On Considerationpref Prologue
Prologue
I am thinking, Most Holy Father, Eugenius, of writing something which may edify, delight, or console you. But when I would fain begin I experience a strange hesitation, and my words falter, for your Majesty and the love I have for you, like rival commanders, issue conflicting orders. The one bids me advance, the other holds me in check. Your condescension reconciles their differences, inasmuch as though you might more fitly enjoin a task, you beg of me a favour. If then your Majesty unbends, my modesty should surely also yield. True, you sit on Peter's seat. What of that? Though you walk on the wings of the wind, you will never outstrip my affection. Love knows no lord; it recognizes a son even in the robes of office. Love, by its very nature, is lowly enough; it needs no prompting to kindness, seeks no reward for obedience, sets no bounds to its respect. It is not so with some, not so: but they are moved with fear or avarice. These are they who seem to bless, but there is evil in their hearts; they flatter to one's face, but in the time of need they desert us. But charity never faileth. To confess the truth, though I no longer act as a mother to you, I have not lost a mother's affection for you. In days gone by you were rooted in my very heart; you are not so easily to be plucked out. Ascend into heaven, or descend into the abyss, you shall not leave me: I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. I loved you when you were poor, I will love you now that you are the father of both rich and poor. For if I know you well, you have not in becoming the father of the poor lost your poverty of spirit. I am sure that the change in your circumstances has come to you: it has not been sought by you; and I am no less certain that your promotion has left you what you were before, though something be added thereto. I will, accordingly, admonish you, not as a schoolmaster, but as a mother, at all events as one who loves you. Perhaps the fonder I am, the more foolish I may seem. If so, it will be in the eyes of him who loves not, and does not feel the power of love.
Subit animum dictare aliquid, quod te, papa beatissime Eugeni, vel aedificet, vel delectet, vel consoletur. Sed nescio quomodo vult, et non vult exire laeta quidem, sed lenta oratio: dum certatim illi contraria imperare contendunt majestas, atque amor. Nempe urget ille, inhibet illa. Sed intervenit tua dignatio, qua hoc ipsunt non praecipis, sed petis, cum praecipere magis te deceat. Majestate igitur tam dignanter cedente, quidni cedat pudor? Quid enim si cathedram ascendisti? Nec si ambules super pennas ventorum, subduceris affectui. Amor dominum nescit, agnoscit filium et in infulis. Per se satis subjectus est, obsequitur sponte, gratis obtemperat, libere reveretur. Non sic aliqui, non sic: sed aut timore ad ista impelluntur, aut cupiditate. Hi sunt qui in facie benedicunt, mala autem in cordibus eorum; blandiuntur coram, in necessitate deficiunt. At charitas nunquam excidit. Ego, ut verum fatear, matris sum liberatus officio, sed non depraedatus affectu. Olim mihi invisceratus es, non tam facile erueris. Ascende in coelos, descende in abyssos: non recedes a me, sequar te quocumque ieris. Amavi pauperem, amabo pauperum et divitum patrem. Non enim, si bene te novi, quia pater pauperum factus, ideo non pauper spiritu es. In te hanc mutationem factam esse confido, non de te; nec priori statui tuo successisse promotionem, sed accessisse. Monebo te proinde, non ut magister, sed ut mater: plane ut amans. Amens magis videar, sed ei qui non amat, ei qui vim non sentit amoris.