Some Late Antique Exasperation

July 19, 2019

I recently read two late fifth-century letters from an exasperated father to his good-for-nothing son. The letters are so personal, so biting, so familiar, and this intimacy is somehow expressed in the stultifying conventions of Late Antique Latin: its winding, rhythmic clauses; its recherché vocabulary; its dependence on obscure Classical references. The translation in which I found the letters managed to preserve all of these features when rendering the Latin into English. A neat trick, but, when I tried to read them to a friend, I was met more with blank stare than the shared joy I’d hoped for.

I always think it is tragic that any individual Late Antique Latin text will probably only get one translation, if it is translated at all. There are too few Latinists, too many texts, a tiny audience, not enough money. The single translation is almost always a scholarly translation, usually foregrounding the mechanics of the text so that researchers can use it in a technical and precise way. I love and have benefited immensely from such scholarly translations, but sometimes you just want a text’s ethos to shine a little more brightly from its millennia-distant literary shore.

The point is I wanted to translate two letters by Ruricius, who was made bishop of Limoges sometime in the 480s. There is a very fine translation of Ruricius’ letters by Ralph Mathisen (Ruricius of Limoges and Friends: A Collection of Letters from Visigothic Gaul—a title that never fails to delight), which I had on-hand while preparing my own. The letters are Book 2, Nos. 24 and 25. Ruricius, as was often the case in fifth-century France, had many children, biological and spiritual. He wrote them a lot of letters, again like most bishops. And, as the children of old aristocratic families tend to do, they did pretty well for themselves.

Except for Constantius, about whom we know nothing for certain except the following disappointments:

2.24 The Bishop Ruricius to His Son Constantius

I know you’ve been devoting yourself to Bacchanals, to all that singing and music, even to chorus girls. But, it’s good to abstain from these things, even while youth burns bright. Take a break now and then, spend some time with the one God and not the god of wine. Pay a little attention to your parents instead of your carousing. Remember, tomorrow is Wednesday Mass, and you should join me on time in Brive to fast, though I don’t think you will.

2.25 And Another

You swore to me, with God as your witness, that you would worship Him and not ring in the new year like a pagan. And now you want me to participate in this crime, to provide delights for this sacrilege–to pour oil on its flames? You know this won’t help either of us.

You’ll probably say “but you promised.” You’re asking me with that mouth, even though you broke your own promise? So, you should ignore what I said as long as you feel this way. I can’t be seen to support the kind of thing I should abhor, nor should I shock the members of my flock.