ABSTRACT
CHAPTER 111 CHRISTIAN LATIN POETRY IN THE VTH CENTURY
" I HAVE lived, if I mistake not, for fifty years, to which seven more must be added. . . . Their limit is not far off, and I see coming the days which are near to old age. What have I done of any use in so long a time ? My childhood shed tears beneath the resounding strokes of the ferule. Then, already disabused, I put on the toga, and learned to utter culpable lies. Then came vice unabashed, and outbursts of sensuality, and every foul and perverse naughtiness soiled my youth-what remorse and what disgust ! Wordy battles next armed my restless spirit; an unreasonable obstinacy to come off best threw me into painful predicaments. Twice I have governed noble cities under the authority of the laws, rendering justice to the good, and bringing fear to the guilty. At last the good pleasure of the Prince honoured me with a high post in the army and placed me near his person in the highest rank. And all this time life was in flight, my hair was growing white, and I forgot that I was born when old Salia was Consul (348). . . . Well, well ! May my sinful soul cast off its follies, and if
448 FIIilTH CENTURY CHRISTIAN POETRY it cannot render homage to God through its merits, may i t do so a t least by its voice ! "
