4. To Gondulph

Greeting from brother Anselm to his honoured master, best beloved brother and most attached friend, Master Gondulph.

Though I desire to write to thee, soul most beloved of my soul, though I intend to write to thee, I know not how best to begin my address. For whatever I know about thee is sweet and joyous to my spirit: whatever I desire for thee is the best which my mind can conceive. For I saw thee such that I loved thee as thou knowest; I hear thee to be such that I yearn after thee, God knoweth how much: whence it cometh that whither soever thou goest, my love follows thee; and wherever I remain, my longing embraces thee. And since thou dost eagerly ask me by thy messengers, exhort me by thy letters, and urge me by thy gifts, to have thee in remembrance: "Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth "if I have not held Gondulph first among my friends. I do not here mean Gondulph the layman, my father, but my friend, Gondulph the monk. Now how could I forget thee? How could he fade from my memory who is impressed upon my heart as is a seal upon wax? Also, why dost thou, as I hear, complain with so much sadness that thou never receivest a letter of mine, and why dost thou ask so affectionately to have one frequently, when in the spirit thou hast me always with thee? When therefore thou art silent, I know thou carest for me; and when I make no sign, "thou knowest that I love thee." Thou art a sharer in my existence, for I have no doubts of thee; and I am witness to thee that thou art sure of me. Since there fore we are mutually sharers in each other's consciousness, it only remains that we should tell each the other what concerns us, that we may alike either rejoice or be anxious for each other. But as to my affairs, and the reasons why I would have thee rejoice or be anxious with me, thou wilt better learn from the bearer of this missive than from the writer of the letter. Greet Master Lanfranc, the young nephew of our revered lord and master, Lanfranc the archbishop, and present to him my faithful desire to do him service. For since he is so near and dear to him whom so I venerate with affection and love with veneration as that I would love what he loves; and since I hear that he is of an amiable character: if he deign to allow it, I both offer him my service and ask for his friendship. Salute Master Osbern who is with you for my dear dead Osbern; for I would impress on thee and on all my friends in as few words as I know how, and with the greatest earnestness I can, that wherever Osbern is, his soul is my soul. I therefore while alive would receive for him whatever if dead I might hope from your friendship, lest you be negligent when I am dead.

Farewell, farewell, my beloved (mi charissime); and, to repay thee according to thine importunity, I pray and pray and pray, remember me, and forget not the soul of Osbern my beloved. If I seem to burden thee too heavily, forget me, and remember him. — I send another letter to the lord Henry; but changing the names all through, thine may be his, and his thine.