Letter Cxvii
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try to avoid present temptations.
It is inconsistent surely to hide one's body, and to allow one's tongue to roam the world.'
Thereupon he answered:
' You are too fearful ; where now is the hardihood wherewith, like Lucilius of old ,
1 you scoured the city with abundant salt?'
It is just that,' said I, ' which deters me and forbids me now to open my lips.
Because I tried to convict crime I have myself been made out a criminal.
It is like the popular proverb : 2 as all the world declares on oath that I have no ears, I believe it too and do not touch them.
The very walls resounded with curses against me and "
I was the song of drunkards." 3
I have been taught by painful experience to hold my tongue, and now I think it better to set a guard to my mouth, and keep the door of my lips close fastened, rather than to incline my heart to malicious words, and while censuring the faults of others myself to fall into that of ' Speaking the truth detraction.'
To that he said: is not detraction, and a special rebuke is not a general lecture.
There are few persons or none who are guilty of this particular fault.
I beg you therefore not to let me have made this long and painful journey 4 in vain.
The Lord knows that after the sight of the holy places my chief motive for coming was to get you to restore me by a letter to my mother and ' Well, well,'
I answered, '
I will do as you wish.
My letters will pass across the sea, and a discourse specially composed can seldom offend sister.' others.
I warn you, however, to keep what I say private.
Take it as part of your luggage, and if it is listened to, let us rejoice together.
But if it is rejected, as I rather think it will be, I shall have wasted my words and you your long journey.'
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2. Primum scire vos cupio, soror ac filia, me non idcirco scribere, quia aliquid de vobis suspicer, sed, ne ceteri suspicentur, vestram orare concordiam.
Alio- !—si peccati vos aestimarem glutino quin—quod absit cohaesisse, numquam scriberem sciremque me surdis narrare fabulam.
Deinde hoc obsecro, ut, si mordacius quippiam scripsero, non tarn meae austeritatis putetis esse quam morbi.
Putridae carnes ferro curantur et cauterio, venena serpentino pelluntur ; quod satis dolet, maiori dolore expellitur.
Ad extremum hoc dico, quod, etiam si conscientia antidoto vulnus non habeat, habet tamen fama ignominiam.
Mater et filia, nomina pietatis, officiorum vocabula, vincula naturae secundaque post Deum foederatio, non est laus, si vos diligitis ; scelus est, quod odistis.
Dominus Iesus subiectus est parentibus suis : venerabatur matrem, cuius erat ipse pater, colebat nutricium, quern nutrierat, gestatumque se meminerat alterius utero, alterius brachiis.
Unde et in cruce pendens commendat parentem discipulo, quam numquam ante crucem dimiserat.
3. Tu vero, filia—iam enim desino ad matrem loqui, quam forsitan aetas et inbecillitas ac solitudo excusabilem faciunt—tu, inquam, filia, eius domum angustam iudicas, cuius non tibi fuit venter angustus ?
Decern mensibus utero clausa vixisti, et uno die in
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The Letter In the first place, my sister and daughter, I wish you to know that I am writing not because I suspect anything evil of you, but that I am begging you to live in harmony to prevent other people becoming suspicious.
In any case, if I had thought—far be it from me—that you were caught in the snares of sin,
I should never have written, knowing that my tale would be addressed to deaf ears.
In the second place, if I write at all sharply, I beg you to attribute it not to any harshness on my part, but to the malady which I am treating.
When the flesh has mortified, cautery and the knife are the remedies ; for poison snake's venom is the antidote ; serious pain is cured by greater pain.
Lastly I say this : even if your own conscience is unhurt, scandal brings disgrace.
Mother and daughter ! names of affection, titles of duties, bonds of nature, an alliance second after God, there is no praise if you love ; it is crime that you hate.
Our Lord Jesus was subject to His parents :
He reverenced the mother of whom He was Himself the parent :
He honoured the fosterfather whom He Himself had fostered : He remembered that the one had carried Him in her womb, and the other in his arms.
Wherefore also when He was hanging on the cross, He commended to a disciple the mother whom before the cross He had never sent away.
For the moment I say no more to the mother; perhaps age, weakness and loneliness make her excusable.
But you, my daughter, you, I say, do vou think that her house is too small for you whose womb was not too small?
You lived for ten months in the shelter of your mother's body ; can you not
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uno cubiculo cum matre non duras ?
An oculos eius ferre non potes et, quia omnes motus tuos ilia, quae genuit, quae aluit et ad hanc perduxit aetatem, facilius intellegit, testem domesticam fugis ?
Si virgo es, quid times diligentem custodiam ?
Si corrupta, cur non palam nubis ?
Secunda post naufragium tabula est, quod male coeperis, saltim hoc remedio temperare.
Neque vero hoc dico, quo post peccatum tollam paenitentiam, ut, quod male coepit, male perseveret, sed quod desperem in istius modi copula divulsionem.
Alioquin, si ad matrem migraveris post ruinam, facilius poteris cum ea plangere, quod per illius absentiam perdidisti.
Quodsi adhuc integra es et non perdidisti, serva, ne perdas.
Quid tibi necesse est in ea versari domo, in qua necesse habeas cotidie aut perire aut vincere ?
Quisquamne mortalium iuxta viperam securus somnos capit?
Quae ut non percutiat, certe sollicitat.
Securius est perire non posse quam iuxta periculum non perisse ; in altero tranquillitas est, in altero gubernatio, ibi gaudemus, hie evadimus.
' Non bene morata mater est, res saeculi cupit, amat divitias, ignorat 4. Sed forte respondeas : ieiunium, oculos stibio linit, vult compta procedere et nocet proposito meo nec possum cum huiusce modi vivere.'
Primum quidem, etiam si talis est, ut causaris, mains habebis praemium, si talem non
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endure to live with her for one day in one room ?
Or is it that you cannot bear her eyes ?
Knowing that she who bore you, nursed you and reared you understands all your movements without difficulty, do you shrink from a witness to your home life ?
If you are a virgin, why do you fear careful guardianship ?
If you have lost your virginity, why do you not marry openly ?
Marriage is a raft for the shipwrecked, a remedy that may at least cure a bad beginning.
Nor do I say this, because after sin I would abolish repentance, so that what began wrong may go on wrong ; but because with connections of this sort I despair of a break.
In any case, if you return to your mother after your downfall, you will be more easily able in her company to lament that which you lost by separating from her.
If, on the other hand, you are still a pure virgin and have not lost your chastity, guard it lest you lose it now.
Why must you live in a house where you must every day win a battle or be ruined ?
Can any one sleep soundly by the side of a viper ?
It may not attack, but it certainly causes uneasiness.
It is safer to be where you cannot possibly perish, than to graze the peril and just not to perish.
In the first case, calm water; in the second, skilful steering; there we are gay, here we just escape.
* My mother has not a good character, she desires the things of this world, she loves riches, she ignores all fasts, she rubs her eyes with antimony, she likes to go out in fine clothes, she is a danger to my vows, I cannot live with a person of her kind/ To begin with, even if she is the sort of woman you allege, you will have the greater reward
You may perhaps reply: if you refuse to desert her with all her faults.
She
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deseras.
Ilia te diu portavit, diu aluit et difficiliores infantiae mores blanda pietate sustinuit.
Lavit pannorum sordes et inmundo saepe foedata est stercore.
Adsedit aegrotanti et, quae propter te sua fastidia sustinuerat, tua quoque passa est.
Ad hanc perduxit aetatem ; ut Christum amares, docuit.
Non tibi displiceat eius conversatio, quae te sponso tuo virginem consecravit.
Quodsi ferri.non potest et delicias eius fugis atque, ut vulgo soletis dicere, saecularis est mater, habes alienas virgines, habes sanctum pudicitiae chorum.
Quid matrem deserens eum eligis, qui suam forsitan sororem reliquit et matrem ?
Ilia difficilis, sed iste facilis ; ilia iurgatrix, iste placabilis.
Quern quaero utrum secuta sis an postea inveneris.
Si secuta es, manifestum est, cur matrem reliqueris ; si postea repperisti, ostendis, quid in matris hospitio non potueris invenire.
Durus doctor et meo mucrone me vulnerans :
' Qui ambulat/ 4 simpliciter, ambulat confidenter.'
Tacerem, inquit , si me remorderet conscientia, et in aliis meum crimen non reprehenderem nee per trabem oculi mei alterius festucam viderem.
Nunc autem, cum inter fratres procul habitans eorumque fruens contubernio honeste sub arbitris et videam raro et videar, inpudentissi1 Proverbs, x. 9.
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carried you long, and she nursed you for many months ; her gentle love bore with the peevish ways of your infancy.
She washed your soiled napkins and often dirtied her hands with their nastiness.
She sat by your bed when you were ill and was patient with your sickness, even as she had before endured the sickness of maternity which you caused.
She brought you up to womanhood ; she taught you to love Christ.
The company of one who consecrated you as a virgin to your Spouse ought not to be distasteful to you.
Still, if you cannot put up with her and her fashionable ways, if she is really, as people say, a worldly mother, there are virgins of other families, a holy company of chaste maidens, with whom you might live.
Why, when you desert your mother, do you choose a man who perhaps has left a sister and mother of his own ?
She is hard to get on with, you will say, he is easy ; she is fond of quarrels, he is amiable.
Well, I have one question to ask : did you leave your mother to follow this man or did you come upon him after you had left her ?
In the first case, it is plain why you deserted your parent; in the second, you reveal clearly what it was that you could not find under your mother's roof.
A stern teacher, who wounds me with my own scalpel, says :
' He that walketh uprightly walketh surely .' 1
If I had a guilty conscience I would hold my tongue, and not blame in others an offence which I myself commit, nor see the mote in my neighbour's eye through the beam in my own.
But as it is, since I live far away in a community of brothers whose society, as witnesses can testify, I honourably enjoy, rarely seeing or being seen by other men, it would be the height of shamelessness
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mum est eius te verecundiam non sequi, cuius te ' Et sequi testeris exemplum.
Quodsi dixeris : mihi sufficit conscientia mea ; habeo Deum iudicem, qui meae vitae testis est ; non euro, quid loquantur ' Providentes homines,' audi apostolum scribentem : bona non solum coram Deo, sed etiam hominibus.'
Si quis te carpit, quod sis Christiana, quod virgo, ne cures, quod ideo dimiseris matrem, ut in monasterio inter virgines viveres ; talis detractio laus tua est.
Ubi non luxuria in puella Dei, sed duritia carpitur, crudelitas ista pietas est.
Ilium enim praefers matri, quern praeferre iuberis et animae tuae.
Quem si et ipsa praetulerit, et filiam te sentiet et sororem.
5. Quid igitur ?
Scelus est sancti viri habere contubernium ?
Obtorto collo me in ius trahis, ut aut probem, quod nolo, aut multorum invidiam subeam.
Sanctus vir numquam filiam a matre seiungit ; utramque suspicit, utramque veneratur.
Sit quamlibet sancta filia, mater vidua indicium castitatis est.
Si coaevus tuus est ille nescio quis, matrem tuam honoret et suam; si senior, te ut filiam diligat et parentis subiciat disciplinae.
Non expedit amborum famae plus te ilium amare quam matrem, ne non videatur affectum in te eligere, sed aetatem.
Et 1 Romans, xii. 17.
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for you not to adopt the modest life of the man whom you profess to have taken as your exemplar.
You may reply :
'For me also my own conscience is sufficient.
God is my judge who is witness of my life.
I care not what men may say.'
Listen then ' Provide things honest not only in the sight of God but also in the sight of men .' 1
Heed it not if anyone criticizes you for being a Christian and a virgin, and for having left your mother to live in a monastery with other virgins.
Such censure is your truest praise.
When men blame one of God's maidens, not for self-indulgence, but for sternness, what they call cruelty is really devotion.
You are preferring to your mother Him whom you are bidden to prefer to your own soul.
And if she herself should ever also thus prefer Him, she will to the apostle's words: find in you both a daughter and a sister.
' What !
' you may say, ' is it a crime to live under the same roof with a holy man?
You drag me by the scruff of the neck into court, and give me choice either to approve against my will, or else incur odium from many.
A holy man never separates a daughter from her mother; he respects them both, he regards both of them with reverence.
However saintly a daughter may be, a widowed mother is a warranty of her chastity.
If this man of yours is of the same age as you are, he should honour your mother as his own if he is your elder, he should love you as a daughter and submit you to a mother's discipline.
It is not expedient, for your reputation or for his, that he should love you more than he loves your mother : so that he may not seem to make his choice in you not of your affection but of your youth.
And I should still say this, if you 38i
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hoc dicerem, si fratrem monachum non haberes, si domesticis careres praesidiis ; nunc vero, pro dolor, inter matrem atque germanum—et matrem viduam fratremque monachum—cur se alienus interserit ?
Bonum quidem est, ut te et filiam noveris et sororem ; si autem utrumque non potes et mater quasi dura respuitur, saltim frater placeat.
Si frater asperior * est, mollior sit ilia, quae genuit.
Quid palles ?
Quid aestuas ?
Quid vultum rubore suffundis et trementibus labiis inpatientiam pectoris contestaris ?
Non superat amorem matris et fratris nisi solus uxoris affectus.
6. Audio praeterea te suburbana, villarum amoenitates cum adfinibus et cognatis et istius modi genus hominibus circumire.
Nec dubito, quin vel consobrina vel soror sit, in quarum solacium novi generis ducaris adsecula—absit quippe, ut, quamvis proximi sint et cognati, virorum te suspicer captare consortia—obsecro ergo te, virgo, ut mihi respondeas : sola vadis in comitatu propinquorum an cum amasio tuo?
Quamvis sis inpudens, saecularium oculis eum ingerere non audebis.
Si enim hoc feceris , et te et
ilium familia universa cantabit, vos cunctorum digiti denotabunt, ipsa quoque soror aut adfinis sive cognata, quae in adulationem tui sanctum et nonnum
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had no brother who is a monk, if you lacked protectors at home.
But as things stand, why does a stranger—O grievous thought !—thrust himself in between you and your mother and brother, your mother a widow and your brother a monk ?
It would be a good thing for you to know that you are both a daughter and a sister.
But if you cannot do both, and if your palate rejects your mother as being a rough wine, your brother at least should prove satisfactory.
If he should be somewhat harsh, then she who bore you may seem more mellow.
Why do you turn pale ? Why does your bosom heave ?
Why do your hot blushes and quivering lips confess your restlessness ?
Nothing can overcome a woman's love for a mother and a brother, except only the passion of a wife.
I hear, moreover, that you go the round of suburban retreats and pleasant country houses in company with your relatives and connections by marriage and such like intimate friends.
Nor do I doubt, that there is some female cousin or sister, for whose comfort you may be taken as a new sort of attendant—indeed, far be it from me to suppose, that although they may be members of your own family, you angle for the society of men—and so I pray you, my virgin, tell me this : do you appear alone in your kinsfolk's society or do you take your sweetheart with you ?
However shameless you may be, you will scarcely dare to flaunt him in the eyes of worldly people.
For if you should do so, your entire family will make a song of you and him ; every finger will be pointed at the pair of you; even your sister or kinswoman or relative, who in your presence to flatter you calls him a monk
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coram te vocant, cum se paululum converterit, portentosum ridebit maritum.
Sin autem sola ieris—quod et magis aestimo—utique inter servos adulescentes, inter maritas feminas atque nupturas, inter lascivas puellas et comatos linteatosque iuvenes furvarum vestium puella gradieris.
Dabit tibi barbatulus quilibet manum, sustentabit lassam et pressis digitis aut temptabitur aut temptabit.
Erit tibi inter viros matronasque convivium : expectabis aliena oscula, praegustatos cibos et absque scandalo tuo in aliis sericas vestes auratasque miraberis.
In ipso quoque convivio, ut vescaris carnibus, quasi invita cogeris, ut vinum bibas, Dei laudabitur creatura, ut laves baineis, sordibus detrahetur; et omnes te, cum aliquid eorum, quae suadent, retractans feceris, puram, simplicem, dominam et vere ingenuam conclamabunt.
Personabit interim aiiquis cantator ad mensam et inter psalmos dulci modulatione currentes, quoniam alienas non audebit uxores, te, quae custodem non habes, saepius respectabit.
Loquetur nutibus et, quidquid metuet dicere, significant affectibus.
Inter has et tantas inlecebras voluptatum etiam ferreas mentes libido domat, quae maiorem in virginibus patitur famem, dum dulcius putat omne, quod nescit.
Narrant gentilium fabulae
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and a holy man, will laugh behind his back at your fright of a husband.
If, on the other hand, you go out alone—which I rather suppose—-you, a girl in your dark clothes, will be one of a party of youthful attendants, married women and women soon to be brides, pleasure-loving damsels, and young fops with long hair and close-fitting tunics.
Some boy with a little beard will give you his arm, and hold you up if you are tired, and as your fingers squeeze he will either be tempted himself or will tempt you.
You will sit down to table with married men and women ; you will wait till the others have finished kissing and the dishes have been tasted, and without making any protest will admire the silk dresses and the gold brocade that the others are wearing.
At the dinner itself they will pretend you are unwilling and will force you to partake of the meat ; to get you to drink wine, they will praise it as the gift of the Creator.
To induce you to visit the baths, they will speak of dirt with disgust. And when you reluctantly do something of what they would have you do, they
' What a frank, innocent girl she is !
What a genuine lady ! will cry out in chorus :
Meanwhile some singer will come into the dining-room, and as he performs a selection of soft flowing airs, he will not dare to look at other men's wives, but he will very often glance at you, who have no protector.
He will speak by gestures, and a meaning emphasis in his voice will convey what he is afraid to put into words.
Amid such strong allurements to pleasure as these even iron wills are overcome by desire, which in the case of virgins is the sharper set because it thinks that anything of which it knows nothing is especially delightful.
Heathen legends tell us that
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cantibus sirenarum nautas in saxa praecipites et ad Orphei citharam arbores bestiasque ac silicum dura mollita.
Difficile inter epulas servatur pudicitia.
Nitens cutis sordidum ostentat animum.
7. Legimus in scolis pueri—et spirantia in plateis aera conspecimus—aliquem ossibus vix haerentem inlicitis arsisse amoribus et ante vita caruisse quam peste.
Quid tu facies, puella sani corporis, delicata, pinguis, rubens, aestuans inter carnes, inter vina et balneas, iuxta maritas, iuxta adulescentulos ?
Etsi rogata non dederis, tamen formae putes testimonium., si rogeris.
Libidinosa mens ardentius honesta persequitur et, quod non licet, dulcius suspicatur.
Vestis ipsa vilis et pulla animi tacentis indicium est, si rugam non habeat, si per terrain, ut altior videaris, trahatur, si de industria dissuta sit tunica, ut aliquid intus appareat operiatque, quod foedum est, et aperiat, quod formosum.
Caliga quoque ambulantis nigella ac nitens stridore iuvenes ad se vocat.
Papillae fasciolis conprimuntur et crispanti cingulo angustius pectus artatur.
Capilli vel in frontem vel in aures defluunt.
Palliolum interdum cadit, ut candidos nudet umeros, et, quasi videri noluerit, celat festina, quod volens retraxerat.
Et quando in publico quasi per verecundiam operit faciem, lupa-
Virgil, Eclogues, III. 102: vix ossibus haerent.
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the songs of the sirens drew sailors headlong on to their rocks, and that trees and beasts and hard stones were all softened by the music of Orpheus' lyre.
At a banquet it is hard to preserve one's chastity.
A sleek skin is the sure sign of a foul mind.
When I was a boy at school I read of a man—and in the streets I have since seen his living image in bronze—who burned with unlawful passion even when his flesh scarcely clung to his bones ,
1 and who passed away from life with his malady still unhealed.
What then will you do, a healthy young girl, dainty, plump, rosy, all afire amid the fleshpots, amid the wines and baths, side by side with married women, with young men ?
Even if you refuse to give what they ask for, you may think that the asking is evidence of your beauty.
A libertine is all the more ardent when he is pursuing virtue, and thinks that the unlawful is especially delightful.
Your very robe, coarse and sombre though it be, betrays your unexpressed desires, if it be without crease, if it be trailed upon the ground to make you seem taller, if your vest be slit on purpose to let something be seen within, hiding that which is unsightly and disclosing that which is fair.
As you walk along, your shiny black shoes by their creaking give an invitation to young men.
Your breasts are confined in strips of linen, and your chest is imprisoned close by a tight girdle.
Your hair comes down over your forehead or over your ears.
Your shawl sometimes drops, so as to leave your white shoulders bare, and then, as though unwilling to be seen, it hastily hides what it intentionally revealed.
And when in public it hides the face in a pretence of modesty, with a 38 7
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narum arte id solum ostendit, quod ostensum magis placere potest.
' Unde me nosti ? et quomodo tam longe in me iactas oculos tuos ?
* Fratris hoc 8. Respondebis : tui mihi narravere lacrimae et intolerabiles per momenta singultus.
Atque utinam ille mentitus sit et magis timens hoc quam arguens dixerit !
Sed mihi crede, soror : nemo mentiens plorat.
Dolet sibi praelatum iuvenem, non quidem comatum, non vestium sericarum, sed trossulum et in sordibus delicatum, qui ipse sacculum signet, textrinum teneat, pensa distribuat, regat familiam, emat quicquid de publico necessarium est, dispensator et dominus et praeveniens officula servulorum, quern omnes rodant famuli, et quicquid domina non dederit, ilium clamitent subtraxisse.
Querulum servulorum genus est et, quantumcumque dederis, semper eis minus est.
Non enim considerant de quanto, sed quantum detur, doloremque suum solis, quod possunt, detractationibus consolantur.
Ille parasitum, iste inpostorem, hie heredipetam, alius novo quolibet appellat vocabulo.
Ipsum iactant adsidere lectulo, obstetrices adhibere languenti, portare matulam, calefacere lintea, plicare fasciolas.
Facilius mala credunt homines et quodcumque domi fingitur, rumor in publico fit.
Nee mireris, si ancillae et servuli de vobis ista confingant, cum mater quoque id ipsum queratur et frater.
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harlot's skill it shows only those features which give men when shown more pleasure.
' From what source do you know You will reply: all this about me ?
How could you ever have set eyes upon me when you live so far away ?
Your brother's tears told me this and his scarcely endurable outbursts of sobbing.
Would that he may have spoken falsely, would that his words may have been the expression of fears, not of facts !
But believe me, sister ; no one ever weeps when he is lying.
He is indignant that a young man is preferred to himself, not indeed a long-haired fop in silk clothes, but still a coxcomb dainty even in his squalor, a rogue who puts his own seal on your purse, manages the weaving, apportions the wool to be spun, directs the household, and buys all that is needed in the market.
He is both steward and master, and anticipates the servants in all their duties, so that the whole household have their teeth in him and protest that he has filched all that their mistress does not give them.
Servants are always full of complaints, and, however much you give them, it is always too little.
They do not consider how much you have, but only how much they get, and they console their indignation in the only way they can, by finding fault.
One calls him a parasite, another an incubus, another a legacy-hunter, another any fresh name he can invent.
They put it about that he sits at your bedside, fetches nurses when you feel unwell, removes the slops, makes you warm bandages, and folds compresses.
People are only too ready to believe evil, and tales invented within doors soon get noised abroad.
Nor need you wonder that your maids and footmen invent such tales about you both, when even your mother and brother make similar complaints.
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9. Fac igitur, quod moneo, quod precor, ut primum matri, dehinc, si id fieri non potest, saltim fratri reconcilieris.
Aut si ista tam cara nomina hostiliter detestaris, dividere ab eo, quem tuis diceris praetulisse.
Si autem et hoc non potes—reverteris enim ad tuos, si ilium possis deserere—vel honestius sodali tuo utere.
Separentur domus vestrae dividaturque convivium, ne maledici homines sub uno tectulo vos manentes lectulum quoque criminentur habere communem.
Potes et ad necessitates tuas, quale voluisti, habere solacium et aliqua ex parte publica carere infamia, quamquam cavenda sit macula, quae nullo nitro secundum Hieremiam, nulla fullonum herba lui potest.
Quando vis, ut te videat —et inviset—adhibe arbitros amicos, libertos, servulos.
Bona conscientia nullius oculos fugiet.
Intret intrepidus, securus exeat.
Taciti oculi et sermo silens et totius corporis habitus vel trepidationem interdum vel securitatem loquuntur.
Aperi, quaeso, aures tuas et clamorem totius civitatis exaudi.
Iam perdidisti vestra vocabula et mutuo ex vobis cognomina suscepistis : tu illius diceris et ille tuus.
Hoc mater audit et frater paratique sunt et precantur vos sibi dividere et privatam vestrae coniunctionis infamiam laudem facere communem.
Tu esto cum matre, sit ille cum fratre.
Audentius diliges
sodalem fratris tui : honestius amabit mater amicum filii quam filiae suae.
Quodsi nolueris, si me?
diligis :
Hilberg.
1 Jeremiah, ii. 20, 22:
'playing the harlot.'
39°
LETTER CXVII
Do, therefore, what I advise and pray you to do.
Be reconciled with your mother : if that is impossible, at least make peace with your brother.
Or, if you abominate those dear names, separate yourself from the man whom you are said to have preferred to your own people.
If even this you cannot do—for you would return to your own folk if you could bear to leave him—pay more regard to appearances in your dealings with your friend.
Live in separate houses and take your meals apart ; if you stay under one roof, slanderers will accuse you of sharing one bed together.
You can thus have the help you wished for when you need it, and to a certain degree avoid public disgrace.
Not but what you must ever beware of that stain which Jeremiah 1 tells us no nitre or fuller's soap can wash out.
When you wish him to see you—and he will visit you—have people in the room with you, friends or freedmen or slaves.
A good conscience will shrink from no man's gaze.
Let him come in without embarrassment and go away without anxiety.
Silent looks, unspoken words, a man's whole bearing, at times spell uneasiness, at other times security.
Pray, open your ears and listen to the outcry of the whole city.
You two have already lost your own names and interchanged them for new ones : he is known as your man and you as his woman.
Your mother and your brother have heard this talk, and they are ready each to take one of you, begging you thus to turn a private disgrace into a common glory.
You can live with your mother, he with your brother.
You may then more boldly show affection for your brother's friend your mother may with more propriety love her son's comrade than she could her daughter's.
But if you
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monita rugata fronte contempseris, epistula tibi haec voce libera proclamabit :
' Quid alienum servum obsides ?
Quid ministrum Christi tuum famulum facis ?
Respice ad populum, singulorum facies intuere.
Ille in ecclesia legit et te aspiciunt universi, nisi quod paene licentia coniugali de tua infamia gloriaris nec iam secreto dedecore potes esse contenta procacitatem libertatem vocas.
" Facies meretricis facta est tibi, nescis erubescere."
10. Iterum me malignum, iterum suspiciosum, iterum rumigerulum clamitas.
Egone suspiciosus, egone malivolus, qui, ut in principio epistulae praefatus sum, ideo scripsi, quia non suspicabar, an tu negligens, dissoluta, contemptrix, quae annis nata viginti et quinque adulescentem necdum bene barbatulum ita brachiis tuis quasi cassibus inclusisti ?
Optimum re vera paedagogum, qui te moneat, qui asperitate frontis exterreat et, quamquam in nullis aetatibus libido sit tuta, tamen vel cano capite ab aperta defendat ignominia !
Veniet, veniet tempus —dies adlabitur, dum ignoras—et iste formosulus tuus, quia cito senescunt mulieres, maxime quae iuxta viros sunt, vel ditiorem reperiet vel iuniorem.
Tunc te paenitebit pertinaciae, quando et rem et famam amiseris, quando, quod male iunctum fuerat, dividetur bene, nisi forte secura es et coalescente tanti temporis caritate discidium non vereris.
1 Jeremiah, iii. 3.
LETTER CXV11
still refuse, if with wrinkled brow you reject my warning, then this letter will cry aloud to you with unchecked voice.
' Why,' it will say, ' do you besiege another's servant ?
Why do you make Christ's minister your slave ?
Look at the people and regard each individual face.
When he is reading in church the whole congregation fix their eyes on you: but you perhaps with almost a wife's recklessness glory in your shame, and secret disgrace no longer satisfies you ; you call boldness freedom. " You have a whore's forehead and refuse to be ashamed."
' 1
Again you cry out that I am a malignant, that I am suspicious, that I am a scandal-monger.
Am I truly suspicious or malignant, I who, as I said at the beginning of this letter, only took up my pen because I felt no suspicions of you ?
Is it not you rather who are careless, loose and scornful, you who at the age of twenty-five have caught in the snare of your arms a youth whose beard has hardly grown ?
A fine instructor in truth he must be, able to advise, by stern looks to frighten, and even by his grey hair to defend you from open shame !
Not but what lust is never safe at any time of life.
The day will surely, surely come for time glides on while you notice it not—when your handsome youngster will find a richer or a more youthful mistress.
Women soon grow old, especially when they live with a man at their side.
You will be sorry for your decision and regret your obstinacy, on the day when you find property and reputation gone and this unhappy union happily broken—unless perhaps you feel quite at ease, and seeing that your affection has had so long a time to become established, you have no fear of a rupture.
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11. Tu quoque, mater, quae propter aetatem maledicta non metuis, noli sic vindicari, ut pecces.
Magis a te discat filia separari, quam tu ab ilia disiungi.
Habes filium et filiam et generum, immo contubernalem filiae tuae ; quid quaeris aliena solacia et ignes iam sopitos suscitas ?
Honestius tibi est saltim culpam filiae sustentare quam occasionem tuae quaerere.
Sit tecum filius monachus, pietatis viduitatisque praesidium.
Quid tibi alienum hominem in ea praesertim domo, quae filium et filiam capere non potuit?
Eius iam aetatis es, ut possis nepotes habere de filia.
Invita ad te utrumque.
Revertatur cum viro, quae sola exierat—virum dixi, non maritum ; nemo calumnietur : sexum significare volui, ne coniugium—aut, si erubescit et retractat et domum, in qua nata est, arbitratur angustam, vos ad eius hospitiolum pergite.
Quamvis artum sit, facilius potest matrem et fratrem capere quam alienum hominem, cum quo certe in uno cubiculo manere non poterat.
Sint in una domo duae feminae, duo masculi.
Sin autem et tertius ille yTypo^ocr/co? tuus abire non vult et seditiones ac turbas concitat, sit biga, sit triga, frater vester ac filius et sororem illis exhibebit et matrem.
Alii vitricum et generum vocent, ille nutricium appellet et fratrem.
1 Jerome insists that the brother should live in the house preferably with one other man—his sister's mate—but even if the mother's male friend remains the brother must stay thus there are either two men or three men in the establishment.
LETTER CXVII
As for you, my friend's mother, your age frees you from any fear of scandal ; but do not think that it gives you liberty to do wrong.
Your daughter should rather learn from you how to separate from a companion than you be taught by her how to break away from a paramour.
You have a son and a daughter and a son-in-law, or rather a man who lives under your daughter's roof.
Why seek other consolations or try to wake sleeping fires ?
It would at least be more respectable for you to screen your daughter's fault than to seek in it an occasion for wrongdoing on your own part.
Let your son who is a monk live with you and strengthen you in your natural affection and in your vow of widowhood.
Why do you have a stranger in the house that could not hold a son and a daughter ?
You are old enough now to have grandchildren by your daughter.
Invite the pair to your home.
Let her return with her man, she who went out alone.
I say ' husband'
' man,' not so no one need cavil ; I merely refer to his sex and not to any conjugal relationship.
If she is ashamed and hangs back, and thinks the house where she was born is too small for her, then let all of you move to her lodging.
However cramped it may be, it can more easily contain a mother and a brother than it could a strange man, for surely she could not have remained in the same bedroom with him.
Let there be two females and two males in the one house.
But if the third male too, that ' nurturer of your old age,' refuses to leave you and stirs up quarrels and confusion, be it a team of two, be it a team of three, he who is both brother and son will offer to the other men a sister and a mother . 1
Others may speak of them as step-father and son-in-law your son must call them foster-father and brother.
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12. Haec ad brevem lucubratiunculam celeri sermone dictavi volens desiderio postulantis satisfacere et quasi ad scholasticam materiam me exercens
—eadem enim die mane pulsabat ostium, qui profecturus erat—simulque, ut ostenderem obtrectatoribus meis, quod et ego possim, quicquid venerit in buccam, dicere.
Unde et de scripturis pauca perstrinxi nee orationem meam, ut in ceteris libris facere solitus sum, illarum floribus texui.
Extemporalis est dictio et tanta ad lumen lucernulae facultate perfusa, ut notariorum manus lingua praecurreret el signa ac furta verborum volubilitas sermonis obrueret.
Quod idcirco dixi, ut, qui non ignoscit ingenio. ignoscat vel tempori. cxxv
AD RUSTICUM MONACHUM
1. Nihil Christiano felicius, cui promittuntur regna caelorum ; nihil laboriosius, qui cotidie de vita periclitatur.
Nihil fortius, qui vincit diabolum nihil inbecillius, qui a carne superatur.
Utriusque rei exempla sunt plurima.
Latro credidit in cruce et :
1 Probably Rusticus of Narbonne ; following Jerome's advice he entered a monastery, was ordained later and consecrated Bishop of Narbonne 430.
LETTER CXVII AND LETTER CXXV
Note I dictated this letter, talking quickly, in the space of one short night, wishing to satisfy a friend's earnest request and to try my hand, as it were, upon a scholastic subject—for that same morning my visitor, who was on the point of departure, knocked at my door—and at the same time, wishing to show my detractors that I too can say the first thing that comes into my head.
I therefore introduced few quotations from the Scriptures and did not interweave my discourse with its flowers, as I have done in my other books.
I extemporized as I went, and by the light of one small lamp poured forth my words in such profusion, that my tongue outstripped my secretaries' pens and my volubility baffled the tricks of their shorthand.
I say this that those who make no excuses for lack of ability may make some for lack of time.
LETTER CXXV
To Rusticus 1 Good and bad monks Written a.d. 411
Nothing is happier than the Christian, for to him is promised the kingdom of heaven : nothing is more toil-worn, for every day he goes in danger of his life.
Nothing is stronger than he is, for he triumphs over the devil : nothing is weaker, for he is conquered by the flesh.
There are many examples of the truth of both statements.
The robber on the cross believed, and it was immediately vouchsafed him
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' Amen, amen dico tibi statim meretur audire : hodie mecum eris in paradiso/ Iudas de apostolatus fastigio in proditionis tartarum labitur et nec familiaritate convivii nec intinctione buccellae nec osculi gratia frangitur, ne quasi hominem tradat, quern filium Dei noverat.
Quid Samaritana vilius ?
Non solum ipsa credidit et post sex viros unum invenit dominum Messiamque cognoscit ad fontem, quern in templo Iudaeorum populus' ignorabat, sed auctor fit multorum salutis et apostolis ementibus cibos esurientem reficit lassumque sustentat.
Quid Salomone sapientius ?
Attamen infatuatur amoribus feminarum.
' Bonum est sal ' nullumque sacrificium absque huius aspersione suscipitur—unde et ' Sermo vester sit sale conapostolus praecipit :
'—quod, si infatuetur, foras proicitur in tantumque perdit nominis dignitatem, ut ne in sterditus quilinio quidem utile sit, quo solent credentium arva condiri et sterile animarum solum pinguescere.
Haec dicimus, ut prima te, fili Rustice, fronte doceamus magna coepisse, excelsa sectari et adulescentiae, immo pubertatis, incentiva calcantem perfectae quidem aetatis gradum scandere, sed lubricum iter est, per quod ingrederis, nec tantam sequi gloriam post victoriam, quantam ignominiam post ruinam.
2. Non mihi nunc per virtutum prata ducendus es nec laborandum ut ostendam tibi variorum pulchri2 Colossians, iv. 6.
3 Matt. v.
13.
1 St. Luke, xxiii. 43.