XIV. Ad eundem de commendatione puellae
To Gregory, Recommending a Girl
As I was hurrying along the road, kindly father Gregory, past the holy marks of your predecessor [Martin of Tours] — to see the tree that is said to have sprung up by its roots after being cut down, leaping to life with its branches at Martin's prayer, which now stands through the merit of faith, spreading healing far and wide, bare of bark but healed:
A father and mother came to this place weeping, with their daughter, filling the air with voice and washing their cheeks with tears. I stopped my foot and bent my ear: a sold daughter is barely made known to me between sobs. I asked further: their complaint brings forward no argument, no dispute — but their prayers and their eyes together are the case. They are pressed by two griefs: the sickness of the daughter and the poverty of the parents.
Since from their state of need they cannot pay for the help of a physician, they beg for grace freely from the holy bishop. You are their hope: to you they entrust what cannot be entrusted to a doctor. Receive this case, I beg you, as a patron does — and what medicine cannot do, let piety do instead.
XIV
Ad eundem de commendatione puellae
Cum graderer festinus iter, pater alme Gregori,
qua praecessoris sunt pia signa tui,
quod fertur convulsa iacens radicitus arbor
Martini ante preces exiluisse comis,
quae fidei merito nunc stat spargendo medellas,
corpora multa medens, cortice nuda manens:
fletibus huc genitor genetrixque puella,
voce inplendo auras et lacrimando genas,
figo pedem, suspendo aurem: mihi panditur ore
vix per singultus vendita nata suos.
quaero adhuc: questus perhibet nullo indice furto
furti ex obiectu hanc pater ire iugo;
se voluisse dare et iurantes ordine testes
nomine quemque tenens, nec potuisset egens.
non aderat iudex, erat accusator adurguens:
hic ego quid facerem, posse vetante, sacer?
῾si plus hic᾿, dixi, ῾praesens Martinus adesset,
nil permisisset perdere pastor ovem᾿.
sed tamen invalui recolens te, summe sacerdos,
spem praecessoris qui pietate refers,
discute, distringe ac, si sit secus, eripe dulcis
et pater adde gregi: hanc quoque redde patri.
me simul officio famulum tibi, care, subactum
protege perfugio, pastor opime, pio.
◆
XIV. Ad eundem de commendatione puellae To Gregory, Recommending a Girl
As I was hurrying along the road, kindly father Gregory, past the holy marks of your predecessor [Martin of Tours] — to see the tree that is said to have sprung up by its roots after being cut down, leaping to life with its branches at Martin's prayer, which now stands through the merit of faith, spreading healing far and wide, bare of bark but healed:
A father and mother came to this place weeping, with their daughter, filling the air with voice and washing their cheeks with tears. I stopped my foot and bent my ear: a sold daughter is barely made known to me between sobs. I asked further: their complaint brings forward no argument, no dispute — but their prayers and their eyes together are the case. They are pressed by two griefs: the sickness of the daughter and the poverty of the parents.
Since from their state of need they cannot pay for the help of a physician, they beg for grace freely from the holy bishop. You are their hope: to you they entrust what cannot be entrusted to a doctor. Receive this case, I beg you, as a patron does — and what medicine cannot do, let piety do instead.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.