#1576: Martin Luther (from Coburg) to Peter Welller (in Wittenberg)

To the learned and at the same time blessed learned in law Peter Weller, his brother in the Lord. "Grace and peace!"

Since the messenger, contrary to expectation, has postponed his departure for an hour, I want to send this letter as greeting since we outside Augsburg have no certain news to report.

First, I thank you that together with your brother during our stay in a foreign place have come to our house and become a companion and protector of my [family] so that they may be secure and live in good hope. I am happy also that they are commended to your trust, and, however I can, would want nothing better than to please you and your brother. I actually am quite well except that previously I suffered not only a ringing in the head but a thunder-bolt for which the cause cannot be discovered. More at another time about this.

The great ones of our Diet run about sprightly or rather travel and sail through the air with their congenital oar. Early they start out speedily for war armed with inconquerable beaks; thus, they would guarantee the day of peace to us in their boastful victory songs while they plunder, rob, lay-waste, devour, as they all have become men of war against the fruits of the earth. In the evening, they return with great triumph, joyful and full of conquest, and they sleep tired but glorious and victorious, [not at all] meek. But they are fearful, very troubled for they are suspicious that we are come to destroy their artifacts: there is a cry and shuddering, a miserable countenance of anguish. When we see that we such great Achilles and Hector-like fear instill, we clap our hands, throw our hats high, that we can so ridicule them and in many ways scare them simply by our movements and demeanor. So much for the revenge. This in jest, but I do believe that it is something of an allegory [allegoriam esse] or a prophecy that the Word of God makes every rapacious bird [Harpyias] shudder, not the dohlen [Dalen], but to turn the word around, the nobility [Adeligen] who now in Augsburg shriek [the Latin is a self-made word by Luther-"quiritisantes"] and "papenzen". God grant that, Amen. Be it right well in the Lord. Greet Georg von Grumpach. From my wilderness on 19 June 1530. Your Martin Luther.

[Notes: Martin Luther writes frequently about Dohlen disturbing his sleep at Coburg. Now the birds of prey are by their name an allusion to the nobility playing on monedulas and Edelmannos. Couldn't decipher "papenzen" but may make like a pope.]