Letter 6008: We came to Cantum on a happy road,
VII
On the villa called Cantublandum, named for its fruit
We came by a happy road to alluring Cantum [Cantublandum],
where I rejoice to have found Aregius as a father.
What our gullet, urging me on with its greedy abyss, demands,
golden apples take up before my eyes.
From every side the fruits run together with their varied color,
so that you might believe I had earned a banquet painted [in pictures].
Scarcely had I touched them with my fingers when I gulped them down my throat, rolled them with my tooth,
and the swiftly seized booty passed on to the belly's place.
For their flavor pleases even before the nostril has drawn in their scent:
thus, with the gullet winning out, the nostril is robbed of its honor.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
VII
Ad Cantumblandum villam de pomis dictum
Venimus ad Cantum felici tramite blandum,
Aregium laetor quo reperisse patrem.
quod petit instigans avido gula nostra barathro,
excipiunt oculos aurea poma meos.
undique concurrunt variato mala colore,
credas ut pictas me meruisse dapes.
vix digitis tetigi, fauce hausi, dente rotavi
migravitque alvo praeda citata loco.
nam sapor ante placet quam traxit naris odorem:
sic vincente gula naris honore caret.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern venantius fortunatus retranslated v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://data.mgh.de/openmgh/bsb00000790.zip
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