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On the Ruin of Britain
St Gildas, tr. Williams, 1899
31. Vortiporius, Prince of the Demetae (Dyfed)
Why also art thou, Vortipor, tyrant of the Demetae, foolishly stubborn?1 Like the pard art thou, in manners and wickedness of various colour, though thy head is now becoming grey, upon a throne full of guile, and from top to bottom defiled by various murders and adulteries, thou worthless son of a good king, as Manasseh of Hezekiah. What! do not such wide whirlpools of sins, which thou suckest in like good wine, nay, art thyself swallowed by them, though the end of life is gradually drawing near—do these not satisfy thee? Why, to crown all thy sins, dost thou, when thine own wife had been removed and her death had been virtuous, by the violation of a shameless daughter, burden thy soul as with a weight impossible to remove?
Spend not, I beseech thee, the remainder of thy days in offending God, because now is the acceptable time and the day of salvation shines upon the faces of the penitent, during which thou canst well bring to pass that thy flight be not in winter or on the Sabbath. Turn (according to the Psalmist) away from evil and do good, seek good peace and follow it; because the eyes of the. Lord will be upon thee when thou doest good, and his ears unto thy prayers, and he will not destroy thy memory from the land of the living. Thou shalt cry and he will hear thee, and save thee from all thy tribulations. For Christ never despises the heart that is contrite and humbled by the fear of Him. Otherwise the worm of thy agony shall not die, and the fire of thy burning shall not be quenched.
Notes
- Vortipori. Vortiporius is King of Demetia (Dyfed), which roughly corresponded to the present county of Pembroke. The Welsh form of the name appears as Guortepir map Aircol map Triphun in the Genealogies from Harleian MSS., edited by Mr. E. Phillimore in Y Cymmrodor, vol. ix, p. 171. “Aircol must be the Welsh reduction of the Latin Agricola” Rhys’ Celtic Britain, p. 253.