De Vita Sancti Martini

Before the house, prostrate in the middle of the road, he is shut off from the doors by barriers, but with weeping he strikes the stars. The savage beast, with swollen breast, breathed out a heavy sleep, and with limbs distended and the image of death, had thrown back its torpid limbs, stretched out and utterly inert: when suddenly angelic terror shook his vitals, and a voice also burst into his astonished, stunned ears: "Wretched one, has a heavy, sluggish sleep oppressed you, beast, belching out the cups of corrupt wine, and does the burden of a raw belly distend you, sluggish as you are? And does the servant of the Lord lie before your doors on the bare, dry ground, drenching his pious body with much dust? Do you bar the threshold of rest against the silent hours of shameful sleep?" He stiffened at the sudden vision and quickly ordered his summoned servants to hasten to the door, so that they might report the sequence of truth through messenger-words. But, as often happens when limbs are bound by torpor, welcome sleep overcomes and conquers the sense of the oppressed, they advanced a little, barely to the first threshold, the servants, with vision too languid and step faltering, returned deceptive murmurs in confused words, nothing found before the doors by their careful search. Again, the nearby, not far-removed pleasure, languid, immediately closed the eyes of sleep. Then truly a new terror shook his heart, and the threatening sentence of the angelic voice compelled him, headlong, to rise, repeating the command. Nor did it please him to bring the danger of the command again.

He himself quickly hastens to the closed thresholds with his step, and the blocked doors open as the master unlocks them. The venerable priest shone forth with a clear face, displaying the crowns of virtues on his holy countenance. He flourished, gleaming with many signs of grace: in religion, faith, affection, piety, and modesty; his mind cheerful in grave matters, steadfast and serious in joyful ones, neither stiffened by savagery nor loosening austerity with a laugh, but always shining forth with such balanced integrity that anger did not make him fierce, nor favor make him sluggish. Such was the venerable appearance that met the pale tyrant, shattering the gloomy clouds of night. And already the mind conscious of such great crime had betrayed without words what cause of that holy labor would be, nor was it to be disclosed by prayers. The tyrant himself, confused, first brought forth a trembling voice from his fearful breast: 'Why, holy one, do you weary me with fear, long my torturer, having thoroughly shaken my troubled heart from sleep? You are kept far from the doors by barriers; you burst into the inner chambers by right. You halt in body, you enter by law. You shake with terror, you who linger in the flesh. Nor indeed would I deny that these debts are due to my merits, since I, savage, breathed countless slaughters from my harsh breast in your city. Therefore I beg, forgive the confessing one; use your right. You wish to spare: be lenient. Release the guilty from punishments; absolve me from guilt.' Without delay, the loosened chains immediately fell away, which had bound the pale necks of the guilty, preserving the dying bodies for a dire death. Suddenly, hope, restored by prayer, exults for the wretched.

Joy mixed with fear; they hesitate to believe such great things suddenly, but prefer to believe. They vie with each other in gratitude, prostrating themselves at his holy knees, embracing his footsteps with suppliant arms more gently. He urges that thanks be given rather to God, and warns that Christ is the author of this salvation, who will spare their sins only if true repentance for the committed crime reveals the pain. For punishments remain for the guilty as long as their guilt endures. With such words and with toiling piety, he absolves the bound from punishment and frees them from their crimes. But what tongue can worthily speak of this gift, which the mind, narrow for the titles of so illustrious a patron, fears even to touch with astonished sense? So great was the merit of the saint that all the throngs of demons trembled, and such were the revealed signs of their great fear, that whenever he moved his steps from the threshold of his own cell, having set out for the city at a distance, either to visit the people entrusted to his holy governance or to desire to offer the mysteries of the sacred rite, grace, hastening before him with swift flight, would twist the trembling specters in their captive bodies, so that, scarcely had he left the inner sanctuary of his holy dwelling, they would see him, though far ahead through torments, already present, and the punishment of the guilty would proclaim the judge's arrival with a hissing murmur of voice. But when he had placed his first steps at the doors, one could see bodies snatched up swiftly to the heights, constrained by aerial bonds, and the heavy weights of flesh swaying through the void.

They leave the neighboring lands as if by a swift whirlwind— suspended by their own punishment, yet free from the bond, bound by the merits of prayers, hanging by their own penalties, they cry out the faults admitted before a silent judge. Nor was the confession rendered in words of inquiry, but dragged forth through a trembling voice it betrayed the crimes. For, prone on the ground, the saint passed beyond the stars by his vow, touching the Lord with hope, but prostrate in body, humble in heart, exalted in merit, crying out without murmur, a judge hidden from sight, proven by virtue, to whose merit such great miracles lay open: between the empty air the guilty one hangs, and in the air the torturer, with feet stretched upward, clothed in clinging fleece sticking to the rigid members of the covered body, lest, bent in a curved fold or slipped backward, they would bare the shameful limbs of the suspended body. Thus your merit, Martin, thus your holy power, and the glory of Christ to be revealed through the servants of God, exceeding the lands in titles, reigns also in the air. It is also certain that, at your supplication, dried-up clouds, and the suspended ruin of dread hail, have halted, with the deeply compressed whirlpool of the dense cloud constricted, which, heavy and rigid with cold, with winds joined together, hardened into stones from waters, with such frequent whirlwind hurled solid rocks of liquid onto the lands, so that crops, shrubs, gardens, orchards, vines were trampled by the frequent missiles of the storms in ruins, and the earth was shaken, pierced by a mighty lash.

This plague of the Senones, spreading widely through the fields, accustomed to fulfill the law of punishment every year, had laid bare the fields, crushed by constant ruin, with repeated devastation. The pale farmer reported the lost crop, lamenting the completely shattered tops of the stalks; and the vine-dresser, often groaning over the empty vine without fruit and shoot, counted the losses from the already swelling clusters after the annual vows of labor. A most sorrowful mother showed the broken branches, where her children used to creep for the mild little fruits; nearby, the pale shoots of the drying field, and the rocks re-echoing with the lowing of cattle, resounded. The diseased herds roamed the empty retreats, testifying with whatever groans they could to their plaintive cause. Driven by this evil, therefore, the whole people or age, desiring to obtain for themselves so illustrious a patron, beseech Martin through an interpreter as a suppliant, that he might strive to appease God and beg for pardon for the wretched, and finally drive away the grievous plague. Enough punishment had been given: the mercy of Christ would remove the excessive destruction, at least after the blows. Nor indeed did the hoped-for expectation fail the wretched. For at once, always connected and clinging to the Lord, Martin sought the gifts of his customary piety; they felt the pious aid: the storm, driven away, subsided, and the days shone with pure serenity, or the seeds moistened with longed-for rains. Nor was it confined to a brief space, but for a long time, more pleasing, commending the gifts with extended harvests,

Four full five-year periods passed in grace, nor did the mad storms feel their losses any sooner than when the master, at the close of his present life, took his blessed friend to true rest. Thus each piously spent the times of their lives, first a salvation for the lands, now exalted among the stars. But the page of this languishing book, already too long, weakens the titles and deeds of the glorious patron. While I, small, speak of great things, and sluggish, of sublime ones, I, a trembling reporter, corrupt the splendor of his praise. But what am I to do? I vowed to run through the history in verse: the things narrated fear judgment, those suppressed incur guilt. The reader, perhaps, will more rightly leave these things aside in disdain than the pious hearer will seek out things completely withheld. And the earlier discourse already touched upon the savage Avitianus: now the order of the work calls us back to him. This man, surpassing savage tyrants in dire ferocity, thirsting for the sad torments of the wretched accused, spared the city of the Turones somewhat more gently. Here, betraying only traces of human feeling, he subjected his rebellious mouth, though, to the holy reins, repressing his inborn fury at Martin's commands. And indeed, the clear proofs of this healing became evident on a certain day. Venerable Martin was approaching that dread seat under such a judge, so that such great ferocity might grow milder.

bound by the duties and devotions of her holy patron. He happened to be sitting on a high seat, conspicuous on a proud throne, swelling with excessive ambition, when suddenly the saint, looking at him, saw the bloody form of a horrible and grim demon, leaning back, clinging to his neck, and falling forward with all its weight. As soon as the saint touched it from afar with the breath of his blessed mouth and put it to flight by the terror of his word, Avitianus believed that he himself, unaware of his companion, had received a heavy punishment in the image of a curse. The saint replies: 'Do not think that you were marked by my judgment or that this sign arose from sudden anger. This was piety, not wrath, which rages against the enemy, grieving out of pity for the wretched. This breath of mine bursts forth from deep within my whole heart, which I saw pressing upon this high seat with a horrible force and leaning forward upon your neck. Cease now to bear such a robber as a companion; trust more in pious counsels. Let cunning, once detected, be put to flight; let caution, having experienced deceit, repel it. Now let it shame you to obey a guilty one, to serve a vanquished one. For such a one, cast out, the door of the heart is closed. The power of the demon and its seat has been snatched away. Henceforth the judge is milder, finally without a judge of his own, and the heavy burden has been cast off from the neck, the load rejected. Thus he drove out all the expelled enemies from their seat, absolving the hearts of men, and leaving no temples to the fugitives.

For whatever vain error of the shrines had built, it blazed to lay waste far and wide with prone ruins. Not far from the aforementioned city was a village, once the traces of an old fort, now inhabited by servants of God and ministers of Christ. A former inhabitant called it by the ancient name of Ambatia. Here the mad folly of a once sacrilegious assembly had built a very high temple of immense work. Rising into a cone, the towering mass extended its wondrous work aloft, so that, joined perfectly to the very nail, with stones always closely fitted though in frequent order, the lofty burden would not totter, nor a crack gape open, but a beautiful joint would bind the fitted stones. The more the skill of the craftsman, lacking reason, amazed their astonished minds. Thus a shameful religion prevailed, venerating as a god only the ingenuity and genius of the craftsman, named after the builder. Therefore, Saint Martin had ordered this temple to be overthrown. He reproaches a faithful presbyter for neglecting his commands for a long time. Yet that presbyter denies that these orders could be modestly fulfilled. He teaches that these tasks are sufficiently arduous for weary monks and the few ministers of God, which scarcely a gathered crowd from the emptied countryside or sweating cohorts could accomplish. By these words, a just excuse was fully revealed.

Yet hope is not broken. He does not prepare vows for the peoples to be summoned, nor does he hasten to lead assembled troops from the whole world to the village of Ambatia. He calls upon heavenly aid. All hope is in Him who rules heaven and earth, for whom the air serves and the elements preserve a lasting fear. Therefore, again, the rough garment with its prickles, accustomed to penetrate the skin, and the fleece of harshness, woven with stiff threads into rebellious wounds, again wakeful groans, again fasts renewed with delayed meals, and the labor of the night, again joining with the soon-to-follow sun. Nor did a long delay postpone this vow. Behold, upon the returning day, a violent storm rages around the shrine, with a whirlwind of winds breaking the clouds into rivers. The divided clouds are rent by the shaken light, and the mass of collected waters above the heights dashes the woven lattice with a harsh-sounding whirlwind, and the battle of the clouds returns a pressed-out crash. The earth trembled, and shaken from its deep foundation, it spewed forth the hanging foundations of the imposed mass, scattering the ruin far from the structure and rolling the fragments of the broken mass down the slopes. O one so beloved of God, Christ, at your supplication, already dried the leaning rains in the high air. At your vows, again swift storms returned, and the blackening clouds, girded with heavy winds, ordered to spare enough, breaking the strong masses, gentle to the grasses and harsh to the hard rocks.

Nor was this merit less, nor the cause dissimilar, a glory akin, imitating equal triumphs. A lofty column, bearing an idol's image, raised high with stones joined together far into the sky, so that the figure, more elevated and loftier than that throne, might look down upon the wretched people with its false divinity. Martin, desiring to overturn this mass as well, lacked all who were prepared for such vows, but hope, ever swift, remained in the Lord. Therefore, as he swiftly flew back to the heavens in thought, he sought quick aid from the King of the heavens, and a fiery likeness, similar in appearance but different in light, shattered the fragile column into ruin as it fell, rolling crackling ashes with sulphurous flame, raising a smoking cloud from the burnt dust, and a vapor overflowing from the consumed mass. Thus, Martin, from the ruddy sky, from the whirlwind, you join twin triumphs, either by cloud or by fire. Nor is it surprising that the Lord fulfilled promises made to a faithful servant for such a holy minister, who once said to his servants, too astonished at such miracles, that he would give these proofs of true faith, so that believers might test even greater signs. What wonder is it that the same Lord, favoring, fulfilled them through servants, who deigned to call sublime hearts upward, promising more to pious ministers? For as the heavenly page of the book reveals, attesting to a woman's faith, after the rivers of many...

of blood and the sad decay of the consumed body, health quickly returned through the touch of the garment. Thus to Martin was given the same glory of the deed, but with God healing, who now also, high on the citadel of the starry throne, is proven to be touched through the limbs which are joined to the eternal head by a sacred bond. What is not gentle to the pious, what is not subject to the faithful man? Serpents often obeyed when commanded, nor did the savagery innate to poisons overcome the conquered. A dread serpent was swimming across the nearby shallows and was furrowing the glassy waters. Its head stood out from the waves with its neck. It was cleaving the top of the river with its breast in haste. The rest of its body through the blue-green depths was bending its slippery coils in various motion, twisting the light, curved volumes of its tail and vibrating its quivering tongue, poised for wounds. When Martin, barely in mid-stream, saw this serpent, already hastening and about to reach the adjacent shore, he compelled it with these words to turn back swiftly, constrained by the power of God or the name of Christ: "By no means do I command you to strive further for the forbidden bank." The evil beast stood still in the middle of the wave, and a broken, rigid torpor bound its limbs, and its members gradually stuck in captive swimming, until, with the surge of the blocked current cut off, its languid neck floated on the allowed deep, and the sluggish current carried the half-dead serpent back.

And would that my poison, which the slippery path of a badly traversed life has corrupted, plunging my crimes headlong into the swift world, might be turned by the faithful mercy of the holy patron, and compel me, forgetful, to remember salvation again, lest my limbs, prone, sink into the deep mire and my body become infected and soaked in the whirlpool of vices, but that my steps, stable above, on the margin of virtues, might press on in faith, trample earthly joys, and, with swift effort, desire to escape those things which flow. Only this much, and for a little while, I will pause at the rivers with a vow, while I run through the titles of the illustrious patron, recalling them, to whose merit the whirlpool of the commanded waters rejoiced to submit, obeying the holy commands. Continuous fasts, prolonged through the year, were relaxed a little by the solemnities of holy Easter. Only on these days did he torment his limbs more gently. Then alone he would take a small fish for food. But while the times were being kept for future signs, the customary intention of duty deceived the catch. When he learned that the vain labor of the fishermen had flowed away and the nets had floated stretched through the empty deep, with the querulous murmur of the grieving ones he spoke: for the deacon, present for the rest, was a faithful witness enough, whom the more pressing care of this duty had made a vigilant observer through the preceding part of the night and, weary from the exacted part of the present day, a common witness of the shared labor.

His anxiety stirred the holy man's pious heart, and, moved by devout grief, he said, "Go, and quickly cross the stream, and skillfully search the flowing waters. The net will soon enclose the captive prey for you." Without delay, trusting in the word of so great a master, the deacon hastened. Hope was restored to his anxious prayer, and the swift capture did not disappoint, though not delayed. For as soon as he enclosed the nearby shallows with a small net, the rope, struck, trembled with the moved bark, betraying the prey entangled in the impassable blue. He quickly dragged the entangled fish to the nearby shore, rejoicing in the catch. Then, prone with his whole chest, he encircled the wet fish with his slipping arms. The slippery prey barely clung to his bare arms, shaken and almost slipping from his wet forearms, until, gradually leaving its native element, it breathed out its faint life in the air, and, with a languid gaping mouth, opened its jaws, applauding the rejected water with a sluggish movement of its tail. The monks, who had come out from their nearby cells to such a spectacle, were astonished at their own desire fulfilled, and, favoring the fulfillment, believed that the word uttered from the holy breast was true. O truly a mirror of eternal virtue! From him himself these gifts flow to you, who once ordered the disciples, weary from a night's vain effort, to draw the nets, sending a plentiful catch into the nets,

gathering the chosen fish for the holy feasts, those whom, snatched from the midst of the world's turmoil, he would draw to the Lord through the teaching of holy faith. Often God wished the exalted merit of the blessed man to be made known through illustrious men, so that, through those witnesses whom the glory of the world had raised up, the signs of virtues brought forth among the peoples might shine more brightly. For Arborius, renowned for the high pinnacle of his prefecture, saw, while the holy man was celebrating the solemn rites of God, the hand of Martin gleaming with flashing light of gems, and a glittering radiance clothing his fiery right hand with precious purple, and the crackling crash of stones striking together. Not such are the jewels that adorn the standards of generals, nor such the diadems that encircle the brows of kings, but such as the Lord's judgment sets in the glorious crowns of the saints at the end, as earned gems. Nor is there doubt that, by the preeminent integrity of his faith, he shines with a varied flower of virtues beyond human measure, he whom the blessed page of the historian, a comfort of the angelic word, attests in his presence. For when he was returning sorrowfully from the city of Trier, in which, while the people trembled at the wrath of the king for the wretched, whose life he himself demanded, compelled to relax his own strictness a little, he had looked more leniently upon the Ithacian fault,

to the impulse to mercifully spare a condemned cause and to restore anew the pacts of pious peace. Therefore, visiting him again, now excessively afflicted with grief, an angel, manifest in presence and speech, brought soothing comforts to his sad friend, soothing his anxious heart with assembled words, teaching what should be changed by counsel, and resolving what had been entrusted. In such a way, marking the chief prophet’s proclamations, the heavenly messenger with holy mouth made Zacharias foreknow the coming of his holy son, promising a voice after the commanded silence. Finally, a not unequal merit revealed a similar order: as offspring came to that one, so grace came to this one, shining more brightly with the added light of virtues. For often, expelled from the captive breast, the demons, not yet compelled by the words or voice of the one present, were terrified by the blessed proximity of the cell, and the blessed power of the dwellings, departing far off, drove them out. Thus, stretched too far, the signs, testifying to the Lord’s present favor, gleamed far and wide, not content with the land alone, but more often the waves themselves, bursting far and wide with Martin’s titles. Sailors, tossed in the immense whirlwind, while the more violent wave of the mad storm raged, saw how much the saint could help even by his name alone. A ship plowed the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea on the marble surface, hastening with extended sails through the blue waters.

The driven prow was cleaving the deep beneath it, bursting the whitening waves with its opposing breast, leaving long foaming tracks of its paths, when suddenly clouds spread a hidden covering over the sky, damp fleeces weave a darkening lattice, and the light, concealed in a pitch-black cloud, perishes utterly. The strong winds press on to overturn the sea, and the wet sands are mingled with the reddened waves. The lofty masses are shattered by the violent whirlwind. The suspended volumes of the wave, raised high aloft, the unstable hills lifting too much upward, as they return, are dissolved, broken by frequent collapses, and, collapsing, give back countless crashes far off. The sails fall, the ropes resound with a trembling creak. Now the ship lies hidden, its peak cut off near the clouds, again it nods, poorly suspended on a high ridge, fearing a double fall in each abyss. But other waves shake the resisting sides, and the shattered planks of the grating spring back, dashed together, filling the battered stern with such frequent spray. The violence of the sea shakes out the torn-away rudder, the helmsman cast far off. Fear shakes the hearts of the terrified, convulsing their innards with a trembling motion and wetting their pale cheeks with more than just spray. Confused groans, the murmurs of a tearful voice, and sighs broken by constant sobbing of the weeping lament a complaint similar to that of near death.

Meanwhile, a certain man, driven by extreme terror but not yet instructed in the true reason of faith, sought heavenly aid with such a cry: "Unknown to me, but deservedly known as a saint whom I venerate as a servant, through whom your glory shines—Martin, have mercy, O God, drive away the danger, rescue us. For all things incline to you, O saint, as I recall, the bishop proved by frequent virtue." Without delay, the waves subsided, the seas fell calm, and the plain field of placid waters lay still; gently, with a moderate breeze, the Zephyrus drove the damaged stern and placed it in the desired station. Thus the merit of the servant was proven through all elements, and Christ spread the titles of his friend the saint, glorifying his bright name over the trackless blue. Nor is it surprising that Martin's faith, with God as its patron, could prove so much, if at any time, with blessed vigils and all the strength of prayer, he had borne his happy vows to the Lord in person—if only the grace of a name, unknown and far removed, had merited to shine through him alone. Yet, as the page strives for highest praise, it draws back in astonishment and trembles with poor words to ascend such a mass of virtues—for who is proven to have healed not one man as a saint, but at once an entire household with healing intercession? A witness is present, the high Lycontius, of vice-prefect rank, assigning these gifts with grateful speech.

whose widespread devastation, raging far and wide, had overwhelmed a single house with ruin. Everywhere, half-dead bodies, rejected by all their parts, lay strewn, crowding the grim thresholds with weary limbs. Sadness was everywhere, constant sighs, incessant weeping, and groans wrenched from the deepest cavern of the chest, breath convulsing the flanks, continuous vomiting, parched skin, a flame implanted in the marrow kindling the stomach, a heavy wave of vapor. Those half-dead bodies grew pale beside a neighboring corpse, and the crowd of the dying, saddened by such an example of kindred funerals, was terrified. Others, though lifeless, at least feared to touch their loved ones in a trembling duty, too anxious, lest scattered contagions sow grave diseases. Fear had withdrawn them from this service, but grief had blocked their entrails with anxious lamentation. And those who had buried their limbs in the last tombs, delayed for a similar death not long after, carried similar diseases to the grim thresholds. No medical hands availed, no herbs, which often by their juices had worked great cures for the sick. Therefore, the master, confounded by such a disaster among his own and distrustful of his own prayers, labors to appease the Lord through the intercession of the saint and the merit of the patron, pleading the grievous calamity with Martin as interpreter. He, although he felt the burden of the harsh case, with the judge already offended, was yet merciful in his anxiety.

with anxious affection he received the prayers of the suppliant. Nor did he cease, tormented by unceasing toil, to wear down his dry limbs, their marrow exhausted, and to dash his body against the hard ground with prone effort, doubling his accustomed fasts with added penances, not even closing his eyes with brief sleep, goading his flesh, consumed, with a bristly garment, until the master, moved by the zeal of so great a friend, at last his anger entirely softened, granted the happy gifts of desired health. The rejoicing crowd of his own, embracing the grateful master, received him, testifying to the joys with all their prayers, as he recounted the titles and deeds of the glorious patron. After the ruin was driven away by Martin’s prayer, he, hastening to return such gifts to the saint, brought a hundred pounds of silver to the threshold of the aforementioned, compensating for the promised rewards with offered gifts, so that the smallness of the reward might prove the merit of the physician, and the prayers of the grateful giver might be revealed by the zeal of the generous one. The saint, rejoicing in the service of his dear friend, neither kept these rewards, which testified to the devotion of a faithful heart, while, cautious, he considered the loss to the giver, so that the gifts, sent ahead, might bring back the fruit of faith, nor did he receive them again for his own use, lest the desire for possession stain the saint’s mind, but he entrusted them to God, sealed in a high place, so that, loosening the harsh punishments of captives, excluded from the pious thresholds, given to the redeemed, they might preserve the trust of the counted number, while the severity was despised.

Proceed, then, following what has been set forth, demanding what was promised, O bishop, to the bright citadel of the lofty sky, to the starry home and the gleaming crown you are allotted, you who were able to confine all the rage of the dread demon and his entire fury into a tiny fly. But we shall always venerate your present limbs, until you return to eternal life with your body, joined to the tombs of the saints, to be united with their crowns. You could scarcely hide your face from us, remaining with us in piety. Often the frequent crowds visit you; healing lives before them; the longed-for gifts of health are immediately present. Words are silent, but signs shine. If you are withdrawn a little from sight in body, you are seen present in power. I pray that you may deign to be always present in the heart of this wretched poet, so that, when meditation has finished the poem, the transcribed prayer may hold the praise. BOOK SIX. You renew our care to be renewed with murmurs, while you prove life by virtue, not a priest confined by the law of death, and, without flesh, a survivor of your own flesh.

You are seen, sought, touched, and held. While you offer present aid, you display honor, standing by the one who seeks and never hidden from the one who prays. How well the neighboring spirit embraces the limbs, and grace suffuses the holy stone! Nothing is far for a striking faith. Shouting hearts plead their own causes without voice or murmur. He reads the words of the mind who looks into the sense and visits the heart and surveys the hidden recess of the breast. Recalling earlier, I marked five books of deeds, selecting few from many. What portion of such great titles has come to us? What has one man attained? How small a reward balances such great labor! Unworthy again, I attempt praises with my feeble understanding: such great vows the breast bears by the goodness of the patron. Pious grace precedes merit: the palm is held, and the burden is not felt. The care of labor has not yet been tasted by me: what it bids me will is already a pledge of reward. O how many tongues greater eloquence could have adorned with this good work! It does not suffer the usual rejection of poems: it believes the good things it knows. For it is certain that he himself commanded what the interpreter sent by him thinks should be attempted, joined and clinging and always revering the commands of so great a master, a blessed teacher destined to live forever in time. He does not narrate uncertain rumor nor credulous breezes.

Rumors hasten to spread through attentive ears. He proves what is seen before him, standing as the most faithful witness, revealing the miracles of the faith he has inspected, offered to his own eyes and entrusted to his vows. From diverse parts of the world, crowds gather eagerly; countless thousands multiply and repeat their prayers. Swift grace brings the aid of desired piety. They rejoice, exulting, bearing the swift fruit of their accomplished labor. Now, indeed, those whose senses are besieged by a raging demon are summoned here for help; swift healing snatches them here. The guilty are halted and tremble. Confession cries out, extorted by command. Under the judge, a salutary punishment is seen, and the invader is ordered to utter his own words through the captive mouth in another's body. The judge is felt, but the impious enemy is not seen. The exile hastens to depart from the seized prey, fleeing to vanish amid the pressing punishments. An aerial body, bound, is constricted by chains. Those you thought to be wandering, you will marvel at as bound limbs. The inspected will confirm faith. Whom punishment has bound, tighter bonds reveal him entangled in his arms; he strikes against obstacles placed before his fixed limbs. What of when seated lattices in the path support an aerial step? The unsteady run.

bodies, and the hollow air carries the flight as it is placed upon it. Moreover, into a well, enclosed within the temple itself at its source, which belches forth health-giving waves from its hollow waters, bodies are hurled headlong with a sudden leap, driven headfirst by the accused, who, pressing down on the crown, thrusts his own limbs headlong into the deep whirlpool and crushes the brain by the mass of the limbs. But who does not see, when the submerged bodies rise again, that the extended hollows have opened wide, and that the supports of favor have gently unbarred their arms to the falling ruins? The robber burdens the limbs; mercy preserves life. The zeal of assistance appears more than the punishment of the thief. Whoever wavers with faltering faith, pay attention: the bodies rise again and are drawn to life through Martin's prayer. The depth swallows only the limbs of the wretched, and the well does not press upon those enclosed with its open mouth. But why do I speak of wells? The river, a foster-child, bears witness to the work of wondrous power, which, joined to the walls of the city, licks the rocks with its contiguous streams. Here, in the middle, it divides the cell and the tomb, and, spreading out, interposes its expanse between the separated places, navigable, and, like a sea, dispersing itself in a vast whirlpool, and far and wide its divergences on its banks

he strains his eyes with prolonged vision, and although his arms are strong, he tires them by swimming across. This river, from the temple which holds the holy limbs and preserves the blessed members for eternal glory, a demon in his wretched body madly sought, about to plunge the seized prey into the nearby whirlpool. But such great compassion allows nothing bloody and deprives the savage tyrant of his most cruel rights. The hardened path is trodden, the water rebels, solidified, and does not wash over the swift steps. Across the river, the crowds marveled at their dry garments, and the cell, once the happy host of angelic life, received the man rejoicing to be purified. Nor did the disturbed minds at the time retain any recollection of what was done, once they returned to themselves and recovered their senses. It often bears the sounds of the Huns and their threatening murmurs, and voices cut through fierce shortcuts. He did not know he had obtained help, though it was manifest before a witness, unaware of the gift and safe because of so great a gift. Often the wretched possessor of the spirit would bend tongues, altered to foreign murmurs, so that the words of Gauls would flow in Greek speech and, in speaking, they would express a people not even known by name. Would anyone think that he spoke with his own understanding, who speaks what is not known to him? From the cave of the chest he bellows, and possession bends the conquered tongue.

just as strings sound the motion that the plectra traverse, and the threads of the sinews speak at the command of the hand. Whenever, with God pressing, they confess future events, and those who always delight in deceitful falsehoods are compelled to speak the truth, extorted from the Lord! What a punishment it is to speak openly! Command draws forth the voice, and suppressed will yields to the order. A man illustrious for virtue, but more renowned and great for his kindly character and for the faith by which he stands higher, Aegidius, a hostile multitude had surrounded with a siege, which had enclosed the walls with deployed arms, excluding reinforcements and pressing the enclosed with force, so that division of strength would weaken the besieged, and allied camps could not join for battle. But by the protection of the Lord, the thousands are routed and put to flight, and the column, going out through the opened gates, restores the full strength of the secure leader. Meanwhile, the saddened neighborhood, trembling with fear, grew pale at the danger of such a great leader, and all the anxious care of the fearful people hung in suspense, while each thinks he endures a similar storm, and in one man everything that depends on one man wavers. Therefore, perhaps someone from among those whom a more savage anger had drawn to the desire of drinking blood in slaughter,

hurled headlong at the master's nod as if by a whirlwind, and outstripping the swift winds through the breezes and clouds, he drew forth from his captive body the series of deeds, proclaiming in the same moments, at the same time, that the city was freed from siege while Martin prayed, and that God had granted both the people and the leader to him. Soon the manifest truth became clear and confirmed the series. It was the same day, the same hour, with nothing reversed in order, and the unwilling enemy was compelled not to deceive by punishment. Just as Balaam, desiring to curse the Lord's people, was forced by God to bless the rejoicing assembly, so, in no other way and by the very same order of events, came the messenger: that city was freed from so great a siege, a city which had subdued the swift Rhone with a gentle bridge and joined the twin banks with a connected path, so that it offered a dry route where ships press on, and above, a swaying path hangs over the river. This city too, O holy patron, you rescue, associated with your presence, and you compel the trembling man to confess your vows, which he would not have wished granted to you. The guilty one stands by, swifter than the East Wind, and does not keep silent about the lost watchtowers of the desired slaughter, and becomes the herald of the salvation he hates. This too, the reckoning of the hours, once shaken out, revealed, completed and disclosed at the very same point, as the matter itself taught. Now indeed, how great is the healing in all cases, not by a medicating hand, not brought by a healing juice,

It endured neither the blade of iron, nor the draught of grass, nor the fire of brimstone seized from dissolved sulphur, but flowing with a healing word and rightly proven by the precipitous power of faith, which, standing close at hand, invites the fearful to all, while it heals those who have attained. Here the blind were astounded by the unfamiliar gift of light, here the lame by a swift course with a revitalized body, here the deaf by the new distinction of a restored voice: as many causes as had brought ruin, so many gifts restore health. Always more numerously than the punishments, a protection stands by, and the present safeguard puts peril to flight. A paralytic virgin experienced so great a remedy, afflicting her wretched parents with long grief. For the violence of the disease had taken away all use of her limbs, and, with all her sinews simultaneously deadened, it had cast back her lifeless limbs, utterly prostrate, and, living only by a groan, with weary breath and scant respiration, she shook her panting stomach. This woman, brought by the hands of her parents to the merit of the saint, lay pitifully near the neighboring tomb. Now they wet their streaming faces with alternating tears, and in turn they vie with a poured-out river of tears. Clemency moved the saint. With difficulty, her slight limbs...

the blessed touch of the oil had reached the wretched ones, their feet leapt forth, their sinews regained strength, and their arms felt the desired movements, and their upright hands played with loosened fingers. The wretched ones at once seize the votive joys and scarcely believe, so fearful are they, what they would rather believe. Their countenance changes again with a better calm, and the new miracles of a clear face seize them. Yet this merit did not long preserve its honor. Those who now burdened the thresholds with constant vows, promising a swift return after such great rewards, and that the expense of the poor would soon be lightened by their largesse—whom the holy priest nourishes and clothes munificently—while the devoted one provides the accustomed aid to the needy and his ready will grows rich from his own expenditures, a serpent like the ancient one seized them with dire poison, and the same serpent that once tempted Eve also compelled these, through the envy of a similar counsel, to trample on neglected faith. Then a perverse will, addicted to evil counsels, obeyed the words of those desiring different things, unhappy, into foul lies, unmindful of what it had seen and utterly forgetful of the favor. It sought idolatrous rites with a mad heart, changed its planned journey, and snatched the vigorous maiden from the author of life, delivering her to a dire brigand, ungrateful to the faith, but subject to the enemy.

But when the maiden’s deceived error caught sight from afar of the infernal tomb of the tyrant, she collapsed, and, stripped of the gift of so great a patron, she was consigned to her own diseases, her body crushed, until the girl, healed by the earlier gift, was snatched away by death, doubled by evils and owed to punishments. How much better it would have been if the present life had called her, recalling the gifts of so great a healing, to eternal life, so that, believing, she might have remembered the evangelical word, by which it is commanded that a servant healed by the Lord’s gift should avoid his own sin, lest he proceed again into it and atone for the fault with a heavier penalty. Meanwhile, he compelled the unjust by just terror to feel the power of God. For often the rebellious, if precepts do not yet rule them, are compelled by blows. When suddenly, terrified by a greater danger, Gaul suffered the Huns as auxiliary forces (for you can scarcely bear a companion who is harsher than an enemy and repels an attached treaty with savagery), one of them, driven by the goads of a mad demon, burst into the sacred house of the Lord, a wicked plunderer. Then, daring to profane the altar of God with a profane step and, following his frenzied vows, he snatched the holy crown with a wrenching right hand,

which taught the merit of the saint through her joined fate, portraying her, whom Christ as judge took up, shining in the starry citadel of the high heavens. But the eyes felt the fault, because the lights that announce to the heart, having glimpsed the prey, wished to conceal it. The gaze sinned while rejoicing, nor could it perceive what it had seized, and the stolen pleasure left the eyes. The besieged sight groaned as if in a nocturnal day, and seeking the solace of the surrounding light, it grieved that the sun grew dense with nearby shadows. Why does it marvel at the sight closed by sudden darkness? Already then it was blind, when it saw wrongly what was to be seized. But when the crime was revealed to a questioning friend and the deeds were laid bare to an inquiring companion, following the leader as if compelled by night, he sought the blessed altars with a different vow, now tamed by his own disaster and closer to salvation. Having confessed his crimes, the guilty one, wishing to condemn himself by a salutary judgment, seems to have earned pardon from this, that he confesses he deserved punishment. The penalty compensates for the sins: it reforms what was perverted, so that he may regain what was lost: he takes up his own, offers what he took. The perverse mind had punishment; the converted mind, healing. But another, thirsting for slaughter with a more violent anger, more fierce than a demon, who, shut up in a captured body,

the wretched man, justly oppressed by a hellish fury, struck the possessed body with a deadly demon, a host so harsh and a foe so much crueler, and plunged a bloody sword into the pierced breast. But the same madness or fury persisting, it turned the foaming sword and the hand dripping with blood against the author of the crime, scarcely after the slaughter was done, and with the blade it opened the hiding place of such a great crime and sought the ill-conceived deed through the entrails. How quickly swift vengeance proved the judgment, and how swiftly punishment joined itself to such a committed crime! Let no one think these things harsh, when few signs sharpen fear, terror is the remedy, and fear is the cure. The people, rejoicing, vied with zeal to add ornament to the holy altars, hastening in triumph. But when such a great undertaking attempted to move the beautiful columns to the threshold of the saint's temple, someone, blinded in heart by such haste, rebelling, prepared to go against it or to delay such begun works, dared, driven by the impulse of a furious demon, even threatening his wife, that the work would be completed by her tears, since he, living in a nearby countryside, had given the tools sought for the work. Without delay, thrown headlong from his horse into the shallow waters of a shining stream, he found no

waters that could submerge the prone body. The one to be drowned sought the waters and, clinging to the shallow stream, as he died he drank the sands he had pressed down. A shipwreck without a ship snatches him, a whirlpool without a river. The elements acknowledge God. Nothing there was permitted to be falsified by chance, for a single command accomplished it. Certainly those threats, uttered beforehand, did not move the tears of one weeping for your funeral, but as before, the prophet of the hated omen, you used to foretell what was coming. You now precede our columns, no longer forbidding them, nor do you seize the temple's ornament, you who are to be seized for the tomb. But the people, devoted and insistent with greater faith, hastened the outstanding work. With virtue proven, judgment shone forth, and present devotion grew. With terror now set aside, you establish laws, corrected by perils. You will count the gifts of the distinguished patron as pleasing, and after the serpent is struck and conquered, you will first rejoice in the nectar-like juice of the olive. Whenever the vicinity of the saint's tomb, joined nearby, received it, grace changed the true liquid and brought swift healings in haste. The blessed bishop had offered the oil, brought and presented with unhesitating faith, which that spirit would sprinkle.

And a new breeze of favor would wash over the contiguous. Perpetuus, a worshiper of the Lord not only in name, and following the pious examples of the master who had gone before. When he wished to bring this revered aid to health and to apply the proven good to all remedies, dust quickly scraped from the blessed marble, mixed with holy oil, doubled its powers, so that the virtue, doubled in the sprinkled liquid, increased faith in what it touched, and joined salvation. But when the vicinity sensed even a small crumb, grace quickly suspended the oil in contact, and the swelling tumor boiled over. The abundant supply increased what grew before the presented gift. The diffusion, higher than its source, watered the barriers. And yet the overflowing grace did no damage, and it flowed beneath, always full even when replenished. This glory never stains wet garments: these, when inspected, retain a greater luster than Siloa, which only testify to the work. No one may wash away what virtue has inscribed with such a sign. Nor is this praise confined to a place: grace, followed by the faithful, sent sublime titles into the air. Even the storms themselves felt the merit of the saint, and the terror of hail clung to the dense clouds, and a more merciful wrath spared the lands to be devastated.

A certain man, trusting that he bore true salvation, if he could carry anything from the threshold of the saint’s temple to his own home, the rejoicing servant received the blessed rewards of wax as a boon. His rejoicing faith experienced what he had felt with his whole heart: the hoped-for aid brought back the expected help. The protected field escaped those darts of liquid, the stony blows and icy lashes of the constricted water, covering the fruit of that sowing, which, stored in the earth, spreads out its broad branches for the promised coverings. The whole neighborhood marveled at the granted favor, and the power of spring, now known by true signs, lay open. I could not tell all these praises with a hundred tongues, nor unfold such great palms of miracles. Nor must I strike the oracles of lying Phoebus, nor await the plectra of the invented sisters. Another fills me for the proclamation of such great praise—the Spirit, and gives words and joys to my heart. So that I may sing truly, my Muse, the Patron, may he favor me and quicken my sense with his grace, lest I be overcome by the splendor of the work or, overwhelmed by such great light, turn my unsteady eyes from the light, and sing of the lofty and celestial things with clear understanding.

Trust in God, O reader, in your piety; what you hesitate to believe, you will know that all these inclinations Christ gave and ordered to increase the titles of the saint. The people have been accustomed to bring solemn homage each year, when the returning cycle of the year would joyfully renew the sacred mysteries of Easter. The great veneration of the cell invites the eager, which lay open as a faithful host to such an exceptional saint, a man possessed by an angel. Their prone faces grow wet with weeping, and they seek the saint’s footprints with tears. They wish to remember the places he touched while singing psalms, where he pressed while praying, where he tasted food, relaxing immense fasts with a tiny taste, which cell fostered rest for his vigils with heavenly aid and granted brief sleep to his limbs, while refreshing his sublime mind with the image of wakefulness. The rejoicing pastor leads the joyful people here. The crowd, taken up by numerous boats, crosses over, and the waves lie hidden beneath the ships. Here every sex and age is present. The temples sit empty of their guardians. From all sides, mutual faith stands in the inner chambers. Meanwhile, the author of death or crime, infused with the venom of his own envy, prepares to oppose these efforts, and attacking a laden ship in the midst of the waves and in the vast whirlpool, he sank it, engulfing everything seized together in the deep and dragging the entangled crowd in the river’s current.

what slaughter it awaited in triumph, and with what great rejoicing it counted the countless deaths of the longed-for doom, snatching little ones torn from their nurses' breasts and scattering the wandering bands over the trackless blue depths, while seeing others, with neck burdened by a corpse they had grasped, sink down, dragged by a wet garment, but seeking the sky with their eyes and pushing out the poured-in waters with a murmur. Meanwhile, a united cry in the name of Martin summons heavenly aid. The whole crowd prostrates itself and drenches the wet sands with tears. That joyful day owed special joys to the sorrowful and an extraordinary gift at the solemn time. Immediately, a gentler spirit was present in the midst of the waters and snatched the rights of unjust death from the cruel one. The liquid suspended the wandering limbs. The water, solidified for safety, lifted the limbs on its waves. Not struck by swimming, nor furrowed and wounded by changed palms, it bore the motionless burden and carried it back to the banks—joy, and counted the brought-back safety with gladness. The mother recognized her son; infancy clung to its mother; the father cherished his own offspring in his embrace. Brother, mother, master, servant, matron, relative came together with equal step, and a voice resounding with thanks sang and praised God in holy hymns. Scarcely anyone dares to believe at once in what they have seen; they consult their trembling, doubting eyes with a fearful prayer. Nor is faith broken by terror: they hasten to the river. Quickly, new grace restores fresh strength. It does not please them to change their clothing. They exult in the same garments, and faith does not grow cold in the wet cloak.

Thus the farther bank, rejoicing so greatly in the triumph, said, glad and trusting, 'Let us sing to the Lord.' The unharmed prey sings; the submerged plunderer remained. Behold again the Lord, with the cleft of the Jordan gaping, laid open a divided path and ordered the people to join the ark that had gone before through the river. Returning to its source, the whirlpool turned its streams back, and, halting its course, flowed backward, hastening to its origin. These places the people trod down with trampled sands, which the fearful sailor had traversed with oar and sail. What paths of earth and sea did the swift glory of this name not penetrate, rushing with a leap, leaving behind the ways of the sea and the backs of the vast ocean passable to sailors? A ship, snatched by strong storms, carried far into unknown depths, beyond the paths of men and fleets, had burst, with its motion bound by torpor, headlong into the sea under the force of a whirlwind. No hope of escape remained. For the stagnant mass of water, unmoving and resisting, held the planking in a siege of the sea. The sailors, desiring winds, preferred the help of a storm and the wrath of a whirlwind, making vows for a gale in the midst of the waves. But no power to depart is given to the wretched. Such a sluggish shipwreck holds them without any motion. It floats in the sea, but does not swim out. It clings in the waves, a detestable calm. The sea, which supports it, blocks it, neither driving the ship with a surge nor swallowing it with a gape. No hope of escape lies open. For in the waves, a torpid guard holds the prey bound to the currents. The only hope is God alone, who created and rules all that exists. The elements keep the command of their Creator.

At the Lord's nod, things swiftly stirred grow still, and sluggish things quickly learn unaccustomed motions, and once matters are arranged, the command imposes order. A certain man, following rumor with a better mind, had learned of Martin's titles, spread by fame throughout the world, and of the full and pious miracles of his deeds. This man, compelled by evil, thinking the only safety was to cry out to the true God, thus by chance prayed, seen to water the ground with a fountain of tears. Raising himself and joining the depths of his heart with the eyes of his mind, he said, 'Behold the wretched, the one and true hope of salvation. Martin, have mercy, O God, who through him have scattered among the peoples such great signs of divine favor, and, proving his merit by virtue to surpass the lands, have ordered his titles to be famous even across the seas. Let him, by his intercessions, loose or slacken the ship's bonds, force the divided waters to yield, and finally make the flowing sea thin out in its flood.' Without delay, a great force of wind swiftly rushed upon them, drove the snatched ship through the cleft flood, and carried it with easy breath over the impassable blue, and soon refreshed them in the longed-for harbor of a station, singing of those carried and brought back by Martin's name, and of gifts obtained by constant faith, which they chanted. Who, then, can grasp this with his mind? Who can paint it in song? Who can count it, who can express it? Every talent is overcome, praises restrain pressed tongues. Yet, though inferior to the titles which glory accompanies,

These things, which I have either learned or read again so often, I cannot speak as is worthy, yet I will try to touch upon them. A certain man, returning from the saint's temple to his own threshold, believing he was carrying a safeguard for his house, had brought with him into the inner sanctuary a holy wax, trusting that the blessing of so great a patron, joined to the merits of such just faith, would be present with power. And already the time had come for the proofs of this favor to be revealed. By chance, a serpent, having slipped carelessly through the fire, a voracious flame, increasing its strength through the fuel of wood, was already pressing the house with ruin. Smoke, billowing everywhere into the air, was gathering a surging mass in a whirlwind. The dry timber was greedily devouring and licking up everything in its path, and leaving only ashes from such great destruction. Nor was there any hope of escape with the danger blazing so near. Terror, pressing close, had beset the inner chambers and the prey so near to the neighboring perils. Prayers returned to the saint. With faithful outcry he is invoked, and repeated cries utter the pious names. The master himself, of the kindled and gleaming lights of the wax,

caressing with happy oil a light that spreads softly, a swift right hand snatches it to the inner chambers, and placing the blazing flames amid the midst, it thrust back the pressing fire by the defenses of fire. The raging whirlwind halted. At once the enemy destroyer turned his back, and a spark put the fire’s frenzy to flight. Not so, if clouds had cast down whole showers, could downpours poured from above prove helpful, or if rivers, contending, had snatched away the streams, any springs, draining the river dry, could provide such swift benefit as true power can. The fire, trembling in haste, flees its own fuel—the wax— and the fostering combs; nature, in harmony, shudders. Virtue destroys the flame which it nourishes with light, with transparent nectar, fragrant with the rich liquid. These things, having dared to run through briefly in few words, I have marked for the faithful people to read again, unlearned though I am. Such great joys have strengthened my humble voice. What you complain is described too little, you will marvel at in the deeds. It suffices that the poem, scorning praises, lauds that nothing was permitted to death, when life is openly proven. The city of Tours rejoices forever in Martin as its bishop.