De Annulo Conjugali (Epigr. XXVI)
The Sign of the Ring
The author challenges the rejection of the wedding ring as a meaningful token of love.
But Melvine, won't you even approve of the wedding ring as a sign? Will love have no token, not even the smallest one?
Signs of Covenant
By comparing the wedding ring to the rainbow, the author defends the use of outward signs to sanctify and calm the passions of marriage.
If you don't like any signs, then snatch the rainbow from the clouds, which the one who rules the heavenly waters controls. That image isn't so different from ours, and perhaps the ring will be full in time. But if you spare the clouds, then spare our sign too, for it's accustomed to having a meaning not unlike that one. Clearly, so that the wedding ring might call back those whom destructive Venus had previously plunged into the depths of lust with their spouse, and might calm the waves of desire as a sign of a lawful marriage bed.
Read the original Latin
Sed nec conjugii signum, Melvine, probabis? Nec vel tantillum pignus habebit amor? Nulla tibi si signa placent, e nubibus arcum Eripe caelesti qui moderatur aquae. Illa quidem a nostro non multum abludit imago, Annulus et plenus tempore forsan erit. Sin nebulis parcas, et nostro parcito signo, Cui non absimilis sensus inesse solet. Scilicet, ut quos ante suas cum conjuge taedas Merserat in lustris perniciosa Venus, Annulus hos revocet, sistatque libidinis undas Legitimi signum connubiale tori.
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