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Transcription of the introduction to chapter VI (Hymns of Fortunatus) in A.S.Walpole's Early Latin Hymns, published posthumously (Walpole died 20th February 1920) edited by A.J.Mason, in Cambridge Patristic Texts, Cambridge University Press 1922; from a copy in Dr Williams's Library, London.
Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus, `the last of the Roman poets,' as Leo well describes him [*Note 1], was born about A.D.530 not far from Ravenna. In or about his 35th year he suffered from ophthalmia and rubbed the ailing eye with some oil from a lamp that hung before a picture of St Martin of Tours in one of the churches of Ravenna. This healed the eye, whereupon he resolved to show his gratitude by making a pilgrimage to the saint's grave at Tours. He travelled through Germany and Austrasia, making friends wherever he went and paying his hosts by poetical compliments, for he was before everything a minstrel.
At last he reached his destination, but soon set forth once more, again as a minstrel `courted and caressed, high placed in hall a welcome guest,' going from place to place through the greater part of Gaul. Among other cities he visited Poitiers, where queen Radegundis, -- wife of the brutal Frankish king Clotaire I, from whom she had separated, -- had established a convent in company with her adopted daughter Agnes. Here Fortunatus settled down, became the intimate friend of the two ladies, and was ordained priest. A year or two before the close of the century he became bishop of Poitiers, where he lived until his death, which befel him soon after A.D. 600.
Of his great poetical gift there can be no question, in spite of the fact that again and again he shews traces of the decadent taste of the times. And between his best and his worst work there is a very wide gulf. Some of his shorter occasional pieces, -- and most of his poems are of an occasional character, -- are almost frivolous, while his praises of barbaric kings and nobles indulge in exaggeration and flattery. But his hymns, especially the first two printed here, No.33 and No.34 [*Note 2], rise to supreme excellence. They combine a deep sincerity and a fervour of poetic feeling and religious thought with high dignity, strength and skill of expression. They are indeed models of what Christian hymns should be. For his love of nature and his eminent power of interpreting her various aspects see the introduction to No.36 [*Note 2].
Fortunatus was highly esteemed as a poet by his contemporaries and by later writers. Thus Paul the Deacon says of him (de Gestis Longobard. II.13) `versiculos, nulli poetarum secundus, suavi et diserto sermone composuit'; and he wrote an epitaph for his tomb in six distichs, the first two of which run thus:
- Ingenio clarus, sensu celer, ore suavis,
- cuius dulce melos pagina multa canit.
- Fortunatus apex vatum, venerabilis actu,
- Ausonia genitus hac tumulatur humo.
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(The Rejoice & Sing Enchiridion:edited by David Goodall; last amended 8/4/03)