expedit; gratare, si vivam, ut libet. defore me patriis tota trieteride terris atque alium legisse vagis erroribus orbem, culta prius vestrae oblitum consortia vitae, increpitas sanctis mota pietate querellis. amplector patrio venerandos pectore motus et mihi gratandas salvis adfectibus iras. set reditum inde meum, genitor, te poscere mallem, unde dari possit, revocandum me tibi credam, cum steriles fundas non ad divina precatus, Castalidis supplex averso numine Musis? non his numinibus tibi me patriaeque reduces. surda vocas et nulla rogas (levis hoc feret aura, quod datur in nihilum) sine numine nomina Musas. inrita ventosae rapiunt haec vota procellae, quae non missa deo vacuis in nubibus haerent nec penetrant superi stelantem regis in aulam. Si tibi eum mei reditus, illum adspice et ora, qui tonitru summi quatit ignea culmina caeli, qui trifido igne micat nec inania murmura miscet quique satis caelo soles largitur et imbres, qui super omne, quod est, vel in omni totus ubique, omnibus infuso rebus regit omnia Christo: quo mentes tenet atque movet, quo tempora nostra et loca disponit, quod si contraria votis constituat nostri, prece deflectendus in illa est, quae volumus. quid me accusas? si displicet actus quem gero agente deo, prius est: fiat reus auctor, cui placet aut formare meos aut vertere sensus. nam mea si reputes, quae pristina, quae tibi nota. sponte fatebor eum modo me non esse, sub illo tempore qui fuerim, quo non perversus habebar et perversus eram falsi caligine cernens, stulta dei sapiens et mortis pabula vivens. quo magis ignosci mihi fas, quia promptius ex hoc agnosci datur a summo genitore novari, quod non more meo geritur: non, arbitror, istic confessus dicar mutatae in prava notandum errorem mentis, quoniam sim sponte professus me non mente mea vitam mutasse priorem, mens nova mi,fateor, means nonmea: non meaquondam, set mea nunc auctore deo, qui, si quid in actu ingeniove meo sua dignum ad munia vidit, gratia prima tibi, tibi gloria debita cedit, cuius praeceptis partum est, quod Christus amaret. Quare gratandum magis est tibi, quam queritandum, quod tuus ille, tuis studiis et moribus ortus, Paulinus, cui te non infitiare parentem, nec modo, cum credis perversum, sic mea verti consilia, ut sim promeritus Christi fore, dum sum Ausonii, feret ille tuae sua praemia laudi deque tua primum tibi deferet arbore fructum. Unde, precor, meliora putes nec maxima perdas praemia detestando tuis bona fontibus orta. non etenim mihi mens vaga, sed neque participantum vita fugax hominum, Lyciae qua scribis in antris Pcgaseum vixisse equitem, licet avia multi numine agente eolant, clari velut ante sophorum pro studiis musisque suis: ut nunc quoque, castis qui Christum sumpsere animis, agitare frequentant, non inopes animi neque de feritate legentes desertis habitare locis; sed in ardua versi sidera spectantesque deum verique profunda perspicere intenti de vanis libera curis otia amant strepitumque fori rerumque tumultus cunctaque divinis inimica negotia donis, et Christi imperiis et amore salutis, abhorrent speque fideque deum sponsa mercede sequuntur, quam referet certus non desperantibus auctor, si modo non vincant vacuis praesentia rebus, quaeque videt spernat, quae non videt ut mereatur secreta ignitus penetrans caelestia sensus. namque caduca patent nostris, aeterna negantur visibus; et nunc spe sequimur,quod mente videmus, spernentes varias, rerum spectacula, formas et male corporeos bona sollicitantia visus. attamen haec sedisse illis sententia visa est, tota quibus iam lux patuit verique bonique, venturi aeternum saecli et praesentis inane. At mihi, non eadem cui gloria, cur eadem sit fama? fides voti par est, sed amoena colenti, nunc etiam et blanda posito locupletis in acta litoris, unde haec iam tam festinata locorum invidia est? utinam iustus me carpere livor incipiat: Christi sub nomine probra placebunt, non patitur tenerum mens numine firma pudorem, et laus hic contempta redit mihi iudice Christo. Ne me igitur, venerande parens, his ut male versum increpites studiis neque me vel coniuge carpas vel mentis vitio: non anxia Bellerophontis mens est nec Tanaquil mihi, sed Lucretia coniunx, nec mihi nunc patrii est, ut visa, oblivio caeli, qui summum suspecto patrem, quem qui colit unum, hic vere memor est caeli, crede ergo, pater, nos nec caeli inmemores nec vivere mentis egentes, humanisque agitare locis, studia ipsa piorum testantur mores hominum; nec enim impia summum gens poterit novisse deum: sint multa locorum, multa hominum studiis inculta, expertia legum, quae regio agresti ritu earet? aut quid in istis improbitas aliena nocet? quod tu mihi vastos Vaseoniae saltus et ninguida Pyrenaei obicis hospitia, in primo quasi limine fixus Hispanae regionis agam nec sit locus usquam rure vel urbe mihi, summum qua dives in orbem usque patet mersos spectans Hispania soles. sed fuerit fortuna iugis habitasse latronum, num lare barbarico rigui mutatus in ipsos, inter quos habui, socia feritate colonos? non recipit mens pura malum neque levibus haerent inspersae fibris maculae: si Vascone saltu quisquis agit purus sceleris vitam, integer aeque nulla ab inhumano morum contagia ducit hospite, sed mihi cur sit ab illo nomine crimen, qui diversa colo, ut colui, loca iuncta superbis urbibus et laetis hominum celeberrima cultis? ac si Vasconicis mihi vita fuisset in oris, cur non more meo potius formata ferinos poneret, in nostros migrans, gens barbara ritus? Nam quod in cversis habitacula ponis Hibera urbibus et deserta tuo legis oppida versu montanamque milli Calagorrim et Birbilim acutis pendentem scopulis eodemque iacentis Hilerdac exprobras, velut his habitem laris exul et urbis extra hominum tecta atque vias; — an credis Hiberae has telluris opes, Hispani nescius orbis, quo gravis ille poli sub pondere constitit Atlans, ultima nunc eius mons portio metaque terrae, discludit bimarem celso qui vertice Calpen? Birbilis huic tantum, Calagorris, Hilerda notantur, Caesarea est Augusta cui, Barcinus amoena et capite insigni despectans Tarraco pontum? Quid numerem egregias terris et moenibus urbes, quas geminum felix Hispania tendit in aequor, qua Betis Oceanum Tyrrhenumque auget Hiberus, lataque distantis pelagi divortia conplet, orbe suo finem ponens in limite mundi? anne tibi, o domine inlustris, si scribere sit mens, qua regione habites, placeat reticere nitentem Burdigalam et piceos malis describere Boios? cumque Maroialicis tua prodigis otia thermis inter et umbrosos donas tibi vivere lucos, laeta locis et mira colens habitacula tectis: nigrantesne casas et texta mapalia culmo dignaque pellitis habitas deserta Bigerris? quique superba tuae contemnis moenia Romae consul, arenosas non dedignare Vasatas? vel quia Pictonicis tibi fertile rus viret arvis, Raraunum Ausonias heu devenisse curules conquerar, et trabeam veteri sordescere fano; quae tamen augusta Latiaris in urbe Quirini Caesareas inter parili titulo palmatas fulget inadtrito longum venerabilis auro, florentem retinens meriti vivacis honorem. aut eum Lucani retinens culmine fundi, aemula Romuleis habitans fastigia tectis, materiam praebente loco, qui proxima signat, in Condatino dicetis degere vieo? Multa iocis pateant, liceat quoque ludere fictis; sed lingua mulcente gravem interlidere dentem, ludere blanditiis mentibus et male dulces fermentare iocos satirae mordacis aceto saepe poetarum, numquam decet esse parentum, namque fides pietasque petunt, ut, quod mala nectens insinuat castis fama auribus, hoc bona voti mens patris adfigi fixumque haerescere cordi non sinat, et vulgus scaevo rumore malignum ante habitos mores, non semper flectere vitam crimen habet: namque est laudi bene vertere, eum me inmutatum audis, studium officiumque require. si pravo rectum, si relligiosa profanis, luxurie parcum, turpi mutatur honestum, segnis, iners, obscurus ago, miserere sodalis in mala perversi: blandum licet ira parentem excitet, ut lapsum rectis instauret amicum moribus et monitu reparet meliora severo. At si forte itidem, quod legi et quod sequor, audis, corda pio vovisse deo venerabile Christi imperium docili pro credulitate sequentem, persuasumque dei monitis aeterna parari praemia mortali damnis praesentibus empta, non reor id sancto sic displicuisse parenti, mentis ut errorem credat sic vivere Christo, ut Christus sanxit, iuvat hoc nec paenitet huius erroris, stultus diversa sequentibus esse nil moror, aeterno mea dum sententia regi sit sapiens, breve, quidquid homo est, homo corporis aegri, temporis occidui et sine Christo pulvis et umbra: quod probat aut damnat tanti est, quanti arbiter ipse. ipse obit atque illi suus est comitabilis error cumque suo moriens sententia iudice transit. Et nisi, dum tempus praesens datur, anxia nobis cura sit ad domini praeceptum vivere Christi, sera erit exutis homini querimonia membris, dum levia humanae metuit convicia linguae, non timuisse graves divini iudicis iras: quem patris aeterni solio dextraque sedentem, omnibus impositum regem et labentibus annis venturum, ut cunctas aequato examine gentes iudicet et variis referat sua praemia gestis, credo equidem et metuens studio properante laboro, si qua datur, ne morte prius quam crimine solvar. Huius in adventum trepidis mihi credula fibris corda tremunt gestitque anima id iam cauta futuri, praemetuens, ne vineta aegris pro corpore curis ponderibusque gravis rerum, si forte recluso increpitet tuba vasta polo, non possit in auras regis ad occursum levibus se tollere pinnis, inter honora volans sanctorum milia caelo, qui per inane levis neque mundi conpede vinctos ardua in astra pedes facili molimine tollent et teneris vecti per sidera nubibus ibunt, caelestem ut medio venerentur in aere regem claraque adorato coniungant agmina Christo. Hic metus est, labor iste, dies ne me ultimus atris sopitum tenebris sterili deprendat in actu, tempora sub vacuis ducentem perdita curis, nam quid agam, lentis si, dum coniveo votis, Christus ab aetheria mihi proditus arce coruscet et, subitis domini caelo venientis aperto praestrictus radiis, obscurae tristia noctis suffugia inlato confusus lumine quaeram? Quod mihi ne pareret vel diffidentia veri, vel praesentis amor vitae rerumque voluptas curarumque labor, placuit praevertere casus proposito et curas finire superstite vita communemque adeo ventura in saecula rebus expectare trucem securo pectore mortem. Si placet hoc, gratare tui spe divite amici: si contra est, Christo tantum me Inique probari.