Epistulae

Magnus Felix Ennodius, Letters. Nine Books. Book One. I. Ennodius to John. While you seek a safe harbor with words composed in a calm haven and describe the uncertain element of the sea with a placid speech, while you, a careful helmsman, rein in the skiff of your discourse among the rocks of eloquence and, having crafted a skillful course, you weigh and examine it with a balance: you have shown to my eyes a sea which, though you pretended it was of waters, you have revealed as one of eloquence. Good God, into how many uses does a rich tongue disperse itself! When it wishes, it rages like a beast, runs like a river, surges like the deep, and with whatever counterfeit images of words it paints, it represents the appearance of truth with the support of reality. You insinuate that you fear writing, as if with a bold brow, while the assertion of praise, a fugitive from renown, demands the pomp of declamation and becomes greedy for glory, while it shows itself sparing of modesty, feigning a foreign fear. I give and have thanks that you have consecrated the noble beginnings of your eloquence to the praises of a friend, as you judge. And although I do not recognize as my own the things you speak, I nevertheless embrace the piety of the speaker, I praise the diligence of your heart, which you have dedicated to the light of grace shining through a clear sky. That torch is held out for you, which you, a flattering speaker, kindle concerning my reputation: I, for my part, do not flee the night of my own conscience, but I know how to assess it. A grievous chasm is suffered by the credulity entrusted to another’s favor, although every crime is surpassed by one who wishes to deceive a trusting person.

Yet you have filled my joy in you with the gifts of epistolary discourse, while you show the novelty of your thoughts through the serenity of your speech and surpass the ancient glories of your noble lineage with the new luster of your conversation. It would have been enough for the hopes of your parents that you rival the older ornaments of your family: that you could surpass them, as no one believed, so no one desired. Do you see how much a polished manner adds to the merits of a good birth? The brilliance that your blood provided has been surpassed by the industry of your discipline. I thought the sum of my prayers would be exhausted if you proved equal to your birth, not considering what your companion in life would pour into your renown. Perhaps my judgment has been cheated of full knowledge. I believed no one could reach Olybrius, whom a swift pursuer follows at close heels. You will join him, surely to make him blessed, if you surpass him. I pray to God that the seeds of good fruit may grow strong in you, whose youth already shows perfection in its beginnings. At home you have examples from which you may take the substance of my exhortation. May your father produce you like him in tranquility of character, your father-in-law in eloquence. If the heavenly realms deign to make me a debtor to my prayer, I ask only that you deign to remember me, lest you, who meditate on perfection among the images of eloquence, also strive to be equal in forgetfulness. But let me return to the custom of a letter, which your affection has drawn out to great length.

Salutations, my lord, and cultivate your loving admirer with frequent gifts of letters, lest the mere declaration of love, as is customary in some, be thought to have preceded the speech that first reached you. II. ENNODIUS TO FLORUS. I know that I have undertaken a harsh province and have lifted a heavy burden onto my weak shoulders, having roused your sublimity, which is quiet towards me, with the goads of words. Thus does feeble youth provoke threatening beasts with their teeth, and while it challenges what is greater than its strength, it considers what it hopes will happen to be a spectacle, not a battle. Thus does a mind inexperienced in conflict owe its passion to dangers before the encounter. I deem the rage of a lion and the beast which Libya nourishes to be milder than you, when it comes to speech. What ignorance has hurled me headlong? What ardor of mind has led me, a stranger to your acquaintance, astray, so that I did not know what one provoked by intention owed to him who always begins insults first, who in the gymnasia of injuries never deserved to be placed second? Certainly, the most practiced maledictor of clerics, who always displayed to them the bite of a new and sharp tooth, which a life lived to the nail did not merit escaping, to whom all learning yielded and whom the whole multitude of religious fled as if a comet-star: this man, shameless and weak of brow, have I roused. With this confidence I would have provoked the winds to blow, the rivers to flow, my Faustus to eloquence, with which I, sparing of speech, have animated you to garrulity with the iron-shod heels of words.

Forgive me, I beg you, and what you consider a fault in others—spurn the silence of lovers, refrain from replies, and punish the one who provokes you with contempt. Let him who was reared in the very bosom of the curia contend with you: fall silent about the lineage of Gallus. If you prevail, let your silence be avenged by the law of retaliation. Beware, my lord, lest by provoking with loquacity one who is your inferior, you begin to be thought humble. For what effort is it to overcome one who lies prostrate in that regard, and to lead a triumph over one who confesses himself unequal before the conflict? Yet be for me, before our lord Faustus, the clasp of my love, if you wish to escape complaints, however narrow and rustic. III. FAUSTO ENNODIUS. The case of my desire has been settled by the benefit of complaints: impudence has earned what courtesy denied. I have drawn out the diligence of a holy heart, which artful silence concealed: I have ended the silence which had been prepared to feed my passion: by prolonging worthless pages, I have received the prize of the victor. Thus the bountiful earth repays the cultivator with interest from the troubled soil, and the noble offspring of a single seed is brought forth by the clod: thus the secrets of the mountains respond to the voice of one man, and while the narrow shout is overcome, the elements reveal their power. Having obeyed the evangelical oracles by this deed, I have obtained a fragment of the truth of the precept, whose instruction declares that God often rises and gives to the one who knocks; if not on account of merit, then on account of importunity.

Henceforth let the ill-advised scrutiny of the faithless cease: I myself, a witness fit for the present perils, attest to the integrity of my judgment. By frequent entreaty I have earned what I desired: what was denied to examination has been granted to the persistence of my prayers. I owe you friendship, and my complaints—which I will love all the more now that you have granted effect to my vows. Even if your origin came from a just grievance, often, after you have granted it, I will begin even unharmed from you. Embracing the soothing plea of epistolary address, I give and have thanks that you did not wish me to be a participant in long sorrows. Perhaps you did this by the vow and zeal of one seeking counsel: but I ascribe it to my own sins that, while you tempered your address to greater matters, I was tossed about by greater anxieties. For me alone things foreseen turn out adversely, since I always judge in grief that what is kept silent is more serious, because I believe that words are often shared about moderate afflictions, while the nearness of death commands silences soon to be broken. Thanks be to God, who by his mercy turns what are deemed harsh things to good, and causes what we have gathered would come from our own merit to be transferred by his compassion. Yet I would have wished that your kindness had maintained such an affection toward my insignificance that you, who often admitted me as a companion to joys, would have chosen to share adversities with me as well. Or do you think that I will count such a benefit as received, if I am shut out from the heats of your breast like an unfaithful man?

It is not, as I see, that the account of my counsel has been dispensed among you. I think that I lose favor unless you nourish it by sharing all things with me. Cease, I beg you, from consulting me in this matter, when I so greatly desire your words; if the desired utterances are denied me, I will languish, like the earth to which neither heaven yields anything nor pours its own moisture into its thirsty veins, whence it might offer nourishment to the native stalks and bring forth heavy ears to the sickle. As a fish, deprived of water, stripped of its vital coverings, perishes, so I, when the streams of your speech are withdrawn, am destroyed. Let others seek what delights; I demand things pertaining to the soul: your words bring me not so much pleasure as salvation. I confess the matter, colored by no dyes, painted with no deceptions of clouds, because I am no artist of pretense: I have considered something plucked from my life while you are silent. You wrongly claim to be faithful, if the misfortunes generally to be lamented are brought to my ears through you, as if it were permissible for any Christian to be ignorant of the evil to which Rome succumbs. I imagine that barbarian nations, separated from our border by almost the whole world, groan with continuous lamentations and lend tears for our consolation. The magnitude of this matter flees from having you apply yourselves as its judge, so that the deceitful wishes of false messengers may lie with devilish security to my ruin, so that there is no one to whose truth I may return after the fables, nor anyone who might sustain my mind by the demonstration of truth.

Beware of doing that, my lord: with you I have a different matter; the law of the forum is one thing, the law of the dining room another. Let her hear you, who in public conversation you have learned, retracing your domestic household: nourish the minds of your subjects and the hearts you think faithful with the food of your reports, lest the hungry hearts of friends, unfed by such dishes, die. IV. TO FAUSTUS FROM ENNODIUS. Following the trust of a reader and provoked by the flavor of persuasive speech, I almost believed that a virtue was a vice, and while I thought the crowns of eloquence were worth more than conscience, I incurred a fault which my mind did not acknowledge. The hunter does not so deceive the stag with a whistle and artful snares, the hand of the master does not so compose the net, sought of its own accord, with counterfeit colors and feigned fear of feathers, as the words of your greatness held me captive and willingly offering my mouth to the halter. Unaware of the charge, while you were attacking me, I long inquired whether I was innocent. I thought one thing about your letter, another about my own character. Who, I ask, was so charming a perpetrator of the crime to be committed, that he would believe in a defense, if he confessed that he served another's command in his own disgrace, since no one can justly believe a crime to be another's when it is confessed by oneself?

But I believe that person was unacquainted with law and statutes, and composed solely of cunning—one to whom even the practice of imitating another’s writing grants a semblance of truth, and for whom shameful artifices procure a counterfeit of authenticity. I do not wish to attack anyone’s name, nor to assume the role of an accuser against my conscience: it is enough that my modesty has been established in its position; let others be tossed about by the uncertain winds. Yet I, even if I were driven to such things by the spurs of beloved reading, would defend myself by the example of the patriarchs. Jacob, by theft, overcame the age of his firstborn brother, and through that benefit obtained the preeminence which nature had not given him. David, while he was traversing remote places in his eagerness for flight and narrow lands, warded off hunger with the loaves of the showbread, and against the prohibitions of the law—which have lesser sting—he banished the hunger of his body. I, for my part, had to endure with long-failing bowels the famine which I, unfed in soul, had conceived from the divine books, until the conceived plague should run through my vital organs. The prophet Daniel removed divine teachings from the royal chambers, which a chaste and imitable thief added for his own instruction. What good is it to go through each case, when for the defense of an assailed conscience one of the mentioned persons alone suffices? Yet that person, so to speak, provided for his own modesty and natural weakness by a necessary request beforehand. For even if, after my denial, I have made myself guilty, judge for yourselves. You assert that the Libyan teacher wept over the pears he had stolen.

It is right that the loss of shame, by which the belly is filled, be atoned for with lamentations. The things he took were perhaps cheap, things that would perish through neglect, use, or the weather; yet he was not free from fault, but according to the apostle a thief: he loved his flesh more than his soul. The prophet Tobias meets such trustees and testifies with a divine voice, saying: "It is not lawful for us to eat anything stolen." When he said "eat," he did not say: "It is not lawful for us to read anything stolen." Josiah, as history tells, was instructed by a stolen papyrus. I, a little man, would not do this—I, whom you goad with verbal goads to love knowledge beyond my natural abilities? But I return to the excellent man, the perpetrator, as you write, of the aforementioned crime, who, violating faith on both sides, granted you neither security nor me, if I wrote, the completion of the deed. May it befall me, with your greatness safe, to be placed before such a great man, according to the commands of God, and, as my spirit inclines, to thrash his back.

To Faustus, from Ennodius. Having prayed for the abundant mercy of God, I entrust to Him the auspices of the happy new year, and, exalted by the gifts of His benefits, I now approach a consular man almost as an equal. Hitherto, the pomp of the consular robe bestowed foreign ornaments upon our family, and we rejoiced that we belonged to the man who gave his name to the year more by affinity than by blood. It was a favor, not a debt, that we were added among the possessors of the curule chair to the tales of the envious. How often did the tongue that exalted us among others make us indebted to him, so that, with the order of our condition changed, the insignia of our nobility were owed to the wages of strangers? But now let envy depart. The restorer of ancient fasces, a new consul, has shone forth, and a robust striker has thrown open the decayed doors of our dignities. The thresholds of the trembling, withered hinges grow young again to a renewed health, which, with God as my witness, I believe would have lain open thereafter to be closed by no bars. For the consulship of my Avienus is not one, but the first. The forerunner of his line, bearing the eagles, has gone before his troops and shown the path of virtue to the principal service. If there is any reverence due to secular dignities, if there is any honor in a man living after the tomb, if the shrewdness of the ancients has provided anything by which the granted years may be overcome by men: then rightly are these counsels thought to have been devised by those whose longevity both refutes old age and denies an end.

Good God, how great is the power of a single man’s word either to establish or to undo the labor expended in dictating laws! Hail, young man of outstanding virtues, who through the obliterated path of your maternal lineage have brought the life-giving axes of office, with which you have cut down the age-old barriers of a most splendid journey, lest they hold back your posterity. Let the praises of the ancients yield to him—praises which the inventions of learned men have produced for nobility, and which, with the gilded arrogance of words, purchase merit from the reporter. For it is necessary that the poverty of a subject be enriched by the resources of the narrator, so that a dowry not found in the material may be inserted by the processions of style. Not to mention that the Fabii, Torquati, Camilli, and Decii have been surpassed: I believe that you yourself, my lord, who have conquered all, have willingly yielded to his beginnings. You have walked along the hardened path of your grandfathers’ and great-grandfathers’ rods of office, already more advanced, almost side by side with the connections of your predecessors, so that you advanced with a conjunction of never-interrupted good fortune. It belongs to the still tender virtues of my Avienus both to continue the fasces for your family and to restore them to ours. I give thanks to an intention that will benefit the common increase, through which, with God’s favor, the brightness of noble birth, hitherto blocked, has shone forth, through which his own day has recognized its luminous blood.

How I would have wished to behold the sum of my prayers set before my eyes, if the magnitude of my sins did not deny to my sight the heavenly gift that it could not deny to my desires, and if it were not impious for a man to merit all his wishes at one and the same time! Yet I believe this is to be counted among the greatest rewards of our Redeemer: that the threshold of blessed infancy was entered by a consul, with the honor of an old man. I foresee from this beginning what is prepared for his labors, when such things are offered at his start. Those whose beginnings we see with the fasces will have increments of progress under inauspicious successes. The old fame flatters itself less with the outcome of prosperity in the praises of the ancients. What a hoary head worn down by dust, what a life lived under the burden of office barely earned, what an old man, never certain of obtaining it, prayed for—this a heavenly gift has repeatedly thrust upon my young man. It is added that at the start of his life, instructed in the best disciplines, he seems to have merited what he has attained, nor does he deign to attribute everything to fortune, in whom more can also be given to virtue. He has pursued schools and literary studies to the glory of nature, an emulator of his father’s perfection, and by his own industry has made himself such a son as another could scarcely have chosen. Whatever preeminent thing Attic and Roman speech possess, he has known; he has weighed the gold of Demosthenes and the iron of Cicero; as a Latin relator, he has fulfilled both sequences of oratory.

of grammatical instruction and those legal narrownesses of speech he embraced for the sake of freedom. By pursuing oratorical pomp, he led forth with the arms of masculine diction those equal to oratory. But I recognize whither the process of affection, rejecting a limit, snatches me: divided from my purpose, I address a consul learned in genius as unequal. I return to you, with whom I share common joy, equal desire, and equal supplication. Let us pray to God, because our vows reject a limit, that He Himself may make eternal what He bestows and never set a term to His gifts around us, He who felt no loss in giving. Yet rejoice in your so excellent good, you to whom it is lawful, after their trabeas, to have a son in consular attendance. If, however, celestial vigor operates in my judgment and the whole mind, not bowed down by human faults, does not succumb, the reward of your faithful prayers is the dignity obtained for your offspring. One house would suffice the City with as many intercessors as it has. Blessed mother, mistress of so many emperors, the strong matron raises you before God with her prayers. The heavenly kingdom suffers violence through so many, from whose merits what is asked is exacted from divine clemency. For we remember it written, the Lord saying to the disciples: if two or three of you come together, whatever you ask you will obtain. I believe that the Redeemer, having foreseen the scarcity of the just, said that two petitioners would suffice for salvation.

Although it is permitted to weigh by conjecture whether anything can be denied to three persons seeking on behalf of their own advantage, therefore, animated by these hopes and exalted by the kinship of the righteous, I trust that by divine kindness I too will attain the abundance of the desired grace. If by the merits of Abraham, Lot is admitted to the throngs of saints, if those who lacked their own merits have been led to the heights by the virtues of their relatives, then this year will produce dignities for your family. For if I am dear to you, I am easily led to heavenly grace by the successful obtaining of my request. My lord, I ask for pardon, offering the reverence of a greeting. Concerning the length of my speech, it is difficult for one rejoicing greatly to be content with speaking little. VI. FAUSTUS TO ENNODIUS Good God, how nothing is difficult for those who care for great things, and with what tranquility divine minds describe what they have seen! With what endowments are places adorned, which a tongue rich and skilled in speaking has beheld, if it is permitted to set forth without risk of confession in a religious purpose! The craftsman of the world, God, has granted certain felicities to provinces by the astounding abundance of his secret: to some he ordered wine to flow more abundantly, to others better; to others he granted the bounty of a wheat harvest to rejoice in; many he gifted with the variety or usefulness of fruits. Yet to those to whom he did not give these conflicting merits of nature itself, he made them sublime through a reporter. There is no reason for a barren rock-bound soil to despair, nor for fields that do not respond to the farmer to be subject to failure.

The genius of languages assigns merits to lands, and as a man has been able to speak, so he elevates the matter of which he has spoken. You will increase, provinces, by the cultivation of speech: whatever in you a reader has admired belongs to the mouth. Rich soil and land that boasts of your fertile vines, which feed the farmer scraping your back through narrow furrows, which reveal rich veins at the very beginning of the plowing, which restore the seeds received with a multiplied harvest—you have nothing in common with the greatest, unless the lord Faustus, the Roman state of eloquence, has visited you with a serene countenance. Behold Comus, once a village almost consigned to silence, which until now has boasted of no advantage, no beauty as they say—how it rejoices in the privilege of genius!

which, through steep ravines and the wide gaps of adjoining mountains, knows how to display a wretched harmony with summer snows; where, amid the perils of overhanging paths, the cultivators must sow the land among the crags before the shoots, even before the soil; where a form of calamity is to have adorned the banks of the Larius with the confines of dog-woods, so that, with a smiling and alluring vision, it feigns fertility with a flattering brow to its masters, and nurtures an accursed beauty to the ruin of its possessor; where, as soon as their buildings are erected, the owners dissolve their tributes through their country-houses, while they strive to repair the extravagances of their ancestors with a meager frugality and to prop up their collapsing patrimony with profligacy: the abundance of natives is preserved only to this end, that the number, surpassing even the wishes of the tax assessor, should not be lacking for the public levy; a population of fish, nourished not for delight but for horror, through which we learn what praise the flavor of captives elsewhere deserves; where the air is perpetually rainy, the sky threatening, and a certain life spent without full light: the sweet waters of the Larius, enticing to those who pass by and inviting to swimmers whom it destroys. Who could endure the fair abyss deceiving under this pretense? What shall I say of the island made habitable by report? Who would not marvel at this? On which the preserved life is less loved, on which it was a portion to have escaped from crime, around which the food of men is supplied to fish by means of corpses? For no one, except the waters of the Larius, has merited tombs there for the dead.

seas, and the river Addua, which you praised, reveal their distinction through the mingled channels only by the swelling of the lake, which could never be recognized except through the troubled currents. It was as great a thing to display the riches of eloquence on subjects lacking praise as it would have been if all these gifts of nature had been bestowed. Yet may the Lord of the heavens, who granted you this ability, preserve his gifts in perpetuity, for I have written this not as if I felt differently from you, but so that the reader may recognize from these words that it is better to read Como through your style than to see it. VII. TO FAUSTUS, FROM ENNODIUS. How great is the burden of envy, how easy the path of harm, whenever the one attacked labors under a prior reputation! No one, as I see, considers what has been done or what remains undone: only the intention is summoned as a witness to the credibility of the attack. May almighty God turn the changed order of ranks for the better and bathe the state of affairs, which has grown dim through the stain of time or the clouds of our merits, with the brightness of a golden age. When has the shelter of an innocent office not covered the most shameful crimes of men, and whatever descends from the cloud of morals been excused by the serenity of heavenly service? But now the clerical state is dragged into the snare of a credulous interpreter, and what it was not fitting to admit before a religious profession, this, after we have renounced faults through an ecclesiastical title, we are believed to carry out without regard for honor. Into what storm, what tempest of monstrous sins, am I being driven to a notorious...

You compelled me to this duty? In that matter, where all the branches of errors are usually cut off by the pruning hook of the teacher of living, you make me believe that every crime is committed through deceits. That man lamented that his slaves had been taken away from me and believed that royal defense should be summoned against the power of a church soldier. I ask, what playwright would present this on the stage? What poet would equip a fable with similar embellishments or fictitious characters? The Lord knows, who with a strong hand may rise up as my defender in your aid, that I am entirely ignorant of this trick. Some time ago, two boys, who claimed that violence was being inflicted upon them by the aforementioned man, took refuge in the church under a public appeal. I remember that I made entreaties that what the deceased had wished should be preserved regarding them: he promised with deceptive and flattering allurements that he would hear them. So that they might return to the service for which they had been assigned, in the presence of your holy father the bishop, who was providing them aid, I urged them under the knowledge of the city. What happened afterward I did not know, until I received the name of a wrongful detainer. I am lying about these things unless they are established by the testimony of my accuser, to whom I nevertheless give thanks, because under whatever occasion he exacted the desired letters, which produced much grief for me by the uncertainty of your command. For I see that a decision has been made about me, if I recognize that you are in doubt whether to hear what you command.

Yet no blame for this will touch either me or your greatness before God, because I immediately compelled the aforementioned persons to the service of that good man without any balance of a hearing. Saying the most abundant greeting to my lord, I would wish, if you do not deny your pages to these matters, either to compose my accusers myself or, what is more familiar, to err frequently! VIII. FIRMINUS TO ENNODIUS. Pleasant are the exchanges of letters, conceived by a learned author, those in which the splendor of polished speech shines forth to the nail, where a rich flow of speech is held in check by the reins of skill. When a laborious investigator has brought a copious vein of language to light, then the duties of the recipient proceed, destined to match the desires. But where a rough speech marks the narrowness of a poor intellect and, in arranging its conception into order, interposes the night of study into eloquence and, from the ambiguity of a cloudy narrative, generates a certain confusion from the explanation itself: because such a person, placed in a state of lacking eloquence, would not scorn the affection of a person of such kind? The love of an unlearned man burdens the conscience of the perfect. But the force of internal love, aided by the bonds of kinship, is not borne away: one whom love drives with its goads does not know how to test what he can do. Yet the perfect are accustomed to judge those worthy of pardon whose faltering footsteps have deserted them along the epistolary paths. You are accustomed to attend to what we wished to say, whenever words do not express our wishes.

Yet I burdened the suitable bearer with provisions for the journey, and, though she could have presented me to the living through spoken words, I brought her forth accompanied by a letter, trusting that there would be less danger for me, having transgressed in the presence of a good intercessor. Farewell, therefore, my lord, and cherish with your particular favors one who loves you: thus may divine favor raise your eminence, if it can still grow. IX. TO OLYBRIUS, ENNODIUS. While you speak of honeycombs and compose the honey of flowing eloquence through waxy houses of liquid element, you have poured into my lips the foreign flavor of a rich feast, making mention of the Herculean contest and the triumphal falls of Antaeus. Thus indeed does the trained wrestling-ground of literary exercises clarify itself, thus do the limbs of speech, soaked with the oil of studies, submit to the arts of the mouth. But I would confess I had not wished to be stung by the recollection of that battle, as they call it. The old story says that Antaeus, lest he be conquered when thrown, lost the comfort of his mother after he began not to fall: he who, through the craft of a cunning enemy, is said to have been overcome while standing and to have placed his soul in the chest of his contender. A matter indeed worthy of memory, but unworthy of the purpose of friendship. For I recall that we undertook contests of alliance, but through which we might conquer each other with the duties of mutual love, so that while we strive in such struggles, we may both wish to be conquered and to conquer.

We must live together through the common secrets of our hearts rather than perish, united by the help of mother Church, who nourishes both of us, to speak truly, with the milky udder of faith. Let the old wives’ fables of the poets cease; let fabulous antiquity be rejected; an innocent state must never be mixed with another’s ruin. For us, if it pleases to recall the examples of our elders for a new use, it is more fitting to remember the grace or loyalty of Pylades and Orestes, Nisus and Euryalus, Pollux and Castor—if the obscenity of their secret deeds does not detract from them—those whom such a concord of minds bound together by equality that, of these pairs, the sought-for death of one helped his friends, and the other brought life to his friend at the price of his own death. These are things worthy of memory, whenever among new bonds of harmony, noble offspring, joined and wedded to sturdy shoots in the moist, so to speak, book of minds, is engrafted. Those minds promise the fruits of concord which recognize what labor is needed in cultivation. Yet I rejoice that we are already joined by an indissoluble bond in our habits and that from the door of affection we weigh the increments of love through the balance of examination.

X. To John from Ennodius. I would repay the favor, were it not that restored praise burdens the diligence of a friend’s heart. Lest, while we seem mutually to scratch each other with encomiums, affection be tainted with the suspicion of flattery and love run into vice, while we improperly thrust upon ourselves what we ought to do among others. For the ornaments of lovers are to be kept among intimate pages, not spoken, lest we burden our consciences with empty sentiments by the recital of praise. There are places where I may celebrate your good qualities, as I am silent about them before you because of affection, my friend: in those matters which I perceive concerning your progress, I owe you only a religious silence. I could, indeed, following the vices of the age, now unlock your praises with inexhaustible proclamation and color the whole page with counterfeit blandishments. But let this be far from my purpose, let it depart from my character, that he whom I hold in my mind should be content with only such a reward. I owe you not a cajoling speech, but the voice of one who corrects. Not mocking you with painted verbal artifices, but holding you entirely in my profound mind, I could say: you have reached the citadel of knowledge without the prejudice of tender age, you have attained the summit of perfection, you ought to be distracted by no care, but to be adorned with your goods as a wealthy possessor. But these things, as I have said, are foreign to me.

the flattery of a parent’s mouth, I say: although the things you promise in the flower of eloquence are great, I nevertheless do not rejoice except from the harvest, as a greedy farmer is wont, who measures the year’s abundance only in his granaries. In you we already see, if not heavy ears of grain, yet much swelling with milk: already our prayers are nearing the threshing floor. But the more we must fear, the more our desires are kindled by near hope. Therefore labor at your studies, love the light in conversation, devote yourself insistently to reading, so that the fruits of eloquence may be purified by the winnowing of many authors. What you write is beautiful, but I love what is strong more: they are wreathed with flowers, but I prefer the fruits. Farewell, my lord, and embrace these things with the sincerity I have shown, and measure my love by the faithfulness of my admonition. Know that I would deny your letters to none of the learned, so that what has escaped me through ignorance may be corrected by those who are learned to a nicety, and therefore prepare yourself with much sweat for the cultivation of writing, so that the prayers I have conceived concerning you for the merits and love of your venerable father may come to effect under this intention of your clarity.

XI. Castorius and Florus, Ennodius. You ought to relieve a lover of you with the grace of conversation and unlock a friendly devotion with the testimony of speech, because silent charity almost holds the place of an ungrateful person, and through the abstinence from pages the force of love is cut off. For the minds of those absent, only the offering of letters heals, which by a certain artifice of the mind paints in writing the one with whom it speaks. We think it superfluous to assert this among you, whom noble training sharpens, to whom blood and learning are a ready alliance. There is nothing of the good arts that you could be ignorant of without the fault of negligence, you whom, after the light of birth, Roman splendor Faustus instructed. Therefore it is more to be confessed that I do not deserve what I ask, than that you do not know what you ought to offer. My lords, paying the debts of greeting with the most profuse humility, I beg that at last, not unmindful of the reminder and the covenant, you write back, concerning which works it is not fitting for you to be idle, because neither can a holy conscience be absent from your conversation nor rich speech from your discourses.

XII. Ennodius to Avienus. If you ask why, when your silence has been penalized, my prodigal brow of modesty does not keep quiet, and why my affection is called impudence by those who interpret it wrongly, if you say that my garrulity ought to have been checked when its fruit ceased: I, most illustrious of men, approach you with that sincerity which is domestic in your family, I embrace the promised alliance like a hostage of the mind. I grieve, indeed, that long causes of silence have been procured, while both love and kinship are neglected: but because your love claims me entirely for itself, I still believe that what you have done can admit of an excuse, and I consider that there are reasons for your exoneration in this part, which I cannot find. I have always heard that you are in good health and have obtained your wish: you have often wiped away your sweat concerning the ornaments of your family with the light of epistolary address. Nothing except contempt is shown, whenever silence has no necessity. Yet, taking hope from a reply, I have always written and, under a certain presence of your splendor, I have dictated things to be read: it seemed to me, while I speak, that my page had given you back to me, that you were wise and that, painted with your images, you were conferring words. What sweetness there would be in your letter, if it were given to receive it, I ask you to consider carefully, when we embrace words that proceed from us, yet come to you.

XII. Ennodius to Avienus. I ask you now, I pray, to rouse yourself to the affection of writing and to pour your flowing conversation into my aridity, so that I may learn what my service is able to obtain from God, if I receive your letters, rivals of paternal perfection. I do not want you to fear that I speak of that man, formidable to the most learned, and bring him before your eyes as an example of eloquence. It is the custom of skilled physicians to detect the strength of bodies in the veins and to question the fingers about a man’s success. Nor can the talents of beginners be known otherwise, except that those who, seeking robust declamations from a still tender age, should rejoice in future abundance and reveal the harvest of skill in the root. Lord, as above, with the honor of salutation and reverence discharged, I hope that you remember me; if merit does not show it, at least my importunity, which is tireless, may signify it. XIII. To Agapitus, Ennodius. It is ill for the spirit, after your most observant of equity and tenacious of friendships has turned into this neglect of forgetfulness of me, that the fame of the good of a better age, which came from the advancement of your honors, announced it rather than a happy letter, unmindful of diligence. Where are those venerable inner chambers of your holy conscience in conversation? When could a mind anxious about the cheerfulness of a lover have found anything more worthy of report? But I ask, lest some malignant person has let the south wind into the flowers or a wanton animal into the rose-beds.

For never is a favorable outcome concealed from friends without offense: it arises from agitation that those living far away keep silent about what you rejoice in. Far from your character, let the obscenity of malice depart. I think I have deserved not to know of your good fortune, because such silence will be weighed against the frequency of your correspondence. No cultivation of affection can soothe a friend who is withdrawing from his desires. However much, my lord, you paint these things with the noble images of your learning, misdeeds are rarely remedied by conversations, and a grief that has descended from the matter itself cannot be healed by speech; it will scarcely be possible that by writing you erase what you have scorned to write. But I return to my purpose, from which one must never depart, if the divinity takes pity. I owe it to God that I first learned in Liguria of your success while you were procuring silence. You have lost the fruit of your studied taciturnity: the happiness of good men is celebrated by the world's tongue; what has approached the highest cannot be unknown. In honors, those things are more to be embraced which are rendered: he is ill raised to the fasces whose mind, among the stars of the senate house, does not acknowledge the support of its own light in titles. A hoary dignity has come to you, late, but deserved. The tongue has called it, which it follows: innocence has demanded it, which once in age it had joined. But now I return to the grace of familiar address even after offense. Hail, my lord, and what you have neglected in the breach of our promised bond, restore with an abundance of speech.

XIV. Faustus to Ennodius. I would not, I confess, open the reasons for the delays, lest my mind, lately led back to peace with joy, be disturbed again by a sorrowful report and I have in the telling a renewed beginning of my grief. For a man almost owes his own distress to himself if he does not shrink from retracing its past events. Who would repair his anxieties, once brought to an end, by the untimely necessity of speech? But with you I have a bond of trust, and with the matter at hand a duty of truth, to whom sincerity is owed in any repetition, whatever the cause. I willingly endure the goads of recalled sorrow, provided that nothing is lost to the truth, and lest I dishonor the page with falsehood through a fault of a tender mind, I willingly bear what I relate. The health of your holy father the bishop, brought nearly into doubt, detained me; in whose illness, although the whole church wept, yet a special grief afflicted me, who owe more to his love. I saw the peace of the city, under the pressure of discord, crossing the thresholds of our city and slipping from our eyes like some uncertain or wandering divinity. But let a brief narration suffice for sad things. Now, to good health: the health of the holy father, to be desired and cherished, revives. For when my mind returned to its station, it immediately looked to your commands. I have sent servants who may instruct me with a faithful report concerning the prosperity of your highness and of the whole holy household.

I hang again in suspense and am torn with wavering judgment between hope and fear, for I must of necessity be anxious about the well-being of one who is a second parent. Who can reach out to my cares? Who can equal the turmoil of one so divided? But these matters are more justly referred to God, whose mercy it is to surpass the prayers of suppliants and to prepare a harbor for wavering desires. Meanwhile, I return to my habit of complaints. I supposed that your pages ought to have followed immediately and that writings should be prolonged for my comfort, especially on account of the recent request, lest my mind hang in uncertainty about your departure from hearing. But I believe this fault of writing can be corrected by frequency. It remains that the Divinity may cause to be indicated to you those things which it is helpful to know. My lord, offering abundant greetings to your reverence, I pray that what I have commanded to be suggested may achieve their effect. XV. Florianus to Ennodius.

It is the same not to keep a limit in arrogance as to overstep it in humility. The affectation of pride is to be more submissive than is just: it is characteristic of those who gape heavily to invent new flatteries, and of grand tragic style in eloquence to feign fear or to dread the scrutiny of one who is secure in praise. But I would have devoted diligence to my purpose, if I did not owe it to my blood. I received your letter, rich with a Roman dowry and displaying a Latin style in the very light of its beginnings: to which, when I opposed my hand to reply, ignorance compelled me through affection, since for a long time the hope of silence had made the study of writing obsolete for me, and silence counted in place of glory. But unless I had replied, you would not know that you had been caught out, in that you have deceived less polished intellects with your crafted eloquence and the veneer of Romulean cunning. The power to cut is not equal for a polished blade and for one that rust has possessed, nor can habit and lethargy assume a comparable conflict. Now, content with the brevity of a letter, I turn to the duties of greeting, intending to compensate with grace what I could not with eloquence, returning friendship for artifice and pomp of words. Behold how much I could steal from my occupation; I wrote quickly. God will grant that if you desire replies, you may find my breast empty of cares when it is struck.

XVI. FLORIANUS ENNODIUS. Your brotherliness could have bestowed upon my love that which, with true liberality, would profit both the giver's advantage and modesty, namely, in that part where, when you already held letters testifying to my zeal, you would have refrained from the task of writing. Does anyone paint his brow with alluring enticements and, by vigorous attack, undermine his reputation, and, not content with clear excuse, deem insufficient for his ill-credulous conscience what he has proven? He who, with varied flavor of conversation, irritates the gullets of voracious friends, so that while he offers pleasantries, he alters what was settled. For after I had written back that I loved silence, I obtained, as if in response to a plea, more lengthy pages, and, long perhaps stored away after my refusal, I drew forth an abundance of eloquence. What would you do, if I had promised contests, if I had incautiously touched upon the fervor of your studies with any tooth, and, not being a fit judge of myself, had not kept safe the inner sanctums? I believe that against me would have been marshaled the depth of the Ciceronian whirlpool, the propriety of Crispus, the elegance of Varro, and I would have found no refuge anywhere, I, to whom it was no help that I avoided contests of writing, nor that, when provoked, I escaped by keeping silent. Even if consciousness of skill and vigor of speech lifted me up, after the various perils of writers, I would dread the praise which you seek with much sweat.

In addition to this, you have said that in me there is rhetorical cunning, though it has been a long time since the oratorical figure of speech has cut off the emotion of my discourse, and I, whom the clamor of duty summons to groans and prayers, cannot be occupied with verbal flowers. Therefore, restrain your soothing and ill-advised conversation. If what you write is feigned and adorned with the brush of falsehood, change your intention, or at least after you see that the mind has become known which you have made: if they are true and descend from the balance of judgment, bury them deep in the secret of your heart, so that you may show reverence for diligence while you keep matters whole for your friend. I, with an unchangeable heart, soothe others with conversations while guarding it. Behold, I have exceeded the measure of a letter while I wish to respond to the extended page. But the fault is not to be punished with a special penalty, which has the author in its errors. My lord, returning the greeting that is owed, I pray that if you, as a persistent examiner, insert yourself into my desires, which I have conceived from a love of silence, you will at least forgive the occupations by which we are hindered.

XVII. PAUSTUS TO ENNODIUS. If the mind of a lover should refrain from the customary duties, it considers the very cessation an ill omen. For he himself is a cause of grief who does not always think that what he loves dwells in nearby places. Would anyone consider a departure to distant lands for one whom he touches with his mind? For if the spirit is a thing of divinity in man, it cannot feel the losses of far-off lands. I have stated the reason which makes me extend this writing. I render the respects of a greeting, for the sake of which letters are published, beseeching God that, by the dispensation of a heavenly benefit, these words be delivered to your Greatness while you are in good health. Yet may the bearer, who provided the occasion for this address, receive something; he is commended by me in return. XVIII. AVIENUS TO ENNODIUS. How well, what you modestly decline, you happily imitate, and while you complain that your greatness is spurred on by difficult examples, you have displayed the pomp of narration which you, a suitable advocate, shun! I embrace the lovable allegation of fear, which the vein of rich talent in you commends. I do not wish you, a father to be cultivated by good men, to tremble at the examples of your own exhortation placed before you: from you yourself come those things which you speak. I know which earth bears nobler gold, in whose bosom nurtured metals of that soil shine more brightly: often, as I diligently search, effective labor has shown me the nurturing backs of the tawny element. I know which shells enclose gems of proud price, whence comes the stone that will confer genius upon empires.

Do not attribute what I have done to inexperience, nor to error. The offspring of a brave man recognize the face of arms amid their father's embraces, and while obeying nature, they learn to love terror. Maro, the root of learned men, the shaper of your eloquence, recalls a son animated by his father's words in such a way that he says: "Learn, boy, virtue from me," and elsewhere: "and father Aeneas." Was that son already rising to contests with strong arms, or was he thought, with manly strength, to be about to wage impending wars? But virtue, animated by recent examples, awaited the progress of the body better than through admonitions. Those who know the ways of things report that eagles, at the very threshold of life, when their young are shed from the shells of eggs, prepare them for the rays of the sun and make them recognize the light of their own immense splendor by exposure to it. Is there impiety in a strict test, when the judgment in selection is correct? They wish none of their offspring to perish, but they do not acknowledge as their own those who yield. For rightly that sublimity among birds is considered the mother of victors. Now therefore, my sweet one, pursue what has been well begun, and with God's favor, as you equal your grandfather in name, so render your father in learning. Do not think what I advise is burdensome. And because I judge you from your lineage, do not tremble at beginnings. There was also that one who is feared, a beginner, and whenever a line of water drawn through dust by a finger scratching the earth is traced, everything that is first flows turbid.

As for the rest, farewell, my lord, and cultivate the one who loves you with frequent gifts of letters, in which studies, if you remember me, it is not fitting for you to be sluggish. XIX. DEUTERIUS TO ENNODIUS. How I would wish often to omit the duty of a visit, if fault grants a sweet reward, and knowingly and prudently to neglect a heavenly command, if the penalties to be exacted procure an abundance of desires! It has happened to me alone that I rejoice in the merit of an offense: I have now learned to pursue errors with such recompense. The things I bring forth under compulsion into the open are not adverse, best of teachers, to the bond of friendships. On the contrary, because of a confession worthy of your intention, I never wished for uncertainties regarding your health as an ungrateful person would; indeed, as far as it was in me, I opposed the hands of prayers against the inequalities pressing upon you. But behold how lively the intellect is, not founded in the good health of the limbs, the page shows, in which you shone with both lights. Your eyes, I ask, are they dulled by a cloud of grief, whose poems are so bright, and you who speak light, complain about vision? How I fear that I may be found a sparing praiser of your merits. To you is rightly ascribed the giving of eyes to all and the irradiating of the darkness of minds with a foreign splendor. Therefore do you think that what you bestow is not strong for you? Banish, I ask, from your mind cares conceived perhaps by superfluous anxiety or caution. God will grant that whatever bodily discomfort has come may be cleansed by the luster of your soul shining through clear skies.

XX. FAUSTUS TO ENNODIUS. Truly I give thanks to the Trinity, which we venerate and worship, our God, which under the distinction of persons and wondrous equality has piously commanded us to perceive and adore one substance, which has turned our lament into joy, which has exchanged the companions of sorrows for the service of gladness, the tears, so that truly I may say with the prophet: who will give water to my head and a fountain of tears to my eyes? that I may respond to the magnitude of heavenly benefits with this devotion, to whom it has befallen to receive celestial gifts before asking, and to read what good has happened before feeling what evils sins threatened. It is your doing, almighty dispenser, that concerning serene pledges and the inheritance of future innocence, in that anxiety which preceded, I did not fear, and I received the restored state of health as if stupefied, and placed in a likeness of confusion, I scarcely believed that the prosperous things conferred beyond my merit had come to pass. Truly the human mind does not know how to weigh the riches of heavenly reward. Thus fragile minds are tempered, so that they see a safe position before they perceive the uncertainties of dangers. Good God, on what a precipice we then hung, when the celestial power, so that the testimony of the little ones in their restored health might be full, was our shaken [state] more [evident] through merit?

I say plainly and with the voice I owe to my purpose, I conceal nothing with any cloud of falsehood (I confuse words with sobs and, under solid rejoicing, with more abundant eyes turned to weeping) that I often look back upon what I have escaped. Where in the world were we? From what ruin has heavenly mercy restored us to human intercourse? Let us therefore repay with stricter words what we owe to the giver of this good with prolonged groans; let us invite to the guardianship of his gifts the one whom we have proven to bring aid in times of doubt. Let us ask him, who surely knows how to preserve what he has granted and to prolong the living testimonies of his powers. Such are the vows of the venerable college with me concerning you, of the servants and friends of God dwelling throughout all Liguria; the holy house relies on such support. Prayers for the serene pledges are poured forth without ceasing. That I speak the truth is witnessed by the divinity, which loves truth, being itself truth, that to all who can trust in the innocence and integrity of life, your grief is exceedingly bitter. But now I return to the use of a letter. Greetings, my lord, and receive the bearer of this letter, Bassus V. C., with that condescension with which you are accustomed to receive my dear ones, because among all those who have cherished my friendship for your sake, the aforementioned man has ascended to a certain citadel of purity. Therefore, assist his petitions, so that, reaping fruit from his efforts, he may be prepared for greater things.

XXI. FAUSTUS TO ENNODIUS. For a long time my mind hung in suspense with uncertain judgment concerning the arrival of your Magnificence. But after divine mercy released me from this kind of anxiety, I immediately betook myself to my customary duties, although I had not suppressed the attentions of letters even when you had departed to distant places. Therefore, by these means, indicating my state of health, I disclose the sickness of my spirit, which I contracted from grief. I am anxious about the well-being of our lights, situated in a place to which an expected message arrives with difficulty. As a consolation, I pray to God that He no longer allow His servant to be consumed by further care, but that, from the restored and complete prosperity of those who have returned, swift remedy may come to my agitations. Greeting you with due devotion, I beg that, having learned these things by which my mind is tossed with varying estimation, you diligently come to my aid with the benefit of letters that bring cheerfulness. XXII. OPILIO TO ENNODIUS.

Your smallness had begun to be raised up by your Greatness with a hope of condescension that would surpass prayers, and, in the manner of a heavenly institution, to make its benefits more brilliant, since it weighed my merits with no scale of judgment, or, heedless of censure, gave a price to gifts which it showed to be undeserved, because the affection that is shown toward the humble has no necessity and signifies its own character through a cloudless and radiant splendor. Long supported, therefore, after God, by such presumption, I feared nothing that the poisons of detractors promised. But when your forgetfulness led me back to the ancient dust, what usually happens to the stripped when their defender abandons them occurred: I put forth letters that were bearers of complaints, as it were, promising myself a response from their importunity. But perhaps the amplitude of your occupations, signifying the increase of hindrances, prevents you from coming to these duties. I will repeat, because the same state of your highness existed when you were formerly sending pages. Nevertheless, I return to the custom of epistolary writing, lest heaped-up prolixity cause disgust and the allegation that demanded pages make them be denied. My lord, I pay the tribute of a greeting and inquire about your health as one bound in spirit, desiring to attain, through the indication of a reply, to twin wishes.

XXIII. ENNODIUS TO SENARIUS. Affection loses the health of silence, weakened by torpor, nor does the course of diligence overflow into its own use, if it is stripped of the communion of conversation. Mute charity almost presents the appearance of one who does not love, and it is a likeness of hatreds not to disclose what you love by the testimony of speech. I imparted these things to your Sublimity when I was present with you, at the time when you were promising letters as a solace for my absence. But now, what forgetfulness of me has invaded your mind, that I have received no letters over such great intervals of time, which would signify your good health, so that I would not, I believe, meet the epistles, the indices of souls, as a testimony of love? Therefore, turn your irreligious intention regarding a lover into a better part, and send writings in memory of promised fidelity. My lord, paying the dues of a greeting, I pray that if the page directed to you finds you in the ancient state of your regard for me, it may merit a reply, because I think that the twin bonds of charity and blood between us cannot be broken.

XXIIII. ENNODIUS TO ASTURIUS. What, in heaven’s name, is the reasoning that you are so sparing in courtesy, so prodigal in complaint, and demand a frequency of letters which you yourself do not supply, looking with viper’s eyes upon what another does wrong, while pruning none of your own faults with any sickle? It is many years now since you chose a dwelling near the Alps, senator and learned man, where, as you gaze upon the frosty ridges, an unpropitious snow of the head has appeared upon you, where you have even signified in writing that you feed on acorns. The elegance of your letters gave credence to this, when the significance of this food appeared in the belch of a swollen chest and Alpine speech. I wonder, nevertheless, that among the ice-bridled rivers of that place and the successionless cold, the flame of your liver burns more fiercely, and your breast gains no temperance from the abode. Youth boils over into old age: there is a house which turns waters into metals and, against nature, rules over the torrents by its own law: yet you are said to live among these things as if your fire were provoked by the fuel of cold. I goad you with a parent’s mouth, because I owe you and my purpose the voice of one who chastises. It is for you, after this, if you choose to receive my letters frequently, to rejoice at the admonition. I, however, besides this, having saluted you with honor, have found nothing to write among those living in that flood of flesh which you love.

XXV. ENNODIUS TO OLYBRIUS AND EUGENETES. The desire for your pages has made my brow prodigal of shame, and while the tablet promises a published response, within the modest sanctuary it knows not how to contain an aged infancy. I ought, indeed, to offer the grace of silence to my blood and my purpose, after the first conversations denied the fruit of my hope. But I know not whether an intention that, without another’s losses, multiplies the perils of anxious experience through love should be judged stubbornly persistent. Farewell, my lords, and return with me to the harmony of writing, lest you act against the precepts of the Gospel if you deny to importunity what affection might perhaps justly have obtained. XXVI. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. A page that, in the service of another’s needs, offers obedience to one who loves you satisfies vows and desires. How I would wish, if my purpose did not forbid it, that the peace of many were often disturbed, so that while I give voice to uncertainties, I might pay the debt of steadfast love! My lord, I perform the duty of the present writing at the commands of your father, whose mind, while it provides for the security of all, scorns its own peace in this endeavor, and who is confounded because the evils of Liguria after the death of Mauricellus he has not yet seen to have perished. For our province labors under renewed snares, as if the aforementioned tombs do not hold him. While some strive through wicked men to obtain the advocacy of the treasury, before the fulfillment of their wishes they show what they are plotting in it.

I indeed did not conceal your deliberation concerning the public good, asserting that you were committing the aforementioned dignity with no god opposing you. But the anxiety of the provincials believes that everything they fear can come to pass. I undertook this province of pleading from my lord bishop, so that I might meet your conscience with the service of a page, lest someone's surreptitious action bring this matter to effect. Do you, solicitous, guard your most faithful promise with integrity of purpose. I, having performed the duties of salutation, have testified to what I had undertaken to plead. I hope, however, to be informed by the office of letters what has been decided concerning that part. BOOK TWO. I. ENNODIUS TO ARMENIUS: A CONSOLATORY LETTER. For a long time, dearest brother, I did not send a consolatory page to you, with my wish hastening, lest I be thought either to steal tears from myself while composing words, and in the losses of lamentation to make from groans a decorum of speeches and to dissipate the due mourning through the figures of speech, since against the religion of friendships and the bonds of kinship the secret of conscience lies open as hostile, if, when you can weep for the deceased doubly, you do not do so—that is, if you do not by no means join the office of the mouth to the ministry of the eyes. Where, while the eyes, driven by the goads of grief, shed tears, are the words of the mourner to be idle?

But I, most sincere of men, who owe you the tribute of your sadness in every way I can, wished to attest my own grief, in which I am your companion, by writing, lest the memory of tears shed in a single lifetime be lost, or posterity think that in the death of your son I owed only what I have paid, having on this path the examples of venerable bishops, by whose imitation those whom merits have consigned to the shadows are ennobled. Our Ambrose, when his brother died, pursued him with a little book as a witness to his own affliction. When later generations review it, they both remember the writer well and join their laments over the death of his brother Satyrus, because by his foresight it happens that he displays fresh grief while speaking, and before the eyes of readers always shows the limbs of the long-dead still breathing out their spirit, and never allows the corpse, which past years could have buried, to grow old through the trustworthiness of the account. This being so, restrain your eyes and, if you please, turn your mind to the words of one who comes to you as a weeping comforter. That you have lost a son, almost your only one and of good character—which the affection of the fatherland demands no less—the wailing of the province shows, as it joins its own groans to the solace of yours, and the whole community testifies what it thought of him. Yet you, amid these things, as if crushed by the death of a private misfortune, are shut in, not knowing that what is common, dispersed through many hearts, must be endured with moderation.

Why then do you consider your own anxiety, which many have made theirs through their affection for you? To say nothing of your kindred people, even a Goth is afflicted along with you, and do you still bow down as if you alone were subject to your own distress? Let the examples of the ancients, I beg you, instruct you and restore you from grief to a healthy state of mind by their intention. Abraham, as a dutiful father, presented his only son for death almost joyfully—what is more, the merciful father prepared the sword for his son’s slaughter. You, as if bereaved, seek out one who has been transferred by a heavenly judgment, and you burden with tears one whom it would have been sacrilege not to have offered. In this matter, let the example of David occur to you, who went before his son’s bier rejoicing and giving thanks to God, because the supreme dignity had summoned from the seed of the venerable prophet one whom it might deign to reward. If you do not break forth into joy as his imitator, at least temper your sadness by some imitation of the aforementioned. Perhaps you will reply that such things can scarcely be urged upon a sick mind and that counsels have no place in severe tribulation, that the bereaved have no regard for anything that exhorts to life, that the desolate have only the summoning of death as a resource. To these you will add that you have lost a temperate child, one who surpassed his tender years by the modesty of his character, alleging that your young man closed his immature years—which are friends to sins—with a glorious end, and that in the shipwreck of age, the harbor of the soul was his concern.

I, though sad, will oppose to your sorrows the remedies with which I am familiar: he sinned less because he was snatched away prematurely; he joined to eternal life of a better age what he preserved in this one. The repentance which you say he practiced, even if it had found in him nothing to wash away, had found something to adorn; repentance, whenever it is granted to the innocent, wins a crown for the affection of humility. To this you reply: "Where shall I turn, brother, who apart from tears have nothing in this present life?" I shall add that a man who does not rejoice in human affairs can find the nearness of God; that a conscience which finds his saints as heirs can succeed in the place of a son. Therefore, if you deign to hear, I will show not one path to a better life, although your perfection does not need a monitor, nor does he need a teacher whom the corrections and honors of his own deeds have made conspicuous, except that you may diligently weigh the faith of the exhortation which you owe to your own counsel and prudence, and recall yourself to the affection for heavenly gifts, from which we both receive and love the vital breezes, and the benefit becomes pleasing to us, whose author we cultivate and venerate. These are the things which I, grieving, have woven together in a brief speech, directing a testimony broken by sobs according to the abundance of my style, while I exchange laments for conversations.

II. Ennodius to Speciosa. My silence is demanded by grief, which has been allowed to grow while it ponders vengeance, to the detriment of affection. For what else could have happened, except that by being silent I would repay in kind one who denied me letters, so that the contempt toward me, which was made known through the abstinence of reverent speech, would be struck by the same sword while I withheld conversation? You might perhaps say that vengeance is hostile to one's purpose. But I count all errors as if they were obedience to the law, when you happen to be their authors. Would anyone consider it a fault to do what you have done, and deem it punishable by divine judgment, knowing that it proceeded from you? Therefore, bear with equanimity what I have done wrong: while you take the lead in this matter, you, light of the Church, have willed it yourself. I maintain the disposition I promised, so that in all things, if I am worthy, I may be your imitator; the fidelity of this is shown by the fact that when you are silent, I am silent, and when you speak, I speak. So I have returned to the duty of writing, after being commanded, I who until now have kept within the modest sanctuary words that were not loved, about to render similar obedience in pages. Greetings, my lady, splendor of a conscience without cloud, and deign to prolong the example of holy conduct into the future and to remember me, if I am worthy, granting pardon for the brevity of the letter, which the haste of the bearer has compressed into a narrow space.

III. Ennodius to Speciosa. How greatly sinners are crushed by the weight of their own deeds, from whose eyes is removed whatever is offered, and, lest desires be consigned to oblivion, everything they long for is placed near but not permitted to be touched! I had undertaken a votive obligation to the city of Ticinum and had endured all the hardships of a troublesome journey, thinking that a priest would believe that what served my affection was being spent on his commands, when suddenly, near the goal of my vows, the fruit, sought with the greatest labor, fled from the threshing-floor. Alas, you who call me from epistolary conversation to tragedy! I had seen the walls of the city, venerable for religion and for your sake, and was already preparing words of grateful conversation: I fear to say what remained, lest by speaking I be forced to endure the past again. The illustrious man Erduic, whom you, ornament of the church, had made me long for, an unforeseen chance thrust before my eyes. There my companions saw what I was seeking: there the turmoil of my mind, which I had previously concealed under the shadow of the aforementioned person, became known: I was unable to hide, through the torments of affection, what I wished, nor to color my conscience with any pretenses. He who cut short the reasons for a longer journey led me back home in mourning. I confess I did not love the shortcuts of my fatigue. Behold, I have presented the testimony of my diligence and my mind. It is for you, if I have spoken truly, to question yourselves and to know my mind by the measure of your affection.

My lady, I greet you and pray that you willingly learn what is to be suggested through the bearer of this letter. IV. Ennodius to Olubrius. There is no doubt among the wise that the sacred pledge of a promise is fulfilled, and that friendship which is wedded to fertile kindlings rejoices in the nobility of its fruits. I appeal to your conscience, already bound by established pledges of fidelity: as if from the yield of a good tree, I, a worthy possessor, pluck the fruits of mutual affection. Let no one deny that what was intended to be done has been accomplished in the pursuit of separation on either side. Before God, either punishment or reward is owed to our vows. I, considering the religious character in myself and the most noble intention in you, judge that what was begun has reached the effect of concord between us; nor could I deny the commerce of words to youthful graces and to fruits bursting into new light, since he is worthy of blame who, placed in proximity, was unwilling to be the first to begin. In this matter, therefore, wishing to avoid the loss of modesty, I do not wish to escape the reputation of being rash, provided that I show myself to have attained the effect of perfection. I have burdened the most opportune bearer with the burden of an unskilled speech, erring through affection—he through whom one who has erred both deserves pardon and gains favor. Therefore, paying the debt of the most profuse greeting, I ask that, if you hold me in your heart, you show this through the abundance of your reply, because just as you are an eloquent and copious advocate of love, so you do not know how to deceive anyone with the flattering pretense of words.

V. Ennodius to Laconius. Never among lovers is an offense well punished by silence: the novelty of vengeance strikes the one who devises it more heavily than the one who errs; it is wrong to apply faults for the correction of faults, while in the zeal of healing the healer himself falls ill. I wished to imitate the silence which you, unmindful of me, have so far maintained toward me, but, being a man of gentle disposition, I could not match the contempt of strong spirits. I have been overcome by the weakness of nature, I confess, and—what I believe you count among vices—by loving more, I have compensated for the abstinence of style with an outpouring of talkativeness and have composed the grief of long silence with an abundance of speech. Indeed, I was expecting from you a prior gift in letters, but I did not wish, by remaining silent for so long, to deny myself a reply, thinking that I could not give a form of speaking unless I spoke. Therefore, my lord, paying the due homage of a greeting, receive with your accustomed kindness the bearer of this letter, sent especially to you, and restore the practice of writing, taken away from custom, lest parsimony of words bring loss to our grace.

VI. Ennodius to Pomerius. How long will such abstinence be permitted? How long will a noble reputation grow old, deprived of epistolary commerce? I am willing to be thought rash, provided I can reach the notice of a perfect man. I wish to be the forerunner of pages as their sender, so that the goods of Gaul may migrate to Italy without any loss of their form in transit. Or did you perhaps think you could hide in any place, you whom the light of knowledge revealed to the gaze of those far away? And unless a domestic report, but one poor in its own inexperience, constrains me in your praises and the meagerness of the reporter narrows the vast proclamations of your merits, you have consumed the greatest parts of the perfection coming from both sides of the library’s clasp, ensuring that your talent grew fat on such satiety. I pass over in silence the sum of heavenly favor conferred and the endowments from above, built without human aid. For this is rightly judged to come from the gods which among men rests on no example. But I think these things are better reserved for future times, with life as companion. I come to that matter in which you, though most distant, instructed me. As much as the assertion of the present bearer, the holy Felix, held, in my letters dictated without care you sought the Roman balance and the vein of Latin speech, you, a pupil of the Rhone. A careful and diligent examiner, I believe, found what the file polishes, while he ran through unworked words.

We do not know with what mind a man reads what he pronounces as a judgment with such deliberation, especially since it is written: the very father of poets, the prince of Helicon, Homer, received the harsh darts of the critic’s mark. I ask, if among natives and in the wrestling-ground of your own studies Latinity shines, it is a strange thing that you love foreigners. I ought not to make a trial of the pomp of eloquence, nor do I presume to test how anyone may fare, since it suffices for my profession to devote myself to simple doctrine. Yet if someone had once touched me with such a tooth when I was still rejoicing in the novelty of liberal studies, I would have prepared either something suitable for an excuse or something that would not be ashamed of the objection. Now farewell, my lord, and exercise toward me the favor of ecclesiastical discipline more. Write or command who were the parents of Melchisedech, the explanation of the ark, the secret of circumcision, and what is contained in the prophetic mysteries. Let those things which are the schemata of worldly matters, intent on fleeting persuasions, be rejected, similar to the web of Penelope.

VII. ENNODIUS TO FIRMINUS. Although love may demand what perfection cannot fulfill, and affection may obtain that through the boldness of speech the hope of silence perishes, which could have adorned, especially since, as Tully says, speaking is a condition only when necessary, otherwise most inept. But among the paths and routes of narratives, with the sickle of learning needing to be opened, affection, ignorant of the consideration of strength, reigns supreme. Love, once fixed in the recesses of the heart, rules in the place of a commander, believing that one who is anxious about the well-being of an absent relative is not captivated by the weight or pomp of words, nor does it think that offense can arise from grace, concluding that it is enough for joy if the letter announces the desired safety. But you, whom the balance of skill has weighed on the scale of eloquence, you who possess abundance of tongue, chaste speech, Latin style, and well-ordered expression, you seek in others, no doubt, what you practice, you seek what you love. We, separated from the gymnasia of the schools, with the dry drops of our wit, challenge certain streams of the ocean, as if about to fight with a lamp against the rays of the sun. The leanness of my study shows itself from afar, and unless my garrulity is excused by affection, what I have loved is a loss of my own modesty. The vein of the tongue is indeed drawn from the source of the family, and noble offspring is usually spurred on by genuine fervor. I am unequal to my lineage: the fullness of knowledge has not touched me, as if I were a stranger to your gifts: I am able to praise you more than to imitate you.

And although maturity of eloquence has not yet come to flower in me, and I, weighed down by the burden of grace, am abandoned by the ability to discharge it, I nevertheless entrust my slender skiff to a calm sea, because silent gratitude differs little from ingratitude. Whence, I ask, does it arise that the good things which I have learned about you from the report of the bearer are counted among the heavenly benefits for me? And although I ought to render the offices of speech, yet because the negligence of the bearers caused the letters sent by you to be either retained or lost, I have nonetheless led my modesty, lingering in its station, into uncertainties and commit my entire self to be read by your taste. Farewell, my lord, and cultivate your loving servant with frequent duties of letters. In such pursuits, to be idle befits neither the diligent nor the eloquent. VIII. ENNODIUS TO APOLLINARIS. The necessities of others serve the desires of our own wishes, when we show obedience to the prayers of some for our joy. Who would not seek for himself at a price what is granted to another on this occasion? The bearers of this letter now owe me my debts, and they not only do not draw me to payment, but declare themselves obligated. It is not due to neglect that letters from me are rarely extended: similar goods, as I have now discovered, often withdraw themselves. Therefore, if you love me, let the bearers find the fruit of this benefit, who, just as they exacted from me what was to be offered, so, I think, they bring to you the desired results from the commerce of writing.

My lord, returning the respects of a greeting, I pray God that these words be offered to you in good health and that the page be immediately returned, which may seek my well-being and announce yours. IX. ENNODIUS TO OLYBRIUS. Scarcely ever have those things long desired turned out for me according to my wish, so that the thirst I had conceived from the ardor of your letters might be slaked by the rich wave of eloquence, and the heat, which long expectation had doubled, might be quenched by the streams flowing from your lips. But why should I claim to have been brought to the summit of my desires, when a greater desire arises from the attainment, while my heart blazes from the river of your discourses? It is clearly shown to me how ignorant the human mind is of things, which, when it understands the price of its own ambition, grows accustomed to loving more what it has reached late, and while it abounds in the present with something to rejoice over, there remains more to seek. Now, I confess, in your letters I have feared the superfluous caution of my own estimation, where, while the sails of your speech were being carried into the deep by favorable outcomes and everything that breathes served in homage, you say that oars are lacking for your conversations. The diligence of truth, separated from the fear that words paint, is not permissible. Oars are needed whenever the sterns are not helped by any impulse of the winds: he does not need them for whom a devoted conspiracy of winds has made a favorable voyage; the sun is not helped by torches, nor has the brightness of the lunar globe ever been illuminated by assemblies of lesser stars.

My lord, as above, returning the respects of a greeting, I pray that I may not lack the fruit of my studies in your estimation, after I have not concealed from you what I desired, so that you may compensate for the labor of writing which you have hitherto displayed by the frequency or abundance of your style. X. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. If the heavenly ruler were to consider my merit, I would either obtain scant goods or great punishments, and, as a fit judge of myself, I would not strive by my vow to reach what I could not attain by my merits. But thanks to Him who so cuts back our faults that we are not puffed up, yet leads our hope to broader things. These prefatory remarks are owed by me to the compositions of my lord Avienus, who, not yet restored to good health, had loosened my mind from its chain of anxiety, while our prayers still hung anxious between hope and fear. Considering his nature, he showed with what eloquence he would thunder. I had indeed ordered this by my judgment and recognized the nurse of noble metal in the treasures she had produced. But even in this, a sinner, I scarcely believed that what I did not deserve to attain would come to pass. I speak the truth, with divine clemency as my witness: if there are any in Liguria who can judge by the genius and splendor of letters, they believed that you had labored on that composition, which a white-haired sense, prejudging his age, cultivated in the boy. But I said this more with tearful joy to those whom either the shedding of blood has enrolled in the white of the celestial senate, or a clear confession, who may confirm our beginnings with second successes.

I greet you with the humility and obedience of a servant, and I pray that, among all things, while you relax your mind from these cares, you may rejoice in the misfortunes of adversaries. For there is nothing by which we could feel the losses of enemies. God has granted us this, which earthly envy cannot take away. XI. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. What am I to do, when you write that things are to be written back, and, by the gift of foreknowledge granted you with heaven's compliance, you recount whatever another's breast could have investigated? It is clear that it is beyond a man to fulfill the roles of two persons in this way, but let those things be referred to Him who granted it. Yet I did not promise to send back a speech by which ancient Tullius would be thrust into shadow, since I had returned the quaternion I received with greater speed than my talent allowed, while serving fidelity I scorned what could pertain to progress. Nothing of that venerable diction remained with me then, except what, for the sake of what I consider the fruit of a good reputation, I had stealthily withdrawn from the memory of the one reclaiming it. I do not wish to say what it was that I reluctantly restored, nor what I loved, lest you believe that you have foretold matters to be alleged without loss to yourself. Yet to my cares in this matter, the compassion of my serene light, my lord Avienus—though still beginning, yet already proven—came to my aid: a certain little sheet, which could have remained with him, thrust the purple of nobility upon me. This I have kept up to now; from it I have both spoken and known.

But after I was ordered to lose even the benefits of others, I will send it with the bearer following her, not understanding in myself, on account of my sins, such goodwill that I would not, being trustful, deny what fortifies the talents of outsiders, knowing that I must mingle caution with what attacks my purpose in dealing with men. But I say, with Him as witness to whom all things are known, that those compositions of yours celebrated by the world’s mouth—which I believe happens due to my ignorance—neither tortures compel me to give to anyone. My lord, offering the salutation of your reverence, I attest that neither negligence assails my judgment nor flattery attacks my affection. XII. ENNODIUS TO ASTURIUS. Your sublimity pays homage to prophetic oracles and fights for the faith of ancient sanctions with novel excesses. You have provided that a less vigorous admonition would not remain, removed by illness from neglect. For it is written through the worshippers of God whose ears the teaching of the wise should pass through, whom it should draw with the flavor of salty speech, alleging that warnings perish which are offered to those established in another deliberation. I, however, humble in station, a beggar in tongue, have previously granted words only by the goads of kinship, and in the testimony of diligence in my earlier letter I gave a response under the freedom of blood.

Now my spirit is troubled, because, lacking the fruit of injuries, you have perhaps taken up boastfulness with feigned politeness toward me, not knowing that weapons which an untaught hand has launched against another seek back their author. Who considers it an insult that afflicts only the conscience of the one who aims it? It is the nature of the wicked to feel about everyone what they themselves deserve and, in their evils, to see innocence nowhere. The torments of a stained way of life are not to believe that others share in it. I have described these things with that mind by which, mindful of my purpose, I am compelled to owe hatred to crimes. My God has touched no one who confesses except through himself: while we attack vices, anger reveals the guilty one. For I would be unjust if I felt the plowshare in place of the pen, or if I counted as written to me what I do not recognize upon rereading. For the Lord knows that, if the letter had not been marked with my name, I would not know to whom it was directed. Keep your witticisms for yourself, or reserve them for those with whom you have, without the office of speech, a clamor of deeds through the communion of clandestine familiarity. Behold, paying the honor of a greeting, I beg that in sending letters you attend to places, times, and persons, lest what I do not count as written to me should perhaps harm another, because I think you have sent the formula of this letter to many and transmit it to each, with only a change of names, without consideration of merits.

XIII. ENNODIUS TO OLUBRIUS. As a certain lofty personification of eloquence teaches, negligence is the law in letters, and the master of genius presents himself through carelessness. In this work, that which the witness of torments, sweat, has discovered is withdrawn from grace. A messenger who seeks his own safety and inquires after another’s does not demand things refined by the forge’s fires. It is better if in these exchanges we meet with a pure front of expression: a simple style of conversation abjures diadems; epistolary communion, when it flees affected ornament, has prevailed. But the rich and painstakingly elaborated narrative of your greatness knows not how to be confined within beggarly limits, nor to restrict the treasure of your mouth within any boundaries: like great rivers, it scorns the reins of its banks. For while the well-stocked tongue, with a composed veil of occupation, oversteps, it signifies that it serves only those studies to which it has been led even by chance. And unless we were to perceive that the reins of the republic were entrusted to you with the testimony of our quiet, and that whatever is arranged everywhere or the care of Italy had entered one breast as the fruit of your labor, we would almost think you were consumed solely by the care and assiduity of page-bound style. These gifts are owed to God, who both bestowed a mind that loves knowledge and did not deny the file of studies to the fabric of speech. Not so swiftly does a shaft, driven by sinews, cleave the air, as the discovered things of your intellect are described by speech.

Nothing languishes from obstruction, nothing is delayed by obstacles; any difficulty that presents itself becomes passable, and, in a remarkable way, through the skill of the pleader, the nature of cases is transformed: you make it so that the matter you desire has had merit; whatever you narrate as truth is truth. Hence, cautious judges are not permitted to resist. The most minute scrutinizers of opinion consider it a gain if they follow where the imperious speech drags its captives. To this tongue, to these resources, I confess reverence; to it, to which I first ran, I owe a singular debt. And I wish there were many things that might be entrusted to me to do for the bond of affection. But what you enjoined concerning the religious women Speciosa and her sisters—it is painful to me that I could not fulfill it. For now I have no remaining familiarity or bond with them, especially since they live in separate cities. Nevertheless, I immediately forwarded the letters sent to me to them, and they deferred their response until times they saw fit. I delayed writing to you lest I keep your greatness in suspense: soon, if they have sent any instructions, what is pleasing to be reported will reach you. Now, imparting the honor of a greeting, I ask that your sublimity entrust to me, rather with the church, whatever matters are to be done, because I think that in the case of your relatives or the matron friend, I have not concealed the diligence of my heart toward you.

XIIII. To the Africans. The enemy might perhaps have considered it a gain, if, amid the perils he inflicted on Christians, he had subdued the souls of the believers and, with the Lord's flock scattered far and wide, not even a few remained over whom he could be trampled by persevering faith. He still reigns in your number, he who took pleasure not so much in multitude as in devotion. For it is written that power was given to Satan to sift the servants of Christ, so that what could be found of wheat might be joined to the granaries, what of chaff might pass to the fuel of fires. To you especially it was said: Fear not, little flock: it has pleased your Father to give you a kingdom. The sword of the faithless came among you, to cut away the limbs of the ailing church and to lead the healthy ones to heavenly glory. What soldiers Christ has, the contest shows: who deserve triumph is known through wars. Do not fear that they have taken from you the fillets of the pontifical apex. With you is that priest or sacrifice, who was accustomed to rejoice not so much in honors as in minds. Greater are the rewards of confession than the gifts of a named dignity. To those latter, human favor often leads even persons of lesser merit: these latter, unless by heavenly grace, are not bestowed. For he himself both fought and conquered in you, whom faith deserves to be joined even amid human torments. There is no need for lengthy discourses to kindle in you the celestial fervor. The fire of divine virtue has its own increase.

XIIII. To the Africans. The enemy might perhaps have considered it a gain, if, amid the perils he inflicted on Christians, he had subdued the souls of the believers and, with the Lord's flock scattered far and wide, not nor is there need for those already placed on the trophy to be exalted with praises, who conquered without a monitor. Whatever flatteries of praise bring burdens the conscience of a Christian. What you have done is indeed a deed of virtue, but it is to be surpassed by the restitution of the highest reward. Yet what you hoped for in the letters sent to our son the deacon, asking for the blessing of the blessed martyrs Nazarius and Romanus, we do not deny to the faithful. Receive the venerable patronage of the unconquered soldiers, because the emperor has already recognized your faith in battles: complete the gifts of confession happily. God will grant, when it pleases him, a returning peace to the churches, so that the sorrow which adversity introduced may be consoled by the sweetness of peace. XV. ENNODIUS TO EUPREPIA. By the dispensation of the celestial mystery, at one time the affection of a mother was poured back to me for my sister, for Lupicinus, and the bond of a double kinship deserved to receive the wanderer after intervals. You have come to life among us after the death of affection which you procured, by the benefit of letters: we saw love rising as if from some tomb. The messenger of your safety reached us by hearing, under an ill omen, you whom we believed, through contempt for us, to have filled a tomb while living. We believe you have suffered harsh things, but we confess that you have inflicted the harshest. What you endured is common with the good, what you did is common with the cruel. Where in the world has your maternal care until now lain hidden? Where has what was owed to a brother gone astray? Your mind had departed to longer distances than your body.

If adversity had driven you as a companion in travel to the farthest confines of the earth, a sister's faith and a mother's concern ought to have followed you there. But in the sunset, near which you are said to have been, you had a heart cold with pious love. You should have imitated the heavenly star in its duty, whose eclipse, happily reborn, is not a perpetual holiday from grace; you should not have borne a mind on vacation from gratitude. You adopted the mindset of the provincials you visited: you changed your region and renounced your commitment to piety. For by abjuring communion with Italy, you rejected not only friends but even your own flesh and blood. In short, a change of soul came to you along with a change of land. How I fear that I assail your negligence with lengthy speeches! What will an offense do that, when unharmed, it scorned? I have given just grief to the pursuits of one who does not love: I have supplied reasons that would acquit you. But this reproach, if considered in itself, is harsh; if its origin is examined, it is seasoned with all the honey of sweetness. A child bears heavily the neglect of a parent in love who accuses the silence of a free man. You can correct your errors: if you cannot in person, then by frequent correspondence. Therefore, presenting the grace of greetings, I ask that you remember me, who anticipated your prayers and wishes concerning our common son. For I considered what I ought to do before I learned what you wanted.

Appease God with religion and compose him with the constant repetition of prayers on our behalf, so that he may look upon my intention for his advancement and the secrets of my heart, and that what I promise through effort he may grant through his aid. XVI. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. It would indeed have been fitting, while the distinguished man Pamfronius was traveling, for the service of a letter to be transferred to the duties of living speech, and for him not to be burdened with the weight of an epistle, whom it befell to know not so much my words as my pursuits. But his hand in these services is given over to command. The investigator of hidden minds demands a helping page, and therefore, lest any of my obedience be lacking in his regard, I have granted a letter, even if not necessary for a recommendation, yet suited to his instructions. For with what words is one to be pursued who is permitted to hope for everything from the grace of your greatness? It will turn out that the words of the suppliant are narrower than the merits of the bearer. For what assistance would you grant to him for whom, however much you ask, he deserves more? Therefore these words are joined for the exercise of style, not for the benefit of the traveler. It helps the mind to remember you on any occasion, even if by naming you in writing I add nothing. Yet behold, because I have been so ordered, I add those words of introduction which are granted to strangers. Help him who especially seeks you, strengthening his confidence by your condescension: let him find whatever he anticipates in hope, so that if he is a narrow estimator of his own merits, he may refer to me whatever he has obtained.

Paying the homage of a greeting, I beg that you lift me up with frequent addresses, since amid the burdens of my grief there can be no support other than the consolations of your lips. XVII. ENNODIUS TO CONSTANTIUS. No one condemns skill on account of ornate speech, nor considers it shameful to follow what is worthy: whoever preaches that the cultivation of language is to be forsworn with labored phrases is an attacker of himself. Yet in the letters of your greatness I have always weighed diligence, not words, nor have I judged eloquence, the handmaid of malice, to be of greater value than simplicity, which with unvarnished brow declares the secret of the mind. This I have always loved and cultivated in holy men. Now I give and have thanks that you visit my insignificance with the address of a letter, and that amid the occupations and vigils by which Ravenna distracts everyone, care for me is not set aside. I therefore render the offices of a most profuse greeting, hoping that you will make my presence desirable to my lords who love you, by reason of the regard with which you cherish a believer.

XVIII. ENNODIUS TO IOHANNES. I have plausible reasons for assailing your unanimity with the bite of my pen, even though it is tarnished with rust—reasons which, though you are abundant in natural gifts and rich in intellectual resources, you cannot refute. Did I ever believe that news of your return could be conveyed to another before it reached me? Did I ever think that concern for me could, amid any preoccupations, depart from a heart I had consecrated to friendship? Behold, before my eyes, pages are delivered to others, and the expectation of a friend is frustrated, to the contempt of all my credulity. I do not wish to fill my letter with greater bile of reproach: a concise account of my sorrow suffices. My mind still persists in the state in which it was when your greatness departed: it is for you, if you despise the evils of the times, to keep the promised harmony. Farewell, my lord, and relieve one who loves you by the communion of your speech, so that by writing you may erase the grief which you see has befallen your friend through the abstinence of writing.

XVIIII. ENNODIUS TO CONSTANTIUS. I overflow with joy, and the assurance of my gladness is not lame, for this reason: that some struggles arise by diabolical inspiration, so that you, who have raised yourself beyond the correction of all, may rejoice in the honor of a triumph. Liguria, as I see, is not exhausted: she has not laid aside her power of producing nobility even at the extremity of the times: she still nurtures a fire hostile to vices even in the ashes, in whose embers the avenging flame of crimes does not die, nor is the fire that is the enemy of errors covered over. How I feared that she might cease as though drained, while, as a worried weigher, I examined the brow of your letter, darkened by the illusions of others, like an anxious parent who, when he sends a dear child to war, does not allow himself to be at ease even with proven virtue. He counts his son’s triumphs as increases of his anxieties, not of his peace: he fears more for experienced happiness, to which affection supplies fear, because a mind accustomed to victories is ignorant of caution, and in the battle line, love of glory brings forgetfulness of safety. The taste of a trophy commands that the affection for light be renounced: the savor of life possesses only those who have learned nothing of goods coming from conflicts: to glory is always joined what has departed from care for one’s own safety. But for the present, I must refrain from writing in this vein. The struggles of our soldier are not to be praised more than they are to be asserted. Where javelins are needed, words contribute nothing.

It was permitted for me to have published my opinion while I proclaim yours, and this is to respond as to praise the responses; yet, having prayed for God’s help, I add words that will obey the faith, turning the cultivation of my style toward Him who, whenever the unhappy curved earth is to be written with plowshares, promises that He will bring forth shoots for His servants to cast, saying: “Do not think about what you say: for your Father is the one who speaks in you.” Therefore, let Him come to confirm the truth of the promise, and let Him strengthen the faltering speech of my mouth, so that the composition of our hallucination may not seem inhuman. But why do I long repeat circumlocutions? I ask one thing: that my replies be assessed according to my modest ability, and that it not be thought that what I do not know is lacking either for reading or for defense. Therefore, as you testify in your writing, has a man been found who would sift the servants of Christ, as he himself promised should be done, on this occasion, asserting that from the freedom of the will, license to choose was given to man in only one part, which is the worse? O schismatic proposition, which, according to the Apocalypse, has blasphemies written on its forehead! What freedom is this, if it is valid, let him explain, where it is granted only to will what punishes, or why does he name it choice, where he asserts that only one part was conceded? If this were true, divine judgments would have no place. For what good would our God rightly seek from us, if He had removed the desire for it from the will?

But according to the Apostle: Is God unjust? Far from it. If among men one who demands from subjects what he does not grant in his power departs from right affection, consider with what conscience this is felt about God. Where is that cry of the Apostle, testifying for the freedom of the will: "It is for me to will, but to accomplish I do not find"? What else is this but to say: I know to choose the right path, but unless the help of supernal grace aids me as I enter, I will grow weary? No one doubts, no one condemns, that the path of equity is opened to men by the author of grace himself, who bears witness. For grace is the leader and forerunner of good things, when we are invited to rest by manifold heavenly exhortation, when it is said to us: "Come, children, hear me. Come, blessed ones of my father, possess the kingdom prepared for you. Where I am, there my minister will also be." But unless our will, which is free, and our labor render obedience to such warnings, we roll ourselves into peril and Gehenna not by any command, but voluntarily. Thus either devotion produces reward, or contempt produces punishment. Otherwise, there will be no just retribution, which either refers through punishments to those sinning by necessity or offers a good reward to work to which the unwilling are dragged. Therefore we owe to grace that we are called; we owe to grace that, by hidden paths, unless we resist, a vital savor is infused into us; yet it is of our own choice that we follow the benefits shown.

For the way of crimes is read to be not our mistress, but our handmaid, when it is said concerning sins: "their appetite will be under you." What also does the prophet's entire speech, wreathed as if with garlands, mean: "Do not emulate among the malicious. Do not trust in princes. Do not become like horse and mule," and the Apostle: "Do not become servants of men"? So many times "do not" in a heavenly admonition—to what does it look, if it was not permitted to will otherwise? Then, although in the person of Christ, yet for the freedom of the will, the same prophet's testimony stands for us: "That I might do your will, my God, I willed," and elsewhere: "I will sacrifice to you willingly," and: "I will pay my vows to the Lord," and again: "Vow and pay." But that example of the blessed Apostle by which he believes himself fortified works in our favor, if he notes what follows, when the enemy of arrogance said: "I am what I am by the grace of God." For soon, lest he be thought so fleeting of glory as to depart far from the truth, the wise architect added: "I labored more abundantly than all, and the grace of God in me was not needy," which is to have said: "Christ found in me one whom he could worthily or abundantly reward." For divine grace is not poor, but it is thought to be thinned by some leanness or meagerness of our merits. It then is not judged to flow in its own channels when the vein of our dryness receives nothing from its courses. Oh, if the narrowness of a letter would allow the secrets of the sacred volumes to be unlocked!

But I fear that one who will be unable to find any calumny against our faith, with God inspiring, may complain about the length of the page. What about that, with what mind does he accept: "Behold water and fire, stretch out your hand to either"? What about the other things, which you yourself, a copious advocate, have repeated? I believe he passed over them with a closed ear, as they say, like an asp. I see where the poisons of the Libyan pest extend. The sandy serpent does not have only those deadly things which it reveals: things it admits are to be borne for the estimation of hidden crimes. For he wishes to reach this point: that no one perishes by his own fault or negligence, if a man is deprived of the power of choice, granted for both good and evil. He boasts that only those could be saved without any labor, without friendship with the commandments, whom, as strangers to merit, only celestial favor snatched away: accordingly, as is referred to him, he understands that those have perished whom divine grace did not wish to free. You, my lady, after saying farewell, see to it that you are with yourself, and if a slave of death cannot be healed, desist from the contention, lest, while you, supported by the root of faith, strive strongly, he, on the occasion of this controversy, before the time of publication, cause the offspring of divine seed to be expelled from the womb of some.

XX. ENNODIUS TO CONSTANTIUS. You will forgive me for having replied quickly, because I still owe to my age a restless haste. Maturity and weight become you. Therefore, cherish the one who trusts you and withdraw my trifles from public severity, because if our page is doubtful and uncertain, it protects itself by the patronage of your command, since no one scorns what is ordered. So, saying farewell, I commend what I send to be read: for it will happen that, having been well received hereafter, we will be spurred on by the goads of soothing obedience to comply. XXI. ENNODIUS TO ALBINUS. Four times I have extended my writings to your greatness, and still I am accused as if I were idle. My tongue has served my affection: frequency does not deserve diligence. I believe that either the negligence or the malice of the bearer has led me to this offense. Behold, however, I multiply my writings and, making indications of my prosperity according to your wish, I desire to rejoice in your happiness. Greetings, my lord, and relieve the one who loves you under all your condescension, because you do a thing close to God when you relieve with full faith and communion the one who trusts in your patronage.

XXII. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. He labors with superfluous expenses for benefits who strives to aid the sun with torches. Fullness of grace does not need abasement, nor does any commendation require augmentation for one whom merits have brought to the summit of friendships. The care of my pen follows Albinus, your illustrious and patrician relative, to whom through this page I offer not necessities but votive offerings; and although I add nothing to his advantage, I nevertheless earn affection because I have fulfilled the commands of the aforementioned. Therefore, imparting the homage of a greeting to the venerable lord, I pray that the aforementioned magnificent man may receive, concerning his diligence, what he exhibited to me while he cultivated you. For I know that a man of the highest character is quickly to be led into the inner chambers of your heart, whom an innocent purpose will assist with his own merits in your eyes. XXIII. TO HIS LORD FAUSTUS, ENNODIUS THE DEACON. Without loss of guardianship, those are orphaned who happen to belong to you: paternal support is not lacking to those whom you foster. I speak of Lupicinus, the son of our Euprepia: the aforementioned generality pertains to him, concerning whose property the sublime man, your venerable count Tancila, told me that it was obtained from our lord the king, a thing grievous to report. For he asserted that all the small properties of his mother were claimed by Torisa or others. I had no other thing that I could provide for the misfortune of the ward, except to inform your notice and to perform the duty of a truthful reporter.

XXII. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. It is for you, with God inspiring, to provide for the wretched what may aid them: it has fallen to me to indicate what has been revealed to me. Presenting the respects of my true masters, I beseech divine clemency that heavenly assistance may accompany your labor. XXIIII. TO HIS LORD FAUSTUS, ENNODIUS THE DEACON. I consider it a waste of diligence to send no letter as a gift by any available courier, since letters are accustomed to carry even the faces of loved ones to distant places by their reading and to present their images through the service of speech. To this is added also the opportunity of the most exalted Luminosus, a bearer well deserving of both, who joins the fruits of his own grace to the religion of your merits. What twin would suffer that affection be dulled by any negligence, if I should refrain from pages which your dignity demands, and if the named one should not receive them for delivery? Thanks be to God, which ought to have been placed at the head of the letter, because your happiness is raised up by increased successes, because the swollen neck of our enemies yields, burdened, to Christ our God. I had anticipated by hope what the outcome has shown. For he well foresees the end of a heavenly judgment who knows its quality from the serenity of human actions. Therefore, farewell for a long time, my lord, and relieve your loving one by the use of your style, so that whatever intervals of lands subtract, the offering of a letter-carrier may compensate.

XXV. ENNODIUS THE DEACON TO FAUSTUS THE QUAESTOR. It is fitting that indications of my return be made by divine arrangement: to no one more than to a friend hastening to Ravenna does this pertain, whose faithful report would have sufficed even in the absence of a letter. But I could not refrain from the practice, since if I were to moderate it under any neglect, I would seem to have condemned the frequency of style which I have loved. It is added that I could not offer the aforesaid person a refusal by withholding my hand, for he knows how to demand securely from those who love him what he knows they faithfully render for the sake of religious conscience. Therefore, having departed from Ravenna, which embraces everything sweet that I have in this present life, I arrived at Milan with my bodily health preserved, Christ accompanying me, bearing ill the speed which, with winter driving, I perhaps wished for against my desires in returning. But all things are to be referred to God, whose task it is to arrange human affairs and to change bodily diligence with the savor of eternal love. Now, with a humble salutation and commendation said, I turn to the cause of the writing, the bearer, who, if he rejoices in benefits according to the serenity of your mind, acknowledges either that he has received what he rendered to you or how he ought to be incited to love. Compel him, even if he is unwilling, to return speedily, because his presence is necessary for my affection, and if God has established the promise, when he himself commands, he is awaited as suited to the advantage.

XXVI. ENNODIUS TO LIBERIUS. Either diligence is nourished or it is sustained by writing: the confabulation of letters is the handmaid of affection; silent charity presents the image of an ungrateful person; friendship that does not break forth into voice devalues its own genius. The secret of the heart is well unlocked by the key of speech: I am now more powerful by your condescension. These first offerings of epistolary commerce I have dedicated according to the strength of my talent, by which I usurp to claim for myself the merit of one who loves more. For no one offers his lips to the barrier of silence whom the speech, the betrayer of the mind, does not desert, mindful of a broken compact. Therefore, I hold the first place in literary communion and am worthy of greater cultivation, I who first revealed what I was eager for by the testimony of language. Behold, I have set forth the reason for dispatching this page without a cloud. It is yours to foster in me what you have received, lest the judgments of your highness suffer examination while I lie prostrate. For whoever does not defend what he has chosen exposes his own sentence to censure. My lord, paying the reverence of a greeting with full obedience, I ask God that He multiply the increases of His benefits toward you, because the only wealth of my advantages, most fully, is that which has raised your highness to the pinnacles that are owed.

XXVII. ENNODIUS TO HONORATUS. You have indicated by your recent letter that you are living in the vicinity, joining to the loss of joys the impaired state of your health. I do not deny that I deserve that sweet things should always be mingled with bitter for me. Hitherto adverse circumstances have kept you occupied with the vigils of the Ravennates; whence, since it has happened that you are relieved, your bodily substance has been weakened, lest it be permitted to obtain the desired things entirely. How harsh is the condition of human affairs, which, whenever it has responded to desires with some flavor, soon changes what has been granted even at the threshold. Yet I have dreaded the calumny which you, with oratorical and excessively Daedalian foresight, inserted into your letter, so that you inserted it for your own advantage, that you might believe me unwilling, if I have indicated that I could not accomplish it. O the secret of a crafty mind, which looks more to convenience than it trusts in affection! God is witness that I will not deny you what I am able to do. You pray to God that my action not be hindered by the calamities of the unhappy letters which you love. For there is nothing which I fear more as an obstacle to the task imposed than that which I know: that a scholar receives nothing. Apply your talent rather to the squalid laws, through which whatever a rough tongue has demanded soon merited, or, if it did not merit, soon snatched away. Lord, paying the grace of a greeting, I hope, and I ask that you aid my labor with poured-out prayers, because, although I do not have the merit of a learned or erudite man, I often sustain in cases the fate of a perfect one.

XXVIII. ENNODIUS TO AVIENUS. Thanks be to God, which must be placed in the foremost position, who has caused your greatness to demand from me what was to be offered. You have given a price to my loquacity, which I had until now scarcely confined within the modest precinct of my heart. Once drawn out, I enjoy the license of my pen, which I had harshly recalled from importunate writing: I possess the merit of a forced voice through unaccustomed talkativeness. For after you ordered me to send pages, you commended to my mind what I had kept silent. Bravo! A brow long prodigal has at last fallen to my lot, so that I may attain an abundance of affection without cost to you. Let us learn not to hate what helps us. The grace of silence has brought it about that we now speak of you freely: conversations often scorned are awaited by us. I shall not go further: it is asserted, as I see, that the office of speech is enhanced by the rarity of words. In this respect, the faith of my joy is not lame; my opinion is supported by the corroboration of truth. Behold, that man who barely skimmed with his lips the letters of learned men, endowed with a harvest of conversation, does not now disdain to accept the stalks of my tablets. You have profited me, O modesty, with a twofold joy, both when you are secure in your station and when addresses often despised are longed for: behold, the opinion of him whom we love has become better. Therefore, we have provided for our own modesty, and for our consul, by amendment.

but lest the page run on too long, exceeding the prescribed limits, and by speaking at length we show that what we passed over in silence was not a matter of deliberate choice, farewell, my lord, and deign to include your lovers in this communion, because the lofty peaks of your honors receive increase only from what is born of humility. BOOK THREE I. ENNODIUS TO BISHOP SENATOR. The first thing fitting for a holy purpose, without any doubt, is to do willingly for the sake of justice whatever others usually perform only when admonished; but the next or second thing close to uprightness is not to be burdened by righteous suggestions. In this regard, even if the one who is admonished does not hold the foremost place, he nevertheless has the grace of God, because he does not resist the insinuations of truth. Therefore, I set forth the reason for this preface, lest I too seem to delay my own advantage by the prolixity of my words. Some time ago, I humbly petitioned through my own person that, concerning the slaves who were known to have been solicited from my household by your people, the one who remained should be returned to me. You gave a response to my prayers with a holy promise, that even if the boy himself were legally yours, you would still prefer grace to advantages. Upon my return from Ravenna—unspeakable to say—because of my sins, the effect of the priestly decision could not be realized. I attribute it to my own merits that the one by whose mouth falsehood is condemned violated his own decrees.

Behold, I again refer myself to your conscience; behold, I exhibit what befits a son, so that through the sublime and magnificent man, Lord Victor, I may convey to your humility whatever could be granted to me by the authority of secular laws. See if I am guilty, who chose a man fitting the character of a bishop, one who could soften even the untamed hearts of those resisting equity. I have already promised myself the outcome of the matter, since I have approved the merit of the envoy; consider whether it befits religion, whether it is worthy of a pontiff, that he who can command rocks be despised. Two things work in my favor: the integrity of the matter and the character of the suppliant; whatever stands against this soon deserves the judgment of good men. II. TO EUGENETES, FROM ENNODIUS. Although exchanges of letters are more a matter of joy than of grief, and the secret of the heart or the diligence of friendship is not well brought to light by a lame utterance confused by recent sorrow, I shall nevertheless see whether rarer speech inflicts loss on affection; yet it shows if no speech is prolonged, inexperience. Divinity gave the tongue the office of grace as a witness. But you might say, my lord, that these things are foreign to one whom I have known to be occupied with the greatest griefs, that a breast pressed by anxieties does not rise to words of love, nor does any soothing thing perceive lamentations: a matter that oppresses the mind rejects what delights the hearing. The brother who was the greater part of your soul is among the blessed; this part he has transferred to the tomb. What is to be demanded of one whose very division of health the tombs have enclosed?

In the greatest afflictions, one cannot complain, for the voice is subdued by groans. At a time of tears, a burdensome narrative is dictated. I will answer that grief over a harsh misfortune has also entered my own heart. Nor can I be separated from his sorrow, whom joyful circumstances have sometimes joined to me by similarity of wills. Yet I often show that speech has been the indicator of a more severe evil in mournings, and that the remedies of interrupted silence have been betrayed by conversation. I will say: he who denies pages to his lamentation wishes that what he mourns should perish in a single lifetime; the remembrance of a brother and a learned man does not deserve that what we have felt about him should perish with our laments; a mind is sparing in its mournings when its voice is idle; the commemoration of a beloved one, when entrusted to tablets, violently pierces the vitals of dear ones with goads; a relation of a funeral set forth in letters never allows the death to grow old. With this zeal, I, a weeping consoler, appeal to your greatness, so that by the benefit of a vicarious discourse, both the affection promised under the invocation of God may be nurtured among us, and the person of eloquence, who by his merits does not suffer decline, may revive also through our conversation.

To His Own Lord Faustus, Ennodius. Since the opportunity for writing is supplied both by domestic and friendly circumstances, why should I refrain from pages as if lacking a bearer, especially since the diligence of letters often procures responses for me? The request of the honorable man, your venerable brother Constantius, has joined itself as a companion to this pursuit; he, whose industry has become known among you, my lords, as befits an effective man, wishes to subject it to my good offices. For he transfers his labor to another's jurisdiction who wishes to owe to commendatory letters what he deserves. Nevertheless, I have yielded to his prayers and, on the occasion of displaying humility, have prolonged my writings for his desire, praying to God that He may raise me up as a messenger of your health and prosperity with all speed. Yet, for my sake, may your greatness accompany him with a double favor, since I am not an unworthy petitioner. IV. Ennodius to Abbot Stephen.

Your letters are a sweet business, what a spiritual gift they have brought me! How welcome is the necessity of the bearers, which, through its own remedy's zeal, heals the desires of others! I confess, were it not contrary to my resolve, I would almost conceive hostile wishes to disturb the security of some. Behold, adversities provide what favorable circumstances do not grant. From where would I, a sinner, receive the letters of saints in tranquil times, which the luster of my merits never demanded? Behold how much support has been conferred upon me by those who confess to have obtained it from you. I consider divine providence to bestow these things. I now believe that much of the burden of my evil conduct has been set aside. He who deserves the conversation of saints is close to innocence. Therefore, while worldly license held me in its filth, I never merited the writings of such a man, nor even after long intervals did I ever receive such goods. Great God, what dignity you grant to those who serve you, that those whom you have begun to regard you also render acceptable to your friends! Truly, I have always revered you with singular devotion, I have always bowed my neck, laden with sins, to your venerable ways. Behold, I am now addressed almost as an equal. Long-maintained subjection has raised me up; therefore, nurture me with your prayers: for you show by your pages that fragile patronage is not offered by you. For even those who have brought me the goods over which I exult have been received. I return to the matter.

That terrified cleric shrank from pleading his case before the bishop, after he saw that I was defending those to whom I had assigned your service. I suggest, if you so order, that one of them should go to Ravenna with your letters of recommendation to your son, the lord Faustus, lest a venal verdict be pronounced by the judges who abound in Milan, to their prejudice. V. ENNODIUS TO MAXIMUS. I would suffer great gaps from your letters, lifted up as I am by your address, if I were not conscious of my own lack of skill and restrained my presumption by shame, and held the balance of judgment even when I am praised undeservedly. Your kindness has made you forgetful of censure; my resolve compels me to live within the modest sanctuary. You exalt my writings as a lover does; I must fear those who, with a sour disdain for everything, condemn even the most refined works through neglect. Nevertheless, I thank you that you write that the lord Patricius judges me as you have rendered me by your testimony. So that affection is owed to your recommendation, not to the page, which a rough style has marked without the gift of eloquence. Yet, offering a greeting worthy of your greatness, I give thanks to God that he has brought you, increased by favorable successes, back to your own, whom my mind, because of the bond of affection, never feels to be absent.

VI. ENNODIUS TO LAURENTIUS. I must yield to the command of love: affection holds me bound, to which I have granted words, so that I would not be silent regarding what pertains to the duty of greeting. The opportunity of the household bearer could not be lost to me, unless I were to send a letter as a testimony of my diligence. Therefore, greeting with due reverence, I pray that you relieve me with a vicarious word, because I promise myself a response by the extension of letters. VII. ENNODIUS TO ADEODATUS THE PRESBYTER. Who is unmindful of your affection, unless he is inhuman? Who would not wish to have the suffrage of a person of such entire religion before God? I especially, who am both weighed down by heavy burdens of sins and have obtained your grace, which promises me complete absolution. Therefore, greeting reverently and dutifully, I hope that you make vows for me in all the holy places: the benefits of God which I have obtained I will discharge without delay, because it is known to me that you deserve to be heard.

VIII. ENNODIUS TO AVIENUS. If an offense brings it about that the writings of your greatness are doubled, how much would I wish that the calm of your serene breast be often disturbed? And unless it were contrary to my purpose, I would heap up causes for indignation, since I have obtained through faults what love does not merit. Yet I announce that I am free from error in that matter in which, while you accuse negligence, you have conferred a reward. I dispatched the boy in confusion, through whom I showed nothing other than what was necessary. With a free heart, the tongue is idle for duties: a confused mind forswears the grace of a greeting. Behold, thanks be to God in both respects, because neither am I guilty, and you have believed me to be guilty. Your agitation has conferred upon me a benefit which affection would never have given. I cannot explain what I owe you: charity is poor, in the telling of which speech does not fail. My lord, saying the greeting that is owed, I pray to God that, whatever you may carry in your mind, you always write.

IX. Ennodius to Marcellianus. I know that your greatness abounds in the great gifts of God and preserves the promised constancy toward friends. Your mind does not know how to promise uncertain things, keeping love without any diminishment, and therefore, after God, I entrust and commend myself, secure, to your hands, and I do not doubt that the benefits of God in whatever affairs will come to me through you. Lord, having paid the honorific salutation as above, I ask that you relieve me with the frequent address of your letters, because the highest gift is granted to me by God if I deserve to rejoice in your well-being, you whom faith and integrity make acceptable to all who fear God. X. Ennodius to Luminosus. The bond of friendship and the grace planted between us, now mature, could feel no harm from separated regions, if what is denied to sight were compensated by conversations and, divided by the sluggish burden of bodies, we were joined in our souls through that part which we have taken from heaven. The tongue would mark the desires of hearts as an index of pure affection, if the service of the mouth served the abundance of desire and the innermost mind were held disclosed in letters: then no neglect would age our love, then diligence, polished by the practice of mutual devotion, would shine, nor would a rough forgetfulness of me harm our memory. But what am I to do, when the clouds of my merits obscure the serenity of one who loves me well, and my sins procure forgetfulness of me?

Let that purpose of mine be abandoned—to imitate what I grieve to have happened, and to take vengeance on your silence by my own silence. Therefore, I have granted words under twin goads. I could not refuse the exchange of letters, which both the situation and goodwill demanded. You know very well what your holy father, the lord bishop, requested from you both through me and in his own person: that the expense incurred for the needs of the lord pope of Ravenna be repaid by restitution. For to certain powerful persons, whose names it is not safe to set down in writing, the lord knows that he disbursed more than four hundred gold solidi; these he granted on my word as surety. My standing with him cannot be free until, through you, as I trust, the promise is fulfilled. Therefore I have sent the bearer of this letter, a man both of religion and of good faith, so that you may relieve me of this obligation and injury of which I have spoken. Hence, paying the honor of a greeting with all humility, I beseech you, adjuring you by Him who has regarded the common prayers concerning the holy pope, to arrange how I may be freed from this kind of harassment. Yet if you do not think it shameful, let me know, and I will restore from my own resources whatever is established to have been spent on my pledge by the holy bishop, for I have letters of the holy pope in which he ordered that whatever needed to be done should be carried out with my security. If I deserve to suffer, it will be for your foresight to pay.

XI. ENNODIUS TO SENARIUS. If your mind did not cast off the memory of diligence concerning my person, if your sublimity did not force it to return to judgment after favor, you would prolong frequent writings. But what am I to do, since an undeserved love does not rest on strong roots, and whatever the breeze of grace has snatched away is quickly brought back to examination? I know that I alone was first to be loved before being approved: this only fruit of affection I possessed, which, while unknown, I withdrew by foresight. But it would have been fitting for you not to depart quickly from him to whom you imposed the name of friend, lest the affection promised to me always revert to my own fault. For the conscience of one bound is often ignorant of strictness, and it is necessary that whatever a faithful heart once receives, it hold perpetually. Therefore, offering due greeting, I hope that, despising the rancid disdain of the powerful, you may elevate your honor and the capacity that God has granted with the burdens of humility. Let the tongue, as interpreter of minds, confirm the trustworthiness of this matter, and let charity shown through letters bear faithful testimony to hearts.

XII. ENNODIUS TO ABBOT STEPHANUS. The gifts of God are doubled for those who hope, and grace abounds with twofold richness: by divine favour, the stream of heavenly gifts runs with abundant channels; the torrents of gifts that come from Christ surpass the capacity of the one who draws from them. The only vein that knows no leanness and renounces any lack is that which supplies to its courses as much as the breast of the thirsty one deserves to receive. Pay attention to what hidden savour instils, when water kindles thirst and the moisture of a living river produces dryness on the lips of a soul burning with desire. Such is the nature of your letters: as much satiety as they bring to desires, they also produce increase; their depth is both drunk and longed for, and they enrich with a pure flood even as they secretly kindle the innards with fire. In them I see kindred flames and draughts, and a diversity of nature has come together into a foreign harmony. My lord, by the grant of our God, provide a long-lasting example of the most blessed life to the earth, and through the philosophy of holy religion show that one must hope not only in this life, by contempt for the present age.

XIII. ENNODIUS TO APOLLINARIS. How much my care, which serves your affection through necessity, suggests day by day, I would have devised no losses of travelers, did I not have recourse to that sole comfort of the absent, which supreme providence finds in letters. But what am I to do, when the confusion of those who come is so great that you do not know who is chiefly to be chosen, to whom writings of your holy conscience may be entrusted? For the baser men draw into the occasion of their own profit whatever we bestow out of affection, and it is grievous that what the force of love demands should serve cupidity. Therefore I have suspended my mind from writing until the opportunity of a domestic bearer, lest the scattered account of diligence, through the unseasonableness of unworthy bearers, be patched up by others' importunity, and the blame return to me which did not take its beginning from me. Therefore, briefly explaining the necessity of procured silence, I turn to my customary page, through which the awaited words on pages grant me the presence of your greatness by the secret paths of minds. Farewell, therefore, my lord, and with that serenity which you owe to your kind, frequently cherish the lover with conversations, because there is no gift so venerable to a solicitous man, as if I often learn that you announce your own safety and seek mine.

XIV. ENNODIUS TO EUPREPIA. Frequent meetings, which both duty and affection demand, a devoted heart would provide, were it not that the remedy for longing is withdrawn by the consideration of separated lands, which offers no cure. For whatever is joined by love, whatever is bound by the chain of blood, when separated, scarcely breathes across the intervals of regions. What resources can one have who is denied frequent opportunity and the comfort of a written address? By what witness is silent diligence among the absent revealed? For either the expected opportunity of travelers is withheld, or such persons are found to whom letters to be delivered to loved ones cannot be entrusted. Yet I have long suspended my anxious prayers until the arrival of the bearer from my household, through whom, after offering the honor of a greeting, I may reveal to you the desired indications of my well-being, and promise myself a reply by the publication of a letter, by which, if your health is in port, I may be opened to embraces of words.

XV. ENNODIUS TO EUPREPIA. Rarely does love, supported by kinship, bow its neck to necessity: it scarcely happens that one who is always emperor and rules by his own right, affection, becomes a servant. By what obstacle is the royal name of diligence ever impeded? To what service is free charity enslaved? Only one who has cast off the bond of the mind offers an excuse from some fear. A mind that serves piety does not fear, even if the commands of princes are harsh. There are no laws of peoples so barbarous that they do not permit a mother to be restored to her son. Whatever exists among the nations of the world does not depart from humanity. Whatever is born in the light of the world requires the fruit of the womb and the seed. Only with all animals do we share a common cause and concern. What kind of mind will that savagery be judged to have, which is found to be behind irrational creatures in care for its offspring? The preceding composition concerns your kinship. You, forgetful of your only child, have taken away both the compassion for the bereaved and the happiness of one whose mother survives. I truly confess, under the freedom of my purpose, especially now when even conversations are denied him by you—peace, with God propitious, being solidified among the masters of our regions by every root—that you have surpassed the tigress in savagery. When could it be found, either what you could love more than a son, or what you could fear on account of a son? Care for property should have been put aside, because an inheritance is never well acquired when the heir is despised.

I declare: had God not, through my concern, opposed the ill-wishers of His servant, every shoot of your family would have been cut down. Lionesses entrust their cubs to the safe recesses of forests or wilderness, lest their offspring become prey for men. Perhaps you will say that this reproach shows I bear the burden imposed upon me by the young man with bitterness. The Lord knows that I suffer bitterly only from this: that I lack your presence and perceive that you, through silence, are wholly forgetful of your affection. Yet, by God’s grace, paternal persistence is not denied to our boy. He has entered the threshold of nobility to be instructed in the liberal arts. I have also sent to you the very composition by which he was commended, in which you may recognize not eloquence but my wishes. Farewell, then, my lady, and if it can be done, return to our sight in accordance with God’s ordinance. XVI. ENNODIUS TO LACONIUS. For a long time now my mind has been tormented by the expectation by which it used to be relieved. You have prolonged your silences, compelled by no necessity. I have not been an imitator of this negligence, so that I too would defer writing, but I fell silent day after day, deceived by the hope of a forthcoming conversation. Yet now the already mature silence of your Excellency has overcome my deliberation. The silence, which has stubbornly taken root, must be uprooted. Therefore, my letter serves a double purpose: I commend the bearer Benenatus, who is coming on account of his fugitive slaves, and I do not delay the goods of my desires.

Therefore farewell, my lord, and recognizing that favorable events are being managed on your behalf according to your wish concerning me, hasten to relieve me with equal words, so that both the bearer may rejoice in the favor and I may be uplifted by the response. XVII. TO STEPHEN THE BISHOP, FROM ENNODIUS. After your merits were restored to dignity and the honor which your life demands was conferred upon you, I have received no letters from your Beatitude concerning my sins. The forgetfulness preserved toward me is foreign to your character and habits regarding suppliants. Let pontifical authority not accuse my temerity: it is difficult for diligence to consider what right it may possess; one whom the command of charity spurs never measures himself. It is added that I could not extend welcoming hands to the bearer of this letter, except to bring Benenatus, a man seeking Gaul for certain business, to the notice of your crown through the office of my speech; commending him with all humility, I ask that through him you arrange for me to be relieved by vicarious addresses. Lord, paying the service of salutation with full devotion, I hope, in the first place, that the serenity of your prayers may not omit making mention of me as well, when you supplicate the Divinity without ceasing, on behalf of my person.

XVIII. BISHOP EULALIUS, ENNODIUS. To what a fourth summit the gift of spiritual conversation has brought me, the difficulty would testify, if it could be encompassed by speech. For narrating it, the poverty of my mind is not suitable, nor does the scantiness of my mouth suffice. For what else shall I reckon it, that you have been mindful of me, than that sins are overcome? Your memory has already driven away everything that the obscenity of my deeds could supply, and has granted me to look upon the heavenly gift through clear skies. My lord, as I fittingly impart the courtesies of a greeting, I ask God that that soul, in which everything that God commands abounds, may see to preserving the promised condescension toward my insignificance without any diminution. That this matter befalls me according to my wish, declare by the testimony of frequent letters. XIX. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. Thanks be to God, who, according to my desires, makes conversations busy so that I never refrain from writing: for what the force of love demands can also be of benefit. Therefore, my lord, making known the signs of my health, I suspect I have found your fugitive servant, by name Germanus, who slipped away three years ago, concerning whom I have sent a little note: if he is truly yours, I shall learn what is to be pursued promptly.

XX. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. The business of my relative, your worshipper Julian, is beset by the manifold snares of Marcellinus, who, prepared only for complaint, distrusts the integrity of the judgment: he shuns the examinations he professes to desire. For after he is reported to have produced some order or other at Genisa, the aforesaid suppliant of yours at once hastened to the audience of the Milanese forum and for thirty or forty days thrust his presence upon the public judge, as was proper. He called upon Gevica himself, who was said to have been appointed the instigator, to send his charge to the courts; he admonished him. He also informed the lord Trasemundus, as you will be able to learn from his own letters. But nothing availed with him, for whom only concealment can be a remedy in a wretched cause. On his behalf I ask, although with you there is no need of prayers, wherever the truth becomes known, because he has transmitted all the documents of this matter, that by your ordinance he be made free from molestations of this kind. Lord, offering the respects of a greeting, I hope that you will both cause the aforesaid man to be relieved of his harassment, as you are accustomed to do, and relieve my anxiety by a letter concerning the state of your prosperity.

XXI. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. He who is commended both by the knowledge of his elders and by the tongue of good repute must be set forth in few words: he who is aided in your greatness by his own gifts has no need of lengthy discourse. The aforesaid composition speaks of the sublime man Vitalis, whom it made rejoice in the fellowship of your sacred college. Therefore, will he who enters the curia not as a stranger by the benefit of your speech, and for whom you have unbarred the inner sanctum of liberty, be shut off from the secrets of the heart by letters from outsiders? But I rejoice in manifold writing, because, even if I grant little to the bearer, I suffer no loss of my own desire. Lord, returning the salutation which I owe, I pray that the grace of your eminence may show itself more fully toward the aforesaid man, and that it may provide for me by the restoration of conversation. XXII. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. The hope which demands a frequent exchange of letters mocks me. Relying on it, I feed my mind with ineffectual conversations. It is long since, by unceasingly prolonging my writings, the silence which I believed to have been overcome is confirmed. But what am I to do, when the besieged heart is brought back to counsel by pious love? It devises remedies, and finds that what it has discovered has availed nothing. Therefore, offering the obedience of a salutation with accustomed reverence, I commend the present bearer, Constantine himself, for whom honesty and modesty are his recommendation, and to whom, although I owe much by affection, I yet pay greater things, compelled, by judgment.

XXIII. ENNODIUS TO MARCELLIANUS. Among those who love and are powerful in honor, the impulse of benefits is at hand, nor does any delay cheapen the prayers of one to whom it is customary to grant them. Virgilius, a sublime man, preeminent both in blood and in integrity, laments greatly the necessity imposed upon him by an illustrious man, the count of the sacred Banenna, of undertaking a journey; if the desires of this man had such a thing, his advanced age would offer ready hands. He who uses me as his intercessor, so that a burden of this kind may be made foreign to him, suggests the power of the aforementioned, instructed by reports of what he has often done. My lords, offering you the honor of a greeting, I beg that, out of consideration for me, effect be given to the requested testimony of diligence. XXIIII. ENNODIUS TO MASCATOR. The diligence of your heart, not feigned by any spirit, has adorned me: I use the testimony of a style that I have elicited, I who among the learned displease by my garrulity beyond ignorance. A forced speech has stolen a price, which it does not possess from eloquence, from the necessity imposed upon it: an insult that a command has produced was never worthy of vengeance: no one justly condemns an obedient man; he who provokes an unskilled man owes to himself the injuries inflicted by rustic speech. It is arrogance for the more exalted not to obey, it is greater if you despise having descended from obedience.