To Marinianus, Bishop of Ravenna, on Gregory’s Own Sickness

Gregory to Marinianus, and so on. [a]

The bearer of this letter, Candidus the abbot, came here to ask for relics, which have been granted. As much as I rejoiced in your fraternity’s comforting kindness, since your care for me showed itself in this, so much was I distressed that I could not enjoy his company as I wished. For he found me sick, and when he left he left me still weak. For it is now a long time since I have been able to get up from my bed. At one time the pain of gout torments me; at another a burning of I know not what kind spreads with pain through my whole body. And it generally happens that at one and the same time a burning pain racks me and both body and mind fail me. Besides what I have mentioned, I cannot list the other great distresses of sickness that afflict me. This much, however, I may say briefly: the infection of a harmful humor so drains me that it is pain to me to live, and I look anxiously for death, which alone I can hope for to relieve my groaning. So, most holy brother, beg for me the compassion of God’s loving kindness, that it may mercifully ease toward me the scourges of its striking, and grant me patience to endure. Otherwise, God forbid, my heart may break out into impatience from too much weariness, and the guilt that might have been well cured through blows may be increased by grumbling. Given in the month of February, in the fourth indiction. [b]