謝恩詩 第 1 章 第 2/2 段

And thus, frustrated of the now better hope of enjoying rest in my own affairs after many adversities, I pass a perpetual exile through the varying lot of my days, now long since bereft of all my dear ones — first my mother-in-law and my mother, then my wife also having died, who, though she had been contrary to my right desires, with fear standing in the way, yet by her death too became a grief to me, then withdrawn when she might rather have been suited to the solace of a life joined to my old age; she who already failed me as my children departed from me — not indeed with like zeal nor at the same time, but kindled alike by love of liberty, which they thought could fall to them in greater measure at Bordeaux, although under a Gothic fellow-settler.

Though I grieved that they wished this against my will, yet I thought that this very thing must be compensated thus: that the care of those present should aid the comforts of one absent, since the fruits of our property, whatever they had been, would little by little be shared with me of their own accord. But quickly one of them, a youth, now a presbyter, snatched away by sudden death, left me a bitter grief; and the sum total of my affairs, whatever they retained, all wrested from me, became for many a single act of plunder. Moreover, even he himself, who as it were survives for our consolation, involved by a deed and outcome alike sinister amid the friendships and wraths of the king, has stripped me of nearly all my advantages by a like lot.

And so, with every hope of consolations withdrawn, which I thought could come to me through my own people, and proving at last that all the things we desire must rather be sought from you, O kindly God, beneath whom lies the supreme power, I chose at length to settle as a poor man at Marseilles — a city in which indeed there were many saints dear to me, but the small substance of my family fortune, nor was there great hope that it would be sustained by new revenues; no field furnished with its own cultivators, no vineyards — by which alone the city itself is served, since every provision for life must be procured from elsewhere — but only an urban house and a neighboring garden, and for a refuge of seclusion a small plot, not indeed without a vine or fruit-trees, but without land worthy to be tilled;

but the loss of a small labor persuaded me even to spend the care of cultivation in vain over scarcely four full jugera of worn-out field, and to found a house upon the very edge of a rock, lest I should seem to have diminished anything of the space of land. Furthermore, the expenses which the use of life demanded, I took pains to hope to have ready from rented fields, so long as the house remained more fully stocked with slaves, and while a better age supplied me greater strength. But after both conditions changed for the worse alike — the condition of an age ever unstable in general — little by little, I confess, overcome by cares and years, an exile, destitute, unwed, easily turned to new counsels and wavering much in varied reckoning, I deemed it best to lead my steps back to Bordeaux, to rent a dwelling;

yet the result did not follow upon our undertaking, although utility joined to my wishes would have aided itself. This, for the strengthening of my faith — as I think — it is right for me to believe was provided for me by you, O Christ, in order that, by a long, gradual use of experience, I might prove how much your grace could grant me, when I saw that, with much of my revenue withdrawn through losses, the appearance of my house endured for me, and that the expenses were renewed often enough by your provision.

For this lot of life indeed I know I owe you immoderate thanks, O God; yet for myself I know not whether I can rejoice with my modesty unimpaired — whether because I still myself use the appearance of my own house, or because, content to yield to my rich children all things that can even now seem ours, I suffer myself to be sustained by others' expenses — unless our faith, which teaches that nothing is one's own, came to my aid, so that we might as safely deem others' goods our own as we owe our own to be shared with others.

Nor yet in this very ordering of life did you suffer me to waver in doubt for long, but swiftly of your own accord you deigned to console me, O God, and, ever accustomed to soothe our infirm old age, troubled at different times by various diseases, with gentle remedies, now too you granted me thus to be able to grow young again: that, when you had proved I could no longer hope for any fruits from my ancestral estate, and even all those things which, now reduced, I had been able to hold at Marseilles, the ownership now lost, I held bound under a contract drawn up — you summoned forth for me an unknown buyer of the Gothic nation, who, desiring to purchase the little plot once of my right, sent the price of his own accord, not indeed just, yet — I confess — answering to my prayer for one receiving it, by which namely I might at once both prop up the old fallen revenues and avoid a new loss of the modesty dear to me.

Rejoicing that I was endowed with this surpassing gift, behold, O almighty God, I owe you new thanks, which may almost surpass the others and heap up the former ones which this present page of mine, attested in full, contains; and although, having wandered far at greater length through ample spaces, it now nearly demands to be closed, yet our continual devotion knows not how to set an end to fulfilling the duties owed to you, O Christ — establishing this one good, conscious that this is to be held, desiring with my whole heart to acquire this: in all places always and at every time continually to speak of you by proclaiming you beforehand, and to remember you even in keeping silence.

Wherefore, owing my whole self to you, most good God, and all that is mine, this work, begun from you, O God, now also concluding, I bring to an end for you, and having prayed to you rather often and attentively, now I beseech you much more earnestly: that, since in this senile life which I now lead I recognize that there are more things to be feared than from death itself, and it is not easy for me to discern what I should rather desire — to whatever side your judgment now inclines, grant, I pray, a mind undaunted against all sorrows, and bestow it constant by the gift of your power, so that I, who now long since live dedicated to laws pleasing to you and strive to lay hold of the betrothed salvation, may neither, by reason of the nearer condition of old age, fear more the times of death, to which every age is subject, nor, suspect amid the crisis of doubtful life, may varied chances harass me with the dread of fear — chances which I trust, O God, with you as my protector, can be avoided; but, whatever final lot awaits our end, may the hope of your countenance, O Christ, soften it, and may sure confidence shatter all doubtful dread, that I, even while I am in this my own mortal body, am yours, whose all things are, or, released from the body, shall in whatever part be yours.