Letter 10029: Your distinguished nobility and your great record of loyal service persuaded me to entrust you with governing in...

29. KING THEODAHAD TO COUNT WISIBAD. [1] Since the honorable nobility of your lineage and the proofs of your great fidelity had persuaded us to entrust to you, in peace, the governance of the city of Ticinum [Pavia], which you had defended through wars, you, suddenly overwhelmed by an inundation of clogging gout, have requested that you wish rather to seek out the drying waters of Bormio [Aquae Bormiae], which are healthful especially for this affliction. We heal your desire by a remedial command, so that by the benefit of our order we may bring about the soundness of health which we rightly seek in you. [2] For far be it that the tyranny of a most grievous calamity should disarm a most warlike man -- a tyranny which in a wondrous manner forces flourishing limbs to wither by the infusion of a painful humor, and fills the mobile joints, which swell up with a marble-like tumor. Although it knows how to empty all other parts, it seeks out the hollow cavities of the joints, where, growing sluggish in its marshy station, it manufactures stones out of fluid, and what nature had loosened for the grace of bending, it constricts into a most unsightly rigidity with an alien solidity. [3] This affliction, incurable yet bringing a health that still suffers, binds the unbound, contracts the living, and makes bodies grow smaller which have been mutilated by no amputation. With the limbs remaining whole, the measure of one's stature perishes, and he is seen to be smaller from whom nothing is felt to have been taken away. The services of the limbs are withdrawn from the survivor: the body is alive yet does not move, and, reduced among insensible things, it is now borne not by its own will but by another's motion. This living death is said to be sound above all torments, and he is reported to fare better who is not shown to have escaped the cause of so great a peril. [4] The pain may indeed depart, but it leaves behind stronger remnants, and, by a novel example of misfortune, the affliction seems to withdraw while the sick man does not cease to be sick. Even the additional penalties are at some point released to tormented debtors: but these are chains which, once they have been able to bind the captive, do not know how to unbind him in his whole life. As it departs it leaves behind its unhappy marks, and in the manner of barbarian nations it violently defends the lodging of the body it has occupied with its own tokens, lest, where that fierce thing has begun to take up residence, opposing health should perhaps dare to enter there again. Although this seems to be hostile to all men, it is most of all hostile to those who have flourished in the exercise of arms -- that those hardest limbs should grow soft by the boiling-down of languor, and that those who could by no means be overcome by an enemy from without should rather be conquered by an internal adversity. Go forth therefore, with God as your author, by your own steps to the aforesaid place. For far be it that our warrior should walk by another's feet. Let him be carried on a horse's back, not by human conveyance, since for a brave man it is grievous to live in such a way that he cannot even fill out the place of an unarmed man. These things we have related to you in an exaggerated narration for this reason, that you may be swept along to the pursuit of health with an exceedingly devout eagerness. Use therefore those waters: first, when drunk, as a means of flushing; then, by the drying exhalations of the baths, where deservedly that untamable neck of the affliction is bent, when the inner parts are cleansed by abundant outflow, the outer parts are made free by an attractive power, and, as if by the two aids gathered together, it is overcome, sent into their midst. Let the gifts there granted by divine power be cherished. Against that conqueror of the human race the timely defenses of the baths have been given; and that affliction which an unbroken decade does not tame, which the entry of a thousand draughts does not soften, is put to flight there by pleasurable remedies. May the divine bounties grant the wished-for benefit, so that we may come to know the truest fame of the place rather through your own restored health -- a place from which it is desirable to us that anything which takes away bodily soundness should depart.

XXVIIII. VVISIBADO COMITI THEODAHADUS REX. [1] Cum generis tui honoranda nobilitas et magnae fidei documenta suasissent, ut tibi urbem Ticinum, quam per bella defenderas, gubernandam pace crederemus, limosae podagrae subita inundatione completus, aquas Bormias potius siccativas, salutares huic specialiter passioni, velle te expetere postulasti. desiderium tuum remediali iussione sanamus, ut sospitatem, quam merito in te quaerimus, iussionis beneficio compleamus. [2] Absit enim, ut bellicosissimum virum tyrannis gravissimae calamitatis exarmet, quae miro modo membra virentia infusione poenalis umoris cogit arescere nodosque mobiles replet marmoreo tumore crescentes. cum norit alia cuncta vacuare, iuncturae petit concavas lacunas, ubi palustri statione pigrescens saxa perficit de liquore et quae ad decorem inflexionis natura laxaverat, in turpissimum rigorem peregrina soliditate constringit. [3] Haec passio insanabilis et sanitas passibilis ligat solutos, contrahit vivos et decrescere facit corpora, quae nulla sunt mutilatione truncata. constantibus membris proceritatis mensura perit et minor cernitur, cui nihil subductum esse sentitur. subtrahuntur superstiti ministeria membrorum: corpus vivum est nec movetur et inter insensibilia redactum iam non proprio voto, sed motu fertur alieno. haec viva mors supra omnia tormenta sana dicitur et melius habere fertur, qui evasisse causam tanti periculi non probatur. [4] Desederit quidem dolor, sed dimittit reliquias fortiores et, novo infelicitatis exemplo, passio videtur abscedere et aeger non desinit aegrotare. appendia ipsa cruciatis debitoribus aliquando solvuntur: ista enim vincula sunt quae, cum semel potuerint illigare captum, nesciunt in tota vita dissolvere. infelicia signa relinquit abscedens et more gentium barbararum hospitium corporis occupatum suis indiciis violenta defendit, ne ubi ferox ista coepit succedere, adversa illuc iterum sanitas audeat fortassis intrare. hoc licet omnibus videatur esse contrarium illis maxime, qui armorum exercitatione floruerunt, ne membra illa durissima langoris decoctione mollescant, et qui ab hoste foris superari minime potuerunt, ab interna potius contrarietate vincantur. perge igitur auctore deo gressibus tuis ad locum praedictum. absit enim, ut bellator noster ambulet passibus alienis. equino dorso, non humana subvectione portetur, quia viro forti grave est sic vivere, ut nec inermem possit implere. quae ideo tibi exaggerata narratione retulimus, ut ad studium sanitatis votiva nimis cupiditate rapiaris. utere igitur aquis illis, primum potae dilutoriis, deinde thermarum exhalitationibus siccativis, ubi merito indomabilis cervix illa flectitur passionis, quando interna plurima effusione mundantur, exteriora attractiva virtute libera fiunt et velut duobus auxiliis congregatis in medium missa superatur. amentur illic munera concessa divinitus. contra illam humani generis debellatricem data sunt opportuna munimima lavacrorum et quam non edomat iuge decennium, non mille potionum mollit introitus, voluptuosis illic remediis effugatur. praestent optatum divina beneficium, ut famam loci verissimam tua potius salubritate noscamus, quem nobis desiderabile est evadere quicquid adimit corpoream sospitatem.