Letter 7012: Item ad eundem

XII Likewise to the same man The fleeting seasons fly, we are deceived by the runaway hours, and slippery life leads men into old age. The whirling axle drags toward its swift end without a tether, nor does it hold back its rushing wheels at its own reins, moving with it all the moments and the weights of things, until the goal compels the eager horses to halt. So too, unlike though we are, we all press toward the end; no one draws back his foot from where his boundary will be. It drags down the imperial head, it drags down the kingdom, and the senate alike, and the hour snatches the day away when it comes, with the day not watching. What are arms to men? Hector falls, and the avenger Achilles; Ajax, the Achaean wall behind his shield, perishes. What is enough for a greedy man, what he stores in his hoarding lap? Attalus, enriched by his luxuries, is gone, undone by them. Who, however cunning, may recline at ease until the final end? In Ulysses the powerful skill of Palamedes perishes. Lovely beauty flows away; the most handsome Astur has fallen, Hippolytus lies low, nor does Adonis survive. The nimble do not escape: where the limit presses, there one must go; for swift Quirinus dies by lot together with his brother. What, I ask you, does song accomplish? Orpheus, sweet-flattering with his high-pitched measures, and the living voice of the lyre lie still. What does a learned tongue profit the philosophers who must depart, who had the power to speak the curved roundings of the heavens? Archytas, Pythagoras, Aratus, Cato, Plato, Chrysippus, the crowd of the followers of Cleanthes lie as foolish ash. Or what can a poem do? Maro, lyric Menander, Homer, whose bare limbs the tombs cover with decay? When the end comes, neither do songs profit the Muses, nor does it help to have held fast a melody with eloquence. Thus, while the moments fall, the present state of things flies away, and the snatched-off die lifts the gaming-board of life. Yet there is one salvation, holy, greatest, sweet, and ample: to be able to please the eternal threefold God forever. This is strong and flourishes, it remains and will not perish at any end; from this too, even after the grave, a kindly honor is born. As for what survives at death from the blessed flower of merits: a sweet fragrance of the just breathes forth from the tomb, a breeze flowing more gracefully than Sabaean spice can exhale, surpassing the balsams that the rich forest breathes back. Cinnamon, marigold, crocus, violets, the rose, the lilies yield, so that no scent like it is drunk in by the nostril. What of the fact that virtue is begotten in them rather by death, and while the tombs hold their languid limbs, they cherish them? The holy funerals make firm the doubtful life of many, and the man comes back from the tomb brought to life again. The noble urn covers the precious talents of the Thunderer, and what would fly above the stars lies low in the earth. He who, living under the love of God by sacred governance, becomes a stranger on the ground, a citizen by his journeying toward heaven. In short, after those who make the foundations flash, and after Peter and Paul, the first lights in the faith, what a number of saints shines scattered through the world, how great a grace of pillars flourishes, poured out! Through places, through peoples, their own stars preside over the world, whatever the circle encompasses from the ocean's waters. North, south, east, and west do honor to the lights made glorious by their own gifts. Of the rest there is nothing whatever that is seen in the world, for all this swelling we are: smoke and shadow. Why then is the life that was given dragged along in fear with a mere whisper, and why, Jovinus, do you not send a few lines back to Fortunatus? You see the seasons slipping away, yet you do not break your long silences; you keep silent, lest, to my own harm, you also kill me off. I did not think this in my rejoicing, after Germany had brought our gazes together, that love would leap back. I had rather believed that, the more our age stretched on, the work of your affection would double itself. Alas, the more, as I see, the vows run to the contrary: the seasons are lengthened, but love is shortened. Or do I withdraw as far from your heart as I do from your eye, and are we both as far apart in mind as we are in place? I do not report it so, since I am bound to you in my breast: the mind, where it cherishes something sweet, proclaims this otherwise. For the man whose dear faith has joined to him the soul of a friend, what is less to his eyes burns the more with love, and although a wall, a place, a hall may hold back the absent one, he is there in his heart, there where the pleasing form is. By affection he looks out upon the one he does not see with his very face, and the far-off voice sounds from a distant region. What he may be doing or where he may be, love seems to give words to in silence; shut up within the breast, love speaks within itself. If a light breeze flies, he thinks greetings come from there: the rustling carries back to the ear what a man bears in his mind. Hence therefore I, your client, dear one worthy to be honored, seek you out, whom places, not the mind, make absent, you who are always held memorable upon our lips: and while we write even these things, we do not speak without you. With affection, zeal, and longing I encircle your arms, and through an embrace I bind your breast and your neck. You enter in with me and likewise are moved as a lover, and as if speaking sweetly I taste kisses upon your lips. I have you before my eyes, but the dear image flees back, and even him whom I have here I am unable to hold. By turns you now depart and from there run back again: scarcely do you flee from my eyes when, behold, you return as a figure. And when you turn your back, your innocent face is discerned by me; if you have turned with your foot, you are present, come back with your brow. Often too I seem to give you holy words in reply: there by chance you are silent, here you bring words back to me. This about you is less of a loss, because you cannot be seized when absent; for just as there you are whole, so here too you are mine. In what manner we both dwelt together for a few hours does not flee from my eyes, while this day remains. O how often we have sent epigrams on timid pages! And your page, lest I be refreshed, lies mute and silent. Who, I ask, may give back to us those silent hours that we lose? The light and fleeting day does not call the seasons back. Tell me, my well-known man: what are you doing? Why, friend, do you run back? If you tend your own fields, why do you refuse my vows? Write at leisure of mind, render lofty poems in verse, and tend me with your voice, with melody, as if I were a country field; draw, I pray, the plow of your mouth through my breast, that our sown seed may be the furrow of your tongue, whence the harvest of the breast may be quickened with heavy ears of grain, and our fertile fallow-land may sprout with spelt. For if you speak to me, good man, you surpass with your lips the sweet honey of rich devotion from the combs, and you please more than the juice that the olive bears in its liquid, and you refresh more sweetly than what the spice breathes back. Together with Aspasius, with your dear father, with your brother Leo, as the long day stands on, sweet friend, farewell.

XII Item ad eundem Tempora lapsa volant, fugitivis fallimur horis, ducit et in senium lubrica vita viros. fine trahit celeri sine fune volubilis axis nec retinet rapidas ad sua frena rotas, cuncta movens secum momenta et pondera rerum, donec meta avidos sistere cogat equos. sic quoque dissimiles ad finem tendimus omnes, nemo pedem retrahit quo sibi limes erit. imperiale caput, regnum trahit, aeque senatum, nec spectante die, cum venit, hora rapit. quid sunt arma viris? cadit Hector et ultor Achilles, Aiax, in clipeo murus Achaeus, obit. quid satis est cupido, gremio quod condit avaro? deliciis resolvis Attalus auctus abest. quis non versutus recubet dum fine supremo? de Palamede potens ars in Vlixe perit. forma venusta fluit, cecidit pulcherrimus Astur, occubat Hippolytus nec superextat Adon. non agiles fugiunt; quo terminus instat eundum: nam cum fratre celer sorte Quirinus obit. quid, rogo, cantus agit? modulis blanditus acutis Orpheus et citharae vox animata iacet. docta recessuris quid prodest lingua sophistis, qui valuere loqui curva rotunda poli? Archyta Pythagoras Aratus Cato Plato Chrysippus, turba Cleantharum stulta favilla cubat. quidve poema potest? Maro lysa Menander Homerus, quorum nuda tabo membra sepulchra tegunt? cum venit extremum, neque Musis carmina prosunt, nec iuvat eloquio detinuisse melos. sic, dum puncta cadunt, fugiunt praesentia rerum, et vitae tabulam tessera rapta levat. est tamen una salus, pia maxima dulcis et ampla: perpetuo trino posse placere deo. hoc valet atque viget, manet et neque fine peribit, hinc quoque post tumulum nascitur almus honor. quod superest obitu meritorum flore beato, suavis iustorum fragrat odor tumulo; gratius aura fluens quam spiret aroma Sabaeum, vincens quae pinguis balsama silva reflat. cinnama calta crocus violae rosa lilia cedunt, ut similis nullus nare bibatur odor. quid quod morte magis virtus generatur in illis, dumque sepulchra tenent languida membra fovent? multorum dubiam solidant pia funera vitam et redit ex tumulo vivificatus homo. nobilis urna tegit pretiosa talenta tonantis ac terris recubat quod super astra volet. qui sub amore dei sacro moderamine vivens fit peregrinus humi, civis eundo poli. denique post illos qui fundamenta coruscant, postque Petri ac Pauli lumina prima fide, quis numerus radiat sanctorum sparsus in orbe, quanta columnarum gratia fusa viget! per loca, per populos mundo sua sidera praesunt, quidquid ab Oceanis circulus ambit aquis. arctos meridies oriens occasus honorat lumina muneribus clarificata suis. de reliquo nihil est quodcumque videtur in orbe, nam tumor hic totus fumus et umbra sumus. – Cur igitur metu trahitur data vita susurro, nec Fortunato pauca, Iovine, refers? tempora lapsa vides neque longa silentia rumpis, me quoque ne necrees ad mea damna taces. non ita rebar ovans, postquam Germania nostros contulerat visus, ut resileret amor. credideram potius, quantum se tenderet aetas, ut vestri affectus se duplicaret opus. heu magis, ut video, vota in contraria currunt: tempora longantur, sed breviatur amor. an quantum ex oculo, tantum tibi corde recedo, et tam longe animo quam sumus ambo loco? non ego sic refero, quoniam tibi pectore nector: praedicat hoc aliter mens ubi dulce fovet. nam cui cara fides animum sociavit amici, quod minus est oculis flagrat amore magis, et licet absentem paries locus aula retentet, corde suo illic est, est ubi forma placens. prospicit affectu quem vultu non videt ipso, et vox longinqua de regione sonat. quid gerat aut ubi sit, tacito dare verba videtur; intra se loquitur pectore clausus amor. si volat aura levis, putat inde venire salutes: hoc fragor aure refert quod homo mente gerit. hinc tuus ergo cliens ego, care colende, requiro, absentem faciunt quem loca, non animus, qui semper nostro memoralis haberis in ore: scribimus et haec dum, non sine te loquimur. affectu studio voto tua brachia cingo atque per amplexum pectora, colla ligo. ingrederis mecum pariterque moveris amator, et quasi blanda loquens oscula libo labris. ante oculos habeo, sed cara refugit imago, hic quoque quem habeo non retinere queo. alternis vicibus modo vadis et inde recurris: vix fugis ex oculis, ecce figura redis. et cum terga dabis, facies mihi cernitur insons; si pede conversus, fronte regressus ades. saepe etiam videor dare te pia dicta relatu: illic forte taces, hic mihi verba refers. hoc de te minus est, quia prendi non potes absens; nam velut illic es totus et hic meus es. qualiter ambo simul paucis habitavimus horis non fugit ex oculis , dum manet ista dies, misimus o quotiens timidis epigrammata chartis! et tua, ne recreer, pagina muta silet. quis, rogo, reddat eas taciti quas perdimus horas? tempora non revocat lux levis atque fugax. dic homo note meus: quid agis? quid, amice , recurris? si tua rura colis, cur mea vota neges? scribe vacans animo, refer alta poemata versu et quasi ruris agrum me cole voce, melo; per thoraca meum ducas, precor, oris aratrum 7 ut linguae sulcus sint sata nostra tuus, pectoris unde seges gravidis animetur aristis, pullulet et nostrum farra novale ferax. nam mihi si loqueris, bone vir, pietatis opimae exsuperas labiis dulcia mella favis, plusque liquore placet quem fert oleagina suco, suavius et recreat quam quod aroma reflat. cum Aspasio pariter caris patre, fratre Leone longa stante die, dulcis amice, vale.