This translation is taken from The Collected
Works of Erasmus, Volume 1, pages 9 - 11, translated by R.A.B. Mynors and
D.F.S. Thomson, published by the University of Toronto Press. I do not know if
it falls within the bounds of 'fair use' as defined by the copyright laws.
Should anyone, especially anyone connected with the publisher, have any
opinions on the matter, please advise me.
"Considering that my affection for you
is and always has been so deep, dearest Servatius, that I value you more than
my very eyes and life and, in a word, myself, what is it that makes you so
hard-hearted that you not only refuse to love him who loves you so well but do
not even regard him with esteem? Are you of so inhuman a disposition as to love
those who hate you and hate those who love you? Never was anyone so uncivilized
or criminally minded or obstinate as not to entertain some kindly feeling
towards friends at least; is it that you and you alone cannot be moved by
remonstrances or swayed by entreaties or melted even by the tears of a loving
friend? Are you so savage as to be incapable of pity? I have tried upon you all
of my appeals and prayers and tears, but you close up your heart and implacably
repel me with a harshness like that of the hardest rocks, all the more so the
more I continue to plead with you, so that I could with justice apply to you
the complaint that we find in Virgil: 'Nor wept o'erborne, nor pitied love's
distress.'
What am I to call it, dear Servatius --
harshness or obstinance or pride or arrogance? Can your nature be like that of
a young girl so that my torments yield you pleasure, and your comrade's pain
gives you happiness, his tears, laughter? How well might I reproach you in the
words that appear in Terence? 'O that I had an equal share and just division of
love with you, so that you might either feel this pain as I do, or I might care
not what you have done.' I ask you, what dreadful wickedness or crime or
offense have I committed against you to make you shun me thus and be so hostile
to me? Indeed I cannot see my sin, unless to love very deeply is itself what
you deem a sin. When are you so cruel to one who loves you, what, I ask, would
you be like to one who hated you? For you are ever on my lips and in my heart;
you are my one hope, the half of my soul, the consolation of my life. When you
are away nothing is pleasant to me, and when you are with me nothing is
unpleasant. If I see you happy I forget my own grief, while if anything
grievous happens to you I swear I suffer keener pain than you do yourself. Is
it by acting thus that I have earned such keen disklike at your hands? But in
fact, dear Servatius, I know well what reply you will make to me, for it is the
reply you often make. You will say 'What then do you want to see happen; what
do you require of me? Am I indeed showing dislike for you? What, I repeat, are
you claiming?' If you put the question: I am not asking for expensive presents
for myself; only let your attitude to me be the same as mine to you and you will
forthwith make me happy. But if your heart is so estranged from me that it
cannot be swayed by any entreaty, then tell me so frankly. Why do you mock me?
Why do you keep me in uncertaintly? Sometimes you pretend friendship, sometimes
again its opposite; and as you vacillate I suffer in mind the tortures of the
damnned. So, my sweetest of comrades, if there be still any room in your yeart
for my pleading, I beg and beseech of you one thing above all, to declare your
feelings clearly to me and not destroy me any further with this cruelly
tantalizing behavior.
But why do I pour forth these complaints in
vain? For I know you will not lend an ear to them. Why do I uselessly strive to
plough the sand or wash a brick; and why do I roll this stone any longer? If,
then, you remain forever settled in your attitude. preferring to feel dislike
rather than affection, then dislike me as you will; I for my part shall never
be able to cease loving you. But I am resolved to do so with greater restraint
in order to avoid torturing myself uselessly, since no solace comes from you.
Farewell, my heart, and, if there be any human kindness within you, vouchsafe
an answering love to him that loves you.
This letter's use of classical references is
egregious; it would certainly be fair to call it "showing off".
Almost all of the metaphors and felicitous turns of phrase are taken directly
from the classics. In this respect, at least, there can be no question that
Erasmus is engaging in some sort of literary exercise, along the lines of
"betcha I can pack more literary quotations into a letter than you
can."
Certainly the letter teems with expressions
of love -- but none of them suggest homoerotic love. Indeed, there are several
passages that speak against the possibility of a homoerotic intent. One of
these is "Indeed I cannot see my sin, unless to love very deeply is itself
what you deem a sin." While a gay Erasmus might have convinced himself
that homosexuality was not sinful, such a heretical claim in his letter would
surely have drawn a sharp rejoinder from Servatius. Erasmus would not have been
so stupid as to trigger a confrontation over a point he would surely lose.
Another telling passage: "You will say
'What then do you want to see happen; what do you require of me?" If this
were a homoerotic relationship, Erasmus' intentions would surely have been
clear to Servatius by this point; those intentions are the presumed cause of
Servatius' rejection of Erasmus. If they weren't clear to Servatius, why would
Erasmus imagine him asking such questions?
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