Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vol. LIV: Augustini Epistulae Pars I

a man who has not yet steered a rowlock on a lake, am trusted to the roaring of the Euxine Sea The Black Sea, often used by ancient writers to denote a wild or dangerous sea.. Now, as the lands vanish, I have heaven on all sides and sea on all sides; now the wave bristles in the darkness and the foamy billows turn white in the blind night of storms. You urge me to hoist the sails on the swollen mast, to unfurl the ropes, to steer the helm. I obey you, the one giving the order, and because love can do all things, I shall trust as the Holy Spirit follows the course, intending to have consolation on both counts: if the tide brings me to the desired ports, I shall be considered a helmsman; if, among the rough windings of my speech, my unrefined discourse should falter, you may perhaps seek skill, but you certainly cannot demand willingness.

3. Vercellae, therefore, a city of the Ligurians, situated not far from the roots of the Alps, was once powerful, but now is half-ruined with few inhabitants. When the consul visited it according to custom, a certain woman was brought before him together with an adulterer—for the husband had leveled this charge—and he surrounded them with the penal horror of a prison. Not long after, when the bloody lash beat upon her bruised flesh and pain sought the truth from her furrowed sides, the most wretched youth, wishing to avoid long tortures by the shortcut of death, while lying about his own blood, accused another. He alone, of all the miserable, seemed deserving of being struck because he did not leave the innocent woman a way to deny it.