O immeasurable King and God, Creator of all things and our hope, whom every land fears, who rule the heavens with fire: the stars, the flame, the day—whom the Sun, the night, the moon confess as Author—all the ages own you as Lord. Lacking beginning or end, and untouched by time, knowing no alternation, never subject to change, you act ever the same; altering all things, yourself unalterable by any age, you shall ever be the same that you now are, or were. So long an age neither adds nor takes anything from you: all things have their time, for to you time is wanting. You who lead the minds of men, where you will, through each particular, and wherever you command, direct their wits—you who, when angered, make men will the contrary, and when favourable command that they do all good things.
Whatever men do—good, sad, prosperous, or perverse—the wrath and favour of God permit it to come to pass. This your own words attest, spoken by Moses the prophet, that you would harden Pharaoh's heart. So too God drives my heart, when by our excessive sin we offend, toward unlawful things—so that I, who could have recounted the deeds of my chieftains, the triumph-bearing wars of the Asding name, whereby a great reward, with the praise of salvation, might have come to me at once by the gift of the reigning king, despised those prizes (so many gracious kings being passed over in silence), and suddenly, wretched, sought out certain perils. Who, unless maddened and driven by celestial wrath, would seek all bitter things and reject all prosperous? When God is angered, minds are altered and limbs; the senses are turned, and the very appearance is changed.
The king of the Persians, who held the realms of Babylon—who would deny that, after the splendour of empire, he became an ox? Horns disfigured his diademed brow, and the lowing of a beast became the chieftain's speech. After Parthian kingdoms he feared a husbandman, a ploughman, and trembling submitted his royal neck to the yoke. He wandered roving through the meadows, feeding on evil grasses, and he who had been man and ox, from an ox was made man again. The true high priest too, that father of John, fell silent, tongueless, with voice gone mute. But I, by sinning against king and lord and God, was made worse and more wretched than a dog. The sick mastiff's own tongue heals its wounds—alas, but my tongue gave wounds to me.
But he who restored the tyrant's limbs after they had become a beast's, so that on returning the cloven hoof might become a hand again, and who silently re-formed the modulations of the tongue, lest with mangled sound it should utter fettered words—that same God commands and shall command my lord, that he may restore me and look upon me in mercy. May he keep me, that I may sing his praises and his fathers' and his own, and through his offspring chant the king's vows. The fault is indeed grave, yet the guilt deserves pardon, since no one has ever been without the stain of sin. For God Almighty, when he founded the world, could—with sorrows removed—have given joys alone; but creating diverse and discordant things, he joined goods mingled with evils, and evils mingled with goods. So the mighty Author mingled contrary elements, the moist with the dry, the fiery with the cold.
The skill-speaking letter is reported to be akin to the bees, to whom it is granted to have wounds, camps, and honeycombs. The wax gives genius to boys, the first beginnings of sense; hence it comes that a letter may profit or may harm. The asp holds death, and the serpent holds remedies too; the viper often helps, the viper often harms. The hind, by feeding on a serpent, prepares healing marrow, and the very poisons drive away death. The substance of iron is held to be both plain and harmful: from it the wicked man does hurt, from it the countryman gives pleasure. The earth itself bears gems, precious little stones; the same earth gives both brambles and thorny wood and roses. The deep sea prepares with its waves both delights and deaths, and the little shell of the deep begets riches. The temperate state of the air fits the breezes to living things—which, when corrupted, a day snatches away, together with souls.
A harsh or a gentle nature keeps the birds: the dove is a gentle bird, the vulture a harsh bird. When clouds are heaped up, rains, snow, hail, and hoarfrost are begotten in turns—by fire, by vapour, by frost. The Sun gives temperate seasons, the most pleasing aspect of the world, preparing all that is to be created, cherishing all that is created; through him the soil teems with flowers and the harvest with ears of grain, while the field, scorched by the sun, lies a crumbling sand. The Sun restores bodies with its rays and afflicts bodies too; by alternating sunshine health goes and returns. Neither are all the stars of heaven evil, nor are they all good: this Lucifer taught, this Sirius warned. The temperate region of heaven does not possess the middle of the world, for of five zones it scarcely holds two itself.
What heaven, what earth, the sea, what the purer air did not deserve all at once—when does a man obtain it? It had been my fault to keep silent about modest masters, and to write of the unknown, yet not of my lord. Such a one too pursues the ungrateful, who with profane mind, when they have known the Lord, worship vain idols. So fault held fast the people of the Israelites, when, forgetting God, the fool worshipped the calf. And yet you grant pardon, O Author, to those who ask it, if the guilty mind repent of the wicked deed. I beseech you, Almighty, you whom it befits to be kind, you whom no vengeance pleases, but only pardon, whose holy hand sustains the hearts of rulers, and you in your mercy soon incline them, wherever you command.
Before you first, of that song which I ill composed by my daring, I repent, and confess it. After you, supreme God, I am guilty toward king and lord, from whose authority, groaning, I beg pardon. Let your piety command the armed man, let my king and lord ordain prosperous things, ever and everywhere merciful. Nor let him be unlike himself toward me—different from what a throng is wont to be; by your mercy let him be good and gentle. For yours are whatever he does, whatever he shall command, and royal words bear the judgement of God. Let these few words entreat God, who beholds the vows stored in the hidden senses of a covered mind with heavenly perception. To you now, O prince, I turn back my sails as a suppliant, asking with heart and mind, seeking with voice and hand.
Give your right hand to the wretched, grant pardon to him who prays; for so long a time anger does not befit a merciful man. For you threaten only a pardonable penalty upon the faults of your friends, and you feast your captives with delicacies. Let him punish, that there may be what Christ is; you spare the wicked, by whom as avenger you reign, by whose vigilance you flourish. Those who perish in war die only as enemies; him who survives the battle you bid live, even as you yourself live. The captive lives secure, and only the rebel dreads death; the quiet prey is safe. You preserve lives, you yourself minister food to the conquered, lest life be grievous while hunger steals it away. No one shall fall under your jurisdiction by a bloody death; he knows he shall live, who wills to be yours. As often as the rebellious throng persisted in arms, it would either conquer or surely become a helpless prey.
Secure, without death, the enemy gives his hands to enemies; for you graciously preserve necks subdued beneath the yoke. So the lion, dreadful and bristling, roars with bloody mouth, claws unsheathed, tooth threatening death; airy and enraged, with quivering gleam of iron, and if there be delay, the more fiercely thence he rages. But if the trembling hunter lay down his spears and lie terrified, soon the anger dies and perishes. The robber scorns the food that he himself does not make a corpse, and the wild beast pardons, as though it took enough. And it grants pardon to the prostrate, conquered without a wound, casting down its eyes with a bashful face. So your anger, O ruler, is not impiously broken, when the deeds committed shall have confessed their crimes. By pardoning, in your mercy imitate the Thunderer, who indulges faults and grants pardon.
A prince's command is like the realms of the poles, as the holy page of God sings to the peoples: declaring the celestial laws to sacrilegious throngs, girt with the apostolic, disciple band. Do not God's precepts command that the sun should not set as it goes down while another is angered, but that a man should stand merciful? David, king, spared his enemies' peoples with the sword, and here is one assuredly guilty of the crime of adultery; confessing the deed, he merits pardon by a merciful blow—the offender unpunished, or guilty yet without death. Moreover Solomon was begotten of the very woman who committed the crime, a gift of honour. Absalom, born of the wife, does not become heir, but the fruit of the crime holds the paternal scepters. Behold, what the clemency of a sparing father bestows, that it might give him kingdoms, and give them also to his offspring.
Solomon himself did not demand the necks of his enemies, but when he asked of the Lord, he asked the help of wisdom. He proved prudent here, because he was unwilling to be bloodthirsty, and he was peaceful and steadfast in counsel. Stephen, a martyr before others beneath the hail of stones, willingly prayed pardon for his foes. This good simplicity, fasting from blood, excels; a man who rages without death has in himself no slaughter. Caesar, everywhere mighty, spared the enemy after the wars—and what was worse, the foe was also a fellow citizen. Of his own accord restoring liberty, he repaired honours; thence called away, he departs worthy of the honour of God. From whose authority and origin, rising up, Caesar Augustus deserved to have a merciful age. For in that same time Christ was born of the Virgin, whose star also shone forth among the stars of heaven.
Titus was a Roman leader and prince, sprung from a prince, who, if he had not bestowed a benefit, was wont to say often: 'We have lost the day by this light, if it has given nothing, being unentreated, of benefits granted to suppliants.' Another prince too, approved by a small saying, Commodus Augustus, a man good in piety: 'Learn from me this precept, you rulers, after me: let him be good in life who wishes to be a god.' Behold, what a single clemency bestows upon a man, that it may furnish good things and confer them upon the soul. Do not make a people liars, who cry out to you with countless voices, 'King and merciful lord.' As a true voice sounds, so let the merciful man be true: throughout the world flies upon men's lips the public merchandise of nobles. The fame of leaders is merchandise gathered in bloody wars, from which a frightful outcome often arises.
The glory of wars belongs to leaders, the triumphs to the peoples; mighty Fame divides those given in common. For clemency furnishes praise to the leaders alone—this has no companion and denies a partner. The soldier says, 'We were equal in arms with the prince: while I fought, comrade, you return victor from the foe.' Surely, that a ruler may forgive, no trivial part presses on? To him alone who forgives shall the glory of praise belong. He who fosters against his enemies the conflicts of Mars, rushing into the dreadful fray, conquers raging in arms; but the king who grants pardon to the subject and tempers his anger does more than the throng—he who masters his own heart. God, seeing that you were unwilling to shed blood, that you might give without sin, yet not without praise, conferred upon you, though absent, the triumphs of land and sea.
Ansila bears witness; the Moor lies slain everywhere. That enemies perish is called the king's fortune; that peoples perish, the order of the time governs. For if weakness caused deaths to run about, boys would not fall, nor the helpless feminine sex. Time drives all things; with time all things are drawn along; the times of life go on, the times of death go on. There are six ages of men, far up to old age; these hold each their own distinct times. Does simple infancy claim the clamours of adults, or sluggish old age have their uproar? The young pup does not do boyish things, nor does the tender boy dare to handle the weapons of Mars with his hand. He does not rage after love in years not yet ripe, nor is the youth withered while the down is still in flower upon his cheek.
The mature man handles affairs; old age groans and trembles, ignorant of fervour, or destitute of levity. Does freshness arm the newly born crops at once with their ears, or is the fruit suddenly present in the flowers just begotten? We know that the stars of heaven, having completed their courses, retrace their finished paths in the same way. In its own time the moon grows or wanes in its orb, by whose age very many things mark out their reckoning by law. For when the moon waxes, the sea resumes its increase; when she wanes upon the poles, the wave of the sea is smaller. While Cynthia grows, fountains and rivers grow; these same diminish when Cynthia diminishes. The very hidden marrow observes the moon's horns; the sheltered brains observe the moon's orbs. The Sun, the eye of heaven, radiant, is darkened by a shadow, and yet it goes and returns to its accustomed regions.
And it recovers its former face and resumes its light: the elements suffer losses or increase, and the times alter. The elements wear out their changes and the seasons change; the nights have their time, and the day itself its time. The days receive increases, and the nights in turn, and they lose their courses through the law of the wandering poles. There are times of flowers; the harvest keeps its own times; there is the autumn season, and the season holds the winters. Spring, summer, autumn, winter—the year returns into the year; four seasons alternate with seasons. Though all things return, his own age does not return to man, but, like a swift bird, so it flies away in flight. There are times of peace, and fixed times of bloodshed; leisure has its time, and the toil of warfare.
There are times of rejoicing, and fixed times of grieving; times give gain, times bring losses. Clouds have their time, and there are fixed times of fair weather: God himself has commanded the times to be kept. Christ, working miracles, sought the hour; the holy passion of the cross awaited the hour. Why are you angry with me? Why am I judged worthy of such anger from so great a king? When through the airy plunderings the eagle flits, the sparrow, the swallow, the woodpecker became prey and food; when has the hunger of the raging lion, however fasting, that it might exist, adopted the hare as food for its jaws? It devours splendid bulls of huge body, and the eagles' talons snatch fawn-like limbs. The leopard, once angered, grants pardon after wounds, nor with merciful ferocity gives renewed bites.
The noble tiger disdains to be angry with shepherds; the fiery-mouthed dragon disdains even the moles. Thunderbolts do not strike the grasses creeping upon the earth, nor does the three-forked lightning consume the lowly willows. But they strike the lofty cedars that beat against the clouds, and the vast mountains, the rocks nearest to the pole. Their own fault alone wearies the guilty who sin; yet behold, harmful punishment seeks even the guiltless. If I myself have sinned, what, I ask, is the fault of my own people, whom cold and helpless famine harass at the same time? In the flood the guilty perished without the destruction of the godly; good and just Lot is taken out of Sodom. If there had been no sins of the human race, whence could God have a name of mercy? But because he grants pardon to peoples, relaxing sins, through the work of piety he has a gentle name.
If a brother is commanded to grant pardon to a brother, what shall a king do for his subjects, and a lord for his servants? If the Lord had given the sun and the rains to the just, and had not given them to the unjust, what piety would that have been? He does not seek pardon who is proved to have sinned in nothing; do not the sick limbs need the physician's hand? The fault of the guilty furnishes you matter for praise, and the work of piety gives titles of fame. The renowned and mighty in arms, the origin of your piety, and learned, by disposition more inclined to pardon, said: 'I do not pardon the man, but his speech deserves it'—here the guilty man was also learned, Victomalus by name. Sins do not injure God, but the Author is injured, unless the sinner, grieving, repent of his crime. He who asks God by this law, that he relax his sins, ought himself also everywhere to spare his own offender.
The holy law does not say that guilt is to be forgiven only once, but as often as there is fault, so often let there be pardon. The pious words of the prophet are dedicated to the reigning Lord: 'Even though I have sinned, yet I am your own.' Grant pardon, have mercy, I pray; come to the aid of him who asks; let the former scourgings, chains, and hunger suffice. While the rider pursues his journey, let the horny hoof of the four-footed horse, striking, jolt him; by the lash the fault is corrected, with the whip chastising—the legs and feet do not at once lie cut off.