De diversis tractatibus et parlamenlis Swantepolci.
Swantepolcus Seeks His Son's Release
Swantepolcus requests the Teutonic master send Lord Henry of Lichtenstein, offering full submission in exchange for the return of his son held as a hostage.
Swantepolcus, hearing of the master's arrival, asked him to send Lord Henry of Lichtenstein to him. When Henry came to him, and after Swantepolcus had laid out many complaints about the brothers before him, he said: "I am ready to commit myself to every act of justice and to do whatever the brothers may command, if my son is restored to me — the one I gave to them as a hostage."
Henry's Rebuke: Mercy, Not Justice
Lord Henry rebukes Swantepolcus for repeatedly violating the peace, siding with apostates, and devastating Christian lands, declaring that only mercy — not justice — is now due to him.
Lord Henry, considering that in truth anyone is to be guided and taught, said to him: "You can get your son back now, because the peace — for the sake of securing which you handed him over to the brothers as a hostage — you have violated not once but many times, by siding with apostates and infidels, with whose army you devastated the land of the Christians and of the brothers by plunder and fire, and the cause of the faith, which had been magnified through the infinite hardships of Christians, you destroyed through your malice. Certain Christian faithful were miserably slaughtered, others were led away into perpetual servitude — so it is not justice, but mercy that you should be seeking."
The Deaf Asp: Swantepolcus Rejects the Truth
Like a deaf asp stopping its ears, Swantepolcus refuses to heed Henry's words and sends him back to Kolberg to report the failed exchange.
But because truth breeds hatred and is continually torn down by the talk of the perverse, this treacherous Swantepolcus, like a deaf asp stopping up his ears against the truth, turned away his hearing, and scorning to listen to such words from him, sent the aforementioned Lord Henry back safely to the city of Kolberg, where he recounted to the master and the brothers what he had heard.✦
Failed Parley on the Island of Wisele
Swantepolcus later meets the master on the island of Wisele for various treaties, but they part without reaching a friendly resolution.
Not long afterwards, the same duke brought in the master, because he had met with him on a certain island called Wisele, where, after many various treaties had been held between them, they parted without a friendly resolution.
Read the original Latin
Swantepolcus audiens adventum magistri, rogavit-eum, ut dominum Henricum de Lichtenstein sibi mitteret, qui cum ad eum venisset, post multas querelas, quas de fratribus coram eo proposuit, ait: paratus sum ad omnem justiciam me obligare, et facere quidquid preceperint fratres, si fdius meus mihi restituitur, quem dedi eis in obsidem. Dominus Henricus attendens, quod in veritate dirigendus esta quilibet et docendus, dixit ad eum: filium vestrum nubo modo rehabere potestis, quia pacem, pro cujus securitate ipsum fratribus in obsidem tradidistis, non semel sed pluries irritastis, adherendo apostatis et inlidelibus, cum quorum exercitu terram Cristianorum et fratrum rapina et inccndio devastastis, et negocium fidei infinitis angustiis Cristianorum magnifice promotum per vestram maliciamb destruxistis, cristifidelibus quibusdam miserabiliter trucidatis, aliis in servitutem perpetuam deductis, unde non justiciam, sed graciam requiratis. Sed quia veritas odium parit, et a perversis continue detrahitur sermonibus veritatis, ideo iste perfidus Swantepolcus, tanquam aspis surda obturanS aures suas a veritate, auditum avertit, et talia verba ab ipso audire contemnens, dictum dominum Henricum salvum remisit in civitatem Colmensem, ubi magistro et fratribus, que audiverat, recitavit. Non longe postea idem dux magistrum induxit, quod cum eo convenerat in quadam insula Wisele, ubi post multos variosque tractatus habitos inter se sine fine amicabili sunt divisi.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.58.4-Ps.58.5 — The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies. Ps.58.5 — They have venom like the venom of a snake, like a deaf cobra that stops its ear,
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