Epistulae

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 subdeacon, has come to me, and I have received him with the affection due to one who is recommended by your judgment. But the assertion of a shameless desire is thought to be not to love what you demand: he who suspends censure over the obedient one supports his own judgment: a harsh strictness is ill-advised which considers merit in a parent: he has not driven modesty from its station who owes what he speaks to authority. Therefore in us, what eloquence sullies is commended by services. You have seen what sort of thing it is that you ordered to be offered: I consider that I have deserved, without loss to my countenance, what you desired to receive. I pass over among these things, which ought to have been narrated in the first place, that ecclesiastical humility could have renounced what was pleasing, that the one who loves prayer did not follow the pomp of orations, that from consideration of my purpose I also flee what leads to glory, as if I avoid a vice whatever elevates, consider it a fault what raises or exalts, lose the merit of just praise through the affection of favor. I will not put forward an excuse of truth colored with a brush, while I repeat that I have already left behind whatever care of liberal studies had given, that from the bed of a once copious river scarcely a drop of drying eloquence is poured forth. I pass over that the tongue, which use had made mobile, another use has dulled, that silence stands for eloquence, that abjection is loved by us instead of the buskin. I return to this: because it was not permitted for me to hide within a modest sanctuary nor to cover the weakness of my talent with the garment of silence, I will count this which I have set forth as a complete defense.

but, provoked by love, I have transgressed the bounds of a letter with thoughtless loquacity. Farewell, my lord, to whom, by offering a greeting with honor, I will prove what you think of my letter, either by your silence or by a more extensive reply. XXV. ENNODIUS TO EUGENETES. Only one who is lame in faith can think that there is no gratitude among you in a fixed abode: yet I wish that the frequency of letters be extended as a testimony of diligence, lest a mind anxious about the well-being of a lover, while health is in a state of illness, be tossed about by suspicions. Behold, my lord, you have here a means to recognize the serenity of my heart from the betrayal of my desire. Stand by your part, and just as the prerogative of a commanded gift elevates me, so may the grace of a speech offered exalt you. Therefore, returning the greeting that is owed, I pray that you clarify what your desire promotes in me, under whatever cloud of meaning. Farewell. XXVI. ENNODIUS TO AVIENUS.

Your greatness is present in all its parts and asserts the splendor of its blood by the testimony of purity. Pious hearts do not know how to abandon love; a noble mind preserves religious diligence. Therefore, I have received writings gleaming with a double light, since what a holy breast conceived, a serene right hand has signed. I pray God that He preserve your pious nature, if it loves Rome, in perpetuity, and that He multiply such studies concerning me under the care you have promised. Farewell. XXVII. AVIENUS TO ENNODIUS. I do not know whether frequent conversations are pleasing to your greatness: I, however, will always offer what I expect from those who love. I endure that others have one purpose: I must live by my own custom, so that the fullness of love may be unlocked by the key of speech: I do not permit festering silence to creep into affection, with custom fleeing. Now, if your highness has equal care, let it be shown by the assiduity of conversation, let it be revealed by the frequency of letters: but if, preoccupied until now by other pursuits, you have now yielded to my opinion under the command of diligence, you will possess as much of my obedience as you have yielded of your right. Therefore, farewell, lord, and accept this small gift, valued not by its cheapness but by the price of the sender. Farewell.

XXVIII. ENNODIUS TO EUPREPIA. Although I had received a page of your charity that was compliant only with the customary obligations, and neither fitting for affection nor for kinship, the situation nonetheless demanded that I reply to your conversations by means of a deputy, through a similarity of style, with a diligence that travels abroad, lest the omission of the service of speech reveal not your cunning to have been unknown to me, but our own lack of eloquence. I do not wish, sister Euprepia, that you complain of any of the evils of the provinces or, as you said, of the machinations of men. Wherever you may have withdrawn, as the matter shows, you do not abandon a mind that is too readily credulous: we do not flee our vices by changing regions. Toward your relatives you had such a disposition that you would neither weigh their good deeds with fair interpretation nor rebuke their excesses with only the due reproach. But why should a letter of grief be made longer? Your character no abundance of eloquence will be able to change. For the rest, farewell, my lady, and as is expedient, order the course of your life and soul. Yet know that I will bestow upon Lupicinus not what I owe to you, but what is fitting for my soul, because the only affection that merits a greater reward from God is that which is granted when provoked by no human endowments.

29. Ennodius to Eugenetes. Whenever words serve the pledges of our feelings, as if in a mirror, so in pages speech paints a likeness friendly to itself, with which it converses as with a living counterpart and rejoices that a sweet image complies with its desires. Indeed, no abundance of speech expresses the conception of a bonded heart, and although words are easier than benefits and nothing exists that cannot grow by ambition of speech, I, in explaining my diligence toward you, bear witness to a dry eloquence. Yet I reproach your unanimity for silence, because, though presented with a double letter, you thought nothing of a reciprocal reply. Behold, I send pages again, knowing that I give what I expect. Farewell, my lord, and address your lover with the brilliance in which you are eminent, cherish him with the integrity in which you prevail. 30. Ennodius to Avienus. I am amazed that unpleasant things are joined to the shrines of your greatness and that the serenity of your conscience is stained by the harshness of your words, when you write that I command pages rather than that they are earned by the exactress diligence. Do you think any kind of ruling is more sublime than that which subjects us through love? There are no heights, Lord Avienus, immune from the yoke of affection: whatever freedom exists in the world is not withdrawn from such servitude. Behold, I, lowly in station, unknown to your offices, will thus command by your fasces, content to be subject in equal order. Now farewell, and as much as you perceive you have bestowed upon me, so much bestow upon me as a faithful restorer of affection.

31. Ennodius to Avienus. Although the quality of letters is composed according to one's talents and often serves formality, sometimes it bears witness to the signs of affection—letters which sincerity sometimes dictates, but more often a contrivance akin to pretense, which, though it feigns candor with an urbanity of diligence, is revealed by the very covering with which it is concealed, for when stripped of its fabricated coverings, it is disclosed within its veil. Yet I consider pages to be a mirror of conscience, through which friendship, even in absence, scarcely dares to discern; still, it is clear what simple speech and what artificial speech convey. The mind, as interpreter of the composition, cuts through the clouds of eloquence: it quickly reaches understanding, the path of words having been cleared by its own scythes. Therefore, I greatly delight in those duties by which sincerity is laid open and no opportunity for secure deception inserts itself. Nevertheless, I rejoice that either reasons for writing or bearers of letters come my way, so that by this frequency I may satisfy my own desire and burden your modesty, unless what I have undertaken is returned by you. Greetings, my lord, and, with your affection commanding, grant my opinion. Farewell.

32. Ennodius to Passivus. If speech were sufficient to express love, if my poor eloquence could fully set forth my affection, to whom more than to you would we offer a frequent stream of letters? And were it not for the constraint of your heart’s worth, no one would more worthily command the service of my speech. Others bear witness with their lips to an affection they do not know in their minds, and paint the moments of their correspondence with seductive exchanges, when in the recesses of a holiday heart all love is on the tongue and nothing is brought to the inner self except what is conveyed in writing. But my feeling toward you, oppressed by the leanness of my eloquence and the abundance of our friendship, has fallen silent: for I fear that a beggarly conversation might set a limit to our grace, that the same measure might be thought to belong to speech and to our bond. It is better to leave more to your esteem through silence than to show the losses of my devotion through letters. Behold, I plead the reasons for our rarer conversation, believing that with you eloquence is set aside in favor of due sincerity. For the rest, greetings, my lords, and, enjoying divine favors, as your life proceeds into length, fulfill the heavenly commands. For kindness, when it has begun from a full store, finds increase in you. Farewell.

33. Ennodius to Faustus. The pages comply with the purpose for which commendation is offered to the afflicted. For in them the integrity of religion is clear, which, flattered by no pretense toward the more powerful, upholds the tears of the humble. But of this elsewhere. When you see the bearer, you will recognize the intention of the writer. Would that the outcome of the supplication before your greatness might reconcile the matters to be pleaded, as he obtained letters from me. The preceding speech introduces a religious woman, poor, presuming upon a good case. Consider whether it was proper to withdraw words from frailty, from justice, whether it befitted me to fail either in duty or in character. Behold, I, paying the reverence of a greeting, have declared what I owed to my own obligations: what remains for you, attend to, because just as the petition seeks my person on behalf of the aforementioned woman’s will, so the outcome will look to yours. Farewell. 34. Ennodius to Senarius. There is nothing, indeed, that is not raised from truth into the heights by ambitious eloquence. But I suffer from speechlessness in my diligence toward you. Speech was never equal to love; the office of the mouth always yielded to the good of conscience. For this reason I use the confidence of an admonisher. I did not believe that your greatness would for so long be forgetful of me, that you would even refrain from formal conversations, that those things which are accustomed to feign affection with a contrived countenance would be denied between persons bound by the chains of a pact. If I were able to recount these things, I could endure them.

Behold, I write again, and I attest by examples what I assert in words. You yourselves shall see what it will be like henceforth to neglect honorable desires: I, accustomed by practice, apply patience to grief. Farewell. BOOK FOUR. I. ENNODIUS TO POPE SYMMACHUS. It is the mark of a good emperor to inspire the proven valor of a soldier in the line of battle, so that courage, invited by the sustenance of praise, may unlearn the affection for life in subsequent engagements. Whose strength is not nourished by the commendation of a leader? To what do even the less robust limbs of a recruit deny themselves in conflicts, when he sees by the testimony of his commander that what he has done does not perish? The only way by which intention grows for battle is when deeds well done are not erased by oblivion. Would that the divinity, moved by your prayers, might put an end to the diabolical contest! Would that it might manifest my devotion in peace, so that concord might commend the service of one whose zeal adversity has revealed! An instructed embassy was sent to Bishop Marcellianus by your brother: but he himself has written back what he accomplished. What remains, I pray, with the offices of greeting extended, that you may cure whatever is ailing with medicinal prayer and, among the hidden secrets of diseases, that you may cut away with the spiritual sword the error which is preserved for general destruction. Farewell.

Ennodius to Alicho. While the venerable Amantius the presbyter demands pages from you, he has made a matter of my devotion his own command. A happy necessity, which renders obedience to my wishes: a free command of a superior, which serves affection. The one who compels me owes me what I granted to my own will. This writing is fortunate, which bears witness to love twice over, while it both draws a new person into the right of affection and binds the heart of an older friend. He, while he is a faithful herald of your greatness, first caused you to be chosen by his testimony before you were known. Rarely has affection preceded acquaintance: to whom has it happened to please before being seen? How much weight the bearer has with me, take note: at whose nod our judgments are bent. We have seen the one he learned to know; we embrace the one he praises. Often a mind settled in its own judgment yields to a friend’s examination. Rightly, therefore, do we look up to those whom a proven man extols. Now, if the abundance of grace were set forth by the leanness of my talent, if the poverty of my dry speech did not grow weary at the fountain of alliance, if the quality of a letter, which imposes restraints even on eloquent men, permitted me to proceed to longer matters, I would assert how much your nobility owes me, because I first approached the commerce of letters, because I unbarred the door of affection with the key of speech. I beg, however, that the bearer be loved in return for what he has bestowed. I set forth the causes of the church, because what is expended for my hope increases to your merit.

My lord, I pay you the tribute of the most profuse greeting, and I beg that, if it is your heart's desire to accept my offering as a libation of charity, you may unlock the religion of a friendly conscience by your speech. Farewell. III. ENNODIUS TO BISHOP EVALIUS. Thanks be to the Trinity, our God, who sustains the burden of sins by which I am oppressed with the alacrity of a strong man in his own person, who inserts my memory into that temple of your holy breast wherein Christ, the subtle builder, rejoices, so that what I have darkened with the cloud of my own conduct may be wiped clean by the serene brightness of your conscience. Now I know that the lamentations of sinners are not poured out ineffectively. This my prayer, these my tears have brought me, in the first place, that you should rise up as a strong intercessor for me, that you should lend a heaven-armed right hand to my faltering shoulders. It is true that only despair before God destroys the sinner. Behold, already our tares, thorns, or tribuli promise barley, wheat, vineyards. Go on, chosen one of God, for me, the humble one, with what you have begun, and stand by your part, while by the assiduity of your prayers you wash away in me what I have heaped up by the abundance of my faults. Also, nourish the one you have taken up with frequent conversations, so that you may strengthen my insipid heart, supported by no stability of virtues, with the salt of admonition. I return to the duties of greeting, and, having transgressed the limit of a letter, I add one thing, like a chatterbox but importunate for my needs: that you may help me without ceasing as much by your prayers as you strengthen me by your words. Farewell.

A copy of the letter which he himself dictated. To his brother and sister. Although some owe a meager gratitude even to wicked offspring, and that which is bestowed upon posterity is not considered a benefit but a debt, when a malicious interpreter subjects the judgment of the heart to the commands of nature and, removing the savor of diligence, thinks that only what is imposed by the act of begetting should be commanded, when the name of "son" is believed to be worth more than obedience, and you do not ask what you advance in the scale of love, but what name you oppose to the prejudice of the one judging, when among the wise we call someone "offspring" in vain unless he exhibits what he is called: for he who neglects judgment in his progeny indicates that the conception pleases him more than the merit. Let us cease to think only of what pleased us in our descendants. For the fruit of the womb, unless it answers with integrity, seems to have come about more as a testimony of wantonness than of grace. For it is right that the faithful bond of kinship be always preferred even to offspring: it is granted that a sharer of one's origin be so regarded that neither the bond of blood is neglected nor the examination descending from merit is praised. And therefore, lest words proceed sinuously at length with prefaces and what is narrow in substance be swollen by speech, I give, I confer upon your brotherhood, and I transfer to your right with perpetual freedom a slave of my right, that one, and the rest. Farewell.

To Faustus, Ennodius. The sublime man Dalmatius, an undiminished and solid portion of my soul, to whose prerogative of blood the splendor of character has been added, believed it would suit his business if he were aided by my addresses to your Highness. I did not think it should be omitted, being aware of his character, making it a matter of a certain courtesy to grant to the person what I know you owe to justice. For in Sicily, the aforementioned man's estate, possessed up to now by good right, is said to have been invaded by partners. Now, whatever I advance by supplication is expended for the aid of civility. My lord, paying the respects of a greeting with full humility, I beseech that you fortify the interests of the aforementioned nobleman, the laws, the sense of shame, and the other ornaments of the republic which subsist through your conscience. Farewell. To Agapitus, Ennodius. I believed, after your greatness was devoted to the general good and leisure migrated into glory, after you, occupied with the vigils of Ravenna, while neglecting your own rest, strengthened ours with all solidity, and a private genius passed over to the adornments of the realm, when a new light, withdrawn from domestic confines, added itself to the palatine splendor, and the master of things rightly measured the pomp of his reign to have been narrower when he did not have you, that I would be relieved by frequent conversations on account of the proximity of the regions. But sins mocked the ineffective counsels of my hope: a serene mind sends no pages as a testimony of diligence.

It is grievous if I have not merited love, more grievous if I have perhaps disturbed the affection I had demanded. Yet I know that these things must be veiled by clouds of excuses that accord with the truth, that in private matters the gifts of letters are found, and that such things are not rightly demanded of the busy. But I know that a firm conscience in affection, even when distracted among any burdens and adversities, does not deny its debts of grace. Now I do not wish to be prodigal in complaints. Paying the reverence of a greeting, I beg that you bring the suggestion, which the bearer of this letter has deposited with you, to the desired outcome. Farewell. VII. ENNODIUS TO JULIANUS, VIR ILLUSTRISSIMUS COMES PRIVATARUM RERUM. I have received letters radiant with a double splendor, in which the purple of your dictation, joined to your dignity, has increased in value, returning thanks to almighty God, who surpasses the leanness of prayers with the abundance of his bounty and, when in our desires we, conscious of our merits, pursue narrowness, does not restrain the riches of generous indulgence. I believed it would be enough if you made me sublime by the most ample writing: but you, not content to bestow only what a beggarly petition has, being eloquent of tongue and rich in praise, have sent pages like a great river, which, whenever it is invited from its channels to the side to temper the neighboring dryness, flows whole into the desired slender stream and bathes the withered backs, foul with deep squalor, with the intoxication of the saving wave.

Yet, preserving the custom of the powerful, may your greatness not abandon my insignificance once it has well begun, so that the care of a letter may serve as a testimony of diligence and the charms of conversation may bring the assurance of pure love. May the love you promised before your high offices know no decline: let my grace increase as much as the heights of your dignities have been joined to you, lest the friendship fostered by my mediocrity be thought renounced by your power. For one who curbs pride in high station shows that he deserved what he attained. Reveal through the integrity of your conscience that happiness can be subjected to the commands of love: those free necks of the nobility, while you bestow form, subjugate them to diligence. Let it become customary for you that the greatest in fellowship retains whom the lesser acquires. Fortune mocks those whom it leads to the heights, by indicating forgetfulness of their own. For one who knows, to recall good things is not a necessity of admonition but an occasion for praise. I know the tranquility of your mind, fashioned for good pursuits, which I mention specifically to show that where affection is solid, honors have no license. But I have exceeded the bounds of a letter while clinging too much to my own commendation: I return to the duties of epistolary address and, announcing my farewell, I promptly seek favorable news of your prosperity.

VIII. ENNODIUS TO BISHOP SYMMACHUS. You have advanced me even to the point of temerity by your apostolic condescension: the confidence granted became the mother of audacity. But whoever thinks me ignorant of humility will find me obedient, if he considers the commands. It is presumption if servants do not follow the benefits of their masters: I consider it obedience that I pay to one who is about to obey. Behold, I have set forth the reason for writing, because I feared that, after the care of composition had been commanded, I would reject the precepts by remaining silent. To this was added that, in the case of the venerable Marius of blessed memory, while I was in the city, you gave me hope by my prayers, whose business was settled with your holy church by a lawful agreement. But his heirs lament that the fruits due to them have been withheld for many years: on behalf of which I come as a suppliant, aware of your conscience, because one who is accustomed to do pious things continually will not despise just things, and one who gives away his own will not take away another's; he errs who believes that a conscience close to God is enticed by profits: it is a loss to a holy will not to bestow a benefit. You consider as gains only those which arise for you from liberality, you who receive riches while you give them away. The dispensation of holy men is greedy, which, by reserving nothing, brings everything back to its own merit: there are no gains more powerful than those which come to you from generosity.

Therefore, secure in the promise I made above to the heirs of my labor, I pledged a loss in your contemplation: complete my promise with your benign disposition, fulfilling it for them, and relieve me with your conversation. IX. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. Epistolary composition, when carried away by favor, is wont not to love judgments and to bestow a more abundant benefit while it exalts the undeserving. For he who obtains by the supporting grace of a writer what his character does not demand owes more to the one who asserts it, because, aided by no endowments of conscience, he rightly credits to the pleader whatever he gains. It is one thing to implant, as it were, wandering goods into one who is commended, like a noble scion; another to proclaim innate qualities, as if you were to assert that a rustic flock spontaneously clothes itself in Tyrian purple, and that a noble dye, which the vat's inebriating bronze did not absorb, spreads over the fields. Others tinge with the murex of language what no dye has furnished for royal use, and the wool, unknown to the distinct seas and their shells, drinks only the light of eloquence: whatever the words of the reporters have colored in a base offering is rendered worthy of imperial garments. But from such urbanity my strength and my wishes alike withdraw. No threads of brighter hue will gleam through me: no one will find a statement about anyone that he does not recognize in his actions. Hence I extend a hand to my modesty and purpose, because I provide the prior service of speech to him who meets your notice by his well-done deeds. Venantius, vir clarissimus.

I speak, therefore, of having obtained from me a page's service, so that it might invite the eyes of your greatness upon itself, lest it chance to be unknown amid the burdens of your cares. It has its own merits, through which it deserves to be enrolled among those you have taken up. It has exhibited to you modesty, religious devotion, innocence, with which it might enter the inner chambers of your serene mind as a companion. The distinctions you foster abound in him, believe me: you will find that I have not been a flatterer in him but a witness. You, my lord, grant the bearer your favor as a foremost gift, lest a good man be disturbed by novelty: he will clearly stand by his own merits and will compensate for the poverty of words with the wealth of his life. X. TO TRASIMUNDUS, VIR ILLUSTRIS, FROM ENNODIUS. It was not rashness that led me to the duty of a page, when the scion of royal stock invites every subject of his to a common bond. For this brightness of lords is implanted in their births, that they elevate their heights by their condescension. You wish to treat your servants almost as equals, so that they may owe you more through love than by their very condition. Hence, most pious lord, while discharging the obedience to be rendered with generality, I indicate that I have sent the bearer of this letter to suggest some matters. Grant the suppliant his request, for I have come as a petitioner supported by hope.

XI. ENNODIUS TO LUMINOSUS. He who reveals a friendly conscience with clear indications removes the leisure from those to whom he has granted the dignity of his favor. For the mouth of one who is accustomed to be heard is scarcely at rest, because it is a great loss of modesty to withhold the benefit of words, so that while we spare our tongue, the brow, prodigal of honesty, labors. You have made me garrulous, you who have been accustomed to admit my prayers. But lest I circumlocute what is to be granted and suspend the requests by the prolixity of the letter, I return to the matter. The sublime man Laurentius asserts that the revenues due to him, which the Roman Church promised by a pact made with its author, are denied by the lord pope under some opposition or other. In this business he implores, through me, the favor of your defense, so that you may seem to show to diligence what you owe to the laws, and that affection may increase for that which cannot be denied to equity. Grant this matter according to my wishes, so that as much advantage accrues to the named man, I may confess to have received as much of a gift. Therefore, saying farewell, I hope that, concerning the duties of letters, neither sincere love may take a vacation, nor eloquence, celebrated by the testimony of the whole world, fall silent.

XII. ENNODIUS TO IOHANNES. It is a natural outcome that care passes into joy and complaint is changed into praise, whenever desired things are granted. I was uncertain in my mind what your Sublimity’s such long silence meant, but when it is given to enjoy what is wished for, I myself seek out a respectable kind of excuse on your behalf. See what serene attentiveness does: as if everything had flowed for me according to my wish, I, placated by a simple favor, have granted forgiveness for errors. You have a means by which you can assume the form of pious love and borrow examples of constancy regarding friendship. If you follow me, not even many sins will draw you back from union, and one good deed of your comrade will absolve your faults. Do you assail me, brother, with silence, with forgetfulness? Where was this spirit of yours when even the published conversations did not merit a response, nor did you go before me to command the concern of my pen? Where was the intemperance of letters not maintained around all in Liguria? By displaying pages to many who were wandering far from their desire for you as a solace for my grief, you both continued silence toward me and offered to them conversation contrary to their wishes, because this is the nature of human affairs: that for a great kinship, a small zeal always exists. Mindless of this order, you wished to join certain unskilled things with letters, thinking that things distant by every path could come together in affection. What did your persuasive speech, composed with labored-over words, advance, when it called a lover of the ignorant of the good arts, with me set aside?

But of this elsewhere: I do not wish to rehearse a multitude of transgressions, since I have been appeased by a brief explanation. For I would have used restraint in speaking of them, had I not believed that you know that of offences, that which is concealed remains, and that which breaks forth into speech is removed. My lord, I pray that henceforth you not be inspired, as a despiser of correction, toward those things which you have learned to be ill-regarded, but that you frequently direct sweet pages to me, so that the gift of eloquence may increase while it preserves the bonds of harmony. XIII. ENNODIUS TO CONSTANTIUS, VIR ILLUSTRIS. Your Magnitude preserves toward friends and its own devotees that which joins itself to glory. For while you deem men worthy of remembrance, you prove yourselves. For, receiving writings in consolation for a long time, I sigh at the losses of your absence. O the skill of artifice, founded upon celestial goods! So that it may not be permitted for prolonged separation to pluck anything from affection, you promulgate letters presenting a sacred image. God, the examiner of feelings, knows that I am worn down by remembrance of your Eminence and find no support from the sojourn of an excellent man. Yet I render the observance of a greeting by epistolary care, and, giving thanks to your Dignation, I confess that my brother Iohannes also has been restored to me through you. His silence, which until now in forgetfulness of me did not keep silent about what it was doing, has now, reformed for me by your affection, returned to the abjured care of style. I ask, however, that you hasten your return, or if a happy delay detains you, that you make your love manifest by speech.

XIIII. Ennodius to Faustus. Those things which are often bestowed with moderate grace, whenever words are offered to those bound by affection, let whatever has been attended to for favor be assigned to a serene disposition. He does not feign love with painted addresses who entrusts writings to be delivered to masters on behalf of a dear bearer. In the commendation of my sublime and magnificent man Panfronius, with a holiday mouth the mind dictates a letter. For I know not to what height I may exalt the merits of the man I have mentioned, in whom the leanness of my tongue cannot express the debt of my heart. But I would have to renounce the allure of eloquence, even if it were available to me, because a poor speech more rightly confesses abundant diligence, and if we exalt through diffuse pages those who are ignorant of secrets, a letter confined to a narrow space is justly owed to lovers. Therefore, having set forth the reason for my modest speech, I introduce a brother bound by covenant in as few words as possible, yet with many services, so that, aided by your greatness, he may at some point seem to have overcome the contrivances of those clamoring around him in his business. For the rest, offering a servile greeting, I indicate that I am well, if indeed the dispensation of heaven grants me certain signs of your prosperity.

XV. Ennodius to Faustus. The path to obtaining a request is more inclined whenever something is demanded from a religious man by the abjection of a suppliant: for he who is invited by the miseries of a petitioner bestows affection under compulsion; he cannot offer open hands to whom his purpose commands him to hear the afflicted. The bearer of this letter laments that he has been cast down from his ancestral estate, placing the remnant of his hope in your judgment, lest the power of his adversary rejoice over gain and security. You are the concern of the laws, you are the defense of the humble: I have fortified my part with a recommendation. Therefore, increase the venerable name by benefits, because while you grant what is just, you do not neglect those things which pertain to mercy. My lord, receiving the reverence of your greeting, grant effect to my prayers, so that my own desire, while honesty is asserted, may be fulfilled. XVI. Ennodius to Agapitus. Rightly would a reply be demanded by manifold addresses, if the silence of your greatness did not testify that my pages have been found ungrateful. For your taciturnity proclaims that the garrulous one displeases, and, as I think, it seeks a new kind of vengeance, when it does not see that it has advanced what it has passed over in silence. You act by epistolary abstinence, lest letters be sent to you by the inexperienced: yet the effect has been taken away. Deliberate on what will benefit your providence: I have become more frequent in writing, though despised. But a brief speech befits one who has suffered greatly.

Your worshiper, my brother Panfronius, is accompanied by the care of a letter to your eminence; whatever favor is granted to him will also bind me with the chains of the outlay, and I have also entrusted to him some matters to suggest concerning the dignity of the Vicariate. Bring my petition to effect, because I take up my own part whenever I am compelled to undergo testimony before the most upright of men, while I show it to certain persons. XVII. Ennodius to Decoratus. The tongue is rightly believed to be the enunciator of the inner chambers, which calls the hidden secrets of the soul to light through speech: the love of hearts would be unknown, unless that betrayer, speech, revealed it. Justly did the wisdom of the ancients use letters as keys, for through them it made public the affection that lay stored. The mind, having attested its diligence, was drawn into testimony by the writing: it was not permitted to change the charity which a desiring page had promised through its intervention. I have enslaved myself to this custom, or rather law, asserting by the trustworthiness of letters what has grown into my senses concerning your greatness. If you agree with me in equal care for binding, if friendship, the faithful interpreter, considering itself, sees the wish of the other, let the tablet bearing the reply signify it. I, bestowing the gifts of salutation, have not hidden my deliberation as if I were miserly with words.

XVIII. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. In asserting matters to which full honor does not deny its support, I do not employ lengthy addresses, lest a prolix speech seem to have extorted a favor as if from one who would deny it; for you are accustomed to prefer to prayers those things which are to be requested. The parents of the sublime and magnificent man Opilio, residing in Africa, dispatched a certain person, inspired by diligence, who, upon returning to his native soil, imposed upon me this duty, as previously mentioned, that letters written by you for the commendation of his people to the magnificent man Agnellus might be obtained. This matter, most upright of men, you will not refuse, not content that your kindness has recognized only those placed in Italy. Now, rendering my respects by letter, I have indicated the reason for the writing with brevity of words. You, to one speaking few words, grant the most distinguished things. XIX. ENNODIUS TO APOLLINARIS. By prolonging silence toward one who loves you, you have transferred your mind to an absence of the body: by withholding pages, the division, which until now was of no account, has grown immensely. Matters have come to such a pass, through abstinence from letters, that the foresight of a bygone age contributes nothing to love. The affection grows stale which a miser of words disdains to air: diligence is without cultivation when not brought into use through pages: the frequency of the pen nourishes friendship, implanted in hearts, with lively sustenance.

XVIII. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. In asserting matters to which full honor does not deny its support, I do not employ lengthy addresses, lest a prolix speech seem to have extorted a favor as if from one who would deny it; for it would have been easier, brother, for you to have granted what my desires never sought at any time, than to withdraw what has often been granted, because hearts that you, the skilled craftsman, have enticed with sweet words do not know leisure. For by continuing the writing for some time, you had made me forgetful of my separation, while you inserted the venerable image into your gentle address: but now I, a naked inquirer, inspect the empty hands of those who travel. Yet I do not wish to assert others’ faults through my own error, so that I may not be convicted of having admitted what I grieve has been done. Therefore, most correct of men, accept the consolations of desires granted to the absent through heavenly grace, and support the bearers, if you are mindful of me, so that they may not know the hardships of travel, while a friendly commendation has bestowed a homeland upon them when they name you. As they return, relieve me with news of your health. XX. ENNODIUS TO JULIANUS, VIR LAUDABILIS. The good of diligence is exercised by manifold writing: for by the evidence of the tongue, the secrets of minds are revealed. He who exchanges leisure for love devotes care to constant addresses. These are the duties through which silent affection becomes known. The familiar bearer, unless he had received pages to be delivered to your eminence, would testify that I am forgetful of due reverence. For I know not how to be neglectful of affection nor to drive away grace acquired by labor by serving idleness. I owe many words to our bond, but the letter compels brevity. Farewell, my lord, receiving the honor of a greeting and preserve your mature regard for me.

XVIII. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. In asserting matters to which full honor does not deny its support, I do not employ lengthy addresses, lest a prolix speech seem to have extorted a favor as if from one who would deny it; for you may congratulate yourself on the long duration of your happiness, since you have been summoned to the midst of the good of the republic. XXI. ENNODIUS TO BISHOP CONSTANTIUS. Your subdeacon Vigilius wished to test how much affection is returned to me by you, and he has attempted to bring about our union on the occasion of his departure; he wants the state of friendship between us to be measured as it is increased by honors, so that the fruit which we have stored up from the harvest of diligence may return to him. Lead this man, if I deserve it, to the sacraments of the diaconate, so that the dignity of the aforesaid may avail me as a hope for asking greater things. But lest my petition be frustrated by a denial of its effect, let it be granted as such. May you hold your place through long intervals of time by your merits. XXII. ENNODIUS TO POPE SYMMACHUS. Although the noble man Laurentius is supported by his own integrity for the commendation of his children, and the father’s prudence pursues the causes of his offspring, yet with parental anxiety he proceeds to greater things and scarcely believes that what he deserves is sufficient for his children. He seeks a page as an ally in supporting his offspring, and with trembling diligence he strives to share his paternal ardor with the whole world. Consider whether effect could be denied to an excellent man asking what is pious and just. May the divinity grant effect to his prayers and deign to reconcile him to the named affection of your beatitude, so that the invoked mercy of your crown may raise up the little ones, in order that the vows of the anxious parent concerning them may be surpassed.

my lord, I hope that the long-promised kindness will bear witness in that part, if he who prays through me understands that the doubled favor has been bestowed upon those comprehended above. XXIII. ENNODIUS TO DOMINATOR. Indeed, your wishes, which the plea of brother Agnellus laid open, ought to have been such that a letter would unlock them and that a preceding speech would provide a form for eliciting conversations, because what you would owe could have been restored to you, and I could not have defended myself by any pretext from refraining from pages while you were speaking. It was within your right to exchange the leisure of our tongue for the exercise of toil and to remove the rust of rustic eloquence by the pursuits of the forge, because just as it is a loss of love not to dedicate a first speech to one who desires it, so to return silence to a writing that has been published is urged neither by the memory of friendship nor by shame. Now, however, it has added to my inclination that you commanded pages, even if it is withdrawn from testimony, that I never question strength in love. Let it be far from liberal minds that you believe a burden which a friend imposes to be unbearable. Only embrace what has been demanded, and, chastising censure, put aside the rancid disdain of those who judge. Let it be far from you not to cherish him who has obeyed. He is drawn into the hope of higher merit, even if he comes from a common mint, who has enslaved the obedience of his mouth to what was imposed upon you. Therefore, farewell, my lord, because I do not wish conversations that are not constructed to a plumb line to become lengthy.

Restore the harvest of grace according to my confidence, like a fertile soil, because it will henceforth be in your discretion, if you wish to receive my letters frequently, to invite me with these gifts. XXIV. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. A sick mind, just as it does not endure silence, so it abjures the progress of narration: neither taciturnity nor lengthy conversations suit the declaration of grief. The page is constricted, to which words are scarcely granted amid groans. But why do I assert a holiday of speech by speaking more, and promise a letter forced into necessary limits with garrulity? I beseech God that he may succor my anxiety by a manifest indication of your prosperity. Let him admit my tears, to whom closed mouths speak, to whom the rain of the eyes flowing from compunction suffices for a full embassy. I acknowledge that not only my peace but also my health is undermined by the illness of enemies and the storms of rumors. The divinity is powerful enough to remove the uncertainties of an immense tempest with the good of serenity. You, if I deserve anything from God, be well and, for one who loves in you his own conscience, consult the Ravennate vigils by the dispatch of letter-carriers.

XXV. Ennodius to Bassus. If the old devotion, which from my parents toward your greatness stored up abundant harvests from the grace of your favor, were preserved toward my person for the sake of the memory of that trust, the frequency of letters would show it, and speech, as a witness of the heart, would disclose an unburied love. But now I perceive that you have forgotten me, and that you retain no harmony of a better age, when no writings are sent that would reveal your concern. Yet I turn the impatience of my longing into words, I who know that a new friendship has sweetness only if an aged one is preserved, and that that is purer in affection which our elders have tested, knowing that if you hold Camillus in your mind, you will not omit Ennodius. Therefore, discharging the duties of a greeting by epistolary care, I beg that you deign to receive with favor the bearer of this letter, my cleric, whom a cause both of his own advantage and of my command has led to Gaul. When he returns, mark it with a letter of your prosperity, so that if forgetfulness has caused any loss in love, epistolary care may restore it.

XXVI. Ennodius to Eugenetes, Vir Illustris. May a favorable omen from heaven strengthen your auspices as you enter office, and may divine counsels fortify the beginnings of your venerable dignity. Through you, may heavenly favor guide the lord of liberty, so that from the fountain of your breast what the celestial rain has poured into you may flow to the prince’s ears. Behold, I have set forth in words, though forced into a narrow compass, the prayers I owed to your beginnings. Remember the promise of love and the covenant, so that the quaestorship may discharge its debt to me without the loss of any change. Keep toward me the disposition of your predecessor: let the promise of your dignity not be broken by a change in the persons of my lord. Greet the suppliant according to his desire, and amid a great proclamation of benefits, receive my modest words. For such is the custom of the fortunate and the nature of better men, that their abundance of speech surpasses the deeds and favors they have performed. XXVII. Ennodius to Senarius. The haste of the bearer has compressed my letter into a narrow space and has made me, though grieving greatly, dictate few words. Yet with him this is no burden, who is an interpreter of feelings amid the scantiness of speech. For I am tormented by the slowness of the lord Faustus and by the variety of opinions. After God, you, by a swift reply, come to the aid of my anxiety, because it is worse to be consumed by uncertain hope than to recognize manifest despair through the judgment of a lover. Farewell, my lord, and noting what I desire, send forth prayers or necessary words.

XXVIII. Ennodius to Agapitus. If my days flowed according to my wish, I would not devote my labor to pages of business rather than to those of service, nor would I transfer the duty of affection to foreign offices. But compelled, I have exchanged the task of diligence for necessary matters. For a sublime and magnificent man labors under the treacherous plots of enemies, who through me implores the patronage of your equity, lest a wicked contrivance be allowed to assail his reputation and a fabricated rumor perhaps gain advantage. My lord, offering the most abundant greeting, I beseech that the vigor known in you may arise, and that what is sought from your side through the compliance of my speech may be brought to a fitting fulfillment. XXIX. Ennodius to the Pope. The care of heaven arranges the benefit of its followers: unhoped-for gifts are bestowed on those who merit well from God: divine dispensation brings forth even that which human humility does not presume to ask. The adversaries of your see have recognized by whose champion they are overcome, as our redeemer recently revealed concerning the person of Aquileia. And therefore, among the excellent gifts of divine favors, I ask that your crown not refuse to remember me. For it invites many to serve, he who, though placed far away, loves the one who is obedient. Farewell.

XXX. Ennodius to Eugenetus. After conversations gave effect to the first hope of my desire, I loosened my long-silent lips for the practice of speech: for even one who lacks Latin learning by conscience is animated by successes. When studies fail, joys have often rendered one eloquent: if cheerfulness dispels the clouds of grief, words soon run gleaming through clear skies. Thus either joy shows us perfect, or adversity makes us infants. These things, my lord, are confirmed even with us as witnesses. Therefore, having embraced a time of prosperity, I render the affection of a greeting that is owed, hoping that the noble promise concerning me, which took its beginning from a fullness of grace, may be doubled as if lacking increase. Farewell. XXXI. Ennodius to Avitus. Although your excellency’s letters brought us much occasion for joy through lamentations, when speech served the duty of cheerfulness as the bearer of news of a death, nevertheless joy did not equal tears, nor did the calm of the address entirely dispel the turmoil of grief. The mind retains affliction over the departure of such a bishop even after longed-for conversations, for this reason, because it is the nature of things that any joy is overcome by the addition of even a small anxiety. But why do we make a new mention of things that have already subdued the mind by hidden agitation up to now?

I promise myself as a companion to your wishes with God's help, provided that, with the safety of our lord the pope preserved, I learn that you have chosen such a one whom he, to whom the care of souls belongs, would not be ashamed to praise. For it is wrong to provoke a believer to devious paths and to lead through uncertainties one whom you have bound by affection. Farewell. XXXII. Ennodius to Eugenetus. I do not think that a service can grow stale by frequency, nor that cultivation of diligence should be ascribed to the fault of talkativeness. Perhaps an excuse from abstinence of letters is available to those who are occupied with duties of public utility: one who is free does not deserve pardon if he refrains from the constancy of writing. He clearly confesses neglect of love who, when he can, does not supply letters, in which is the nourishment of affection: it is the error of an idle man if a well-known mind is starved of desired conversations through the holidays of the tongue. But just as it befits us, who owe nothing to secular cares, to foster the religion of grace, so, unless your greatness attends to its part by the publication of a reply, you condemn well-done deeds by keeping silent, because if rewards are taken away from virtues, who would not be ashamed to have labored? Behold, as I judge, having briefly expressed the intention of both, I confess that my mind is ill at ease, because when Montanarius returned, although I had given pages, I did not receive what I demand as a debt to be restored by law, to be doubled by shame. Now farewell, my lord, and seeking yours, announcing my own safety, I pray God that if he is mindful of me, he may multiply your prosperity.

XXXIII. ENNODIUS TO SENARIUS. If love were to yield to modesty, if the impatience of affection were held by the law of shame, I would refrain from epistolary duties and, as an imitator of your silence, adopt a form of quiet; I, not an improvident judge, would conjecture those things for which reward is withheld by you—that it is no easier to be loved or persuaded to abstain from letters than to be silent, and that men of the comitatus training, through a holiday of speech, cry out what they reject. But your greatness is not so squared by the lines of the carpenter’s rule that, covered by any veil, it can escape the eyes of a lover, because the mind of a friend beholds the inner chambers without the obstacle of garments. Let no one think that the inner counsels of a hidden plan, refined in the courtly furnaces, are concealed by urbanity among dear ones. But I believe you will oppose to my complaints that kind of excuse suited to your rank: that the duties of idle men are not rightly demanded of the busy, and that those attached to imperial services can scarcely descend to these offices. I have indeed often heard such things, but I confess I have not accepted them, because frequently necessities transcend desires, and without interruption fear yields to affection; the will is at fault, which is defended by a contrived excuse. Behold, my lord, how great a grief I suffer when I assert by the duty of a greeting, commending the bearer on both counts for his trustworthiness and nobility, so that by the benefit of your highness the insolence of his enemies, crushed by their own tricks, may lie low. Farewell.

XXXIV. ENNODIUS TO HORMISDA. After the necessity, which I had desired, began to promise me the fulfillment of my longing through the benefit of your proximity, you have passed over to longer intervals in your mind, and, though you almost touch Liguria with your hand, you have consigned your tongue to a holiday. Absence had less power while long stretches of road held your holiness: conversation compensated for the loss of sight, and in remedies, the commerce of letters, provided by foresight and diligence, was supplied, through which services nothing of affection perished between those separated by dwelling. But I believe you choose to grant more difficult things to your friends, not thinking it a benefit if I feed on conversations in such great proximity. Yet I, with reversed estimation, lament my lot, lest your blessedness refer to judgment what it exhibited as blandishments, while it ascribes to time, not to love, what has preceded. Let a painted front be absent from our purpose in friendships: we have been shaped for this structure by no file of previous studies: we know we bring naked concord to union: we reject urbanity among loved ones as poison. Therefore, my lord, receiving a salutation that loves you, follow me rather in this part, so that you may both pay the cultivation of faith through frequency of speech and grant from the secret of your breast unvarnished words to one who waits. Farewell.

XXXV. ENNODIUS TO APRONIANUS, VIR ILLUSTRIS. It is the custom for men who shine with the clarity of their character to nourish the religion of friendship through the cultivation of conversation, so that while the seeds of grace are animated by the warmth of discourse, the united bond may reach its harvest. For through these duties, the providence of our elders wished that absence should have no power. Rightly does the most upright of men, lord Faustus, proclaim a singular testimony concerning you. It is given to be known without a cloud that nothing is to be doubted concerning one whom a proven man extols. But now, reducing myself to the narrow confines of a letter, I confine the praise owed to your secrets within your inner chambers, lest what ought to be done among outsiders should grow stale with you through importunity. Farewell, my lord, receiving my most devoted salutation: I pray God that, prolonging your prosperity into the long term, he may promise me also an increase through the successes of friends. Farewell. BOOK FIVE. I. ENNODIUS TO LIBERIUS, PATRICIAN. While, out of reverence for the religion of conscience, you direct your words concerning the election of the pontiff of Aquileia, and your tongue, initiated into divine rites, serves by consecrating, the diligence of your unfamiliar words has held us in bonds, because nothing surpasses judgments, whenever a proven man has extolled something. For what does it leave to the opinions of followers, when it obeys justice, whose definition is not called into examination? You act by the good of your conscience in a matter that would scarcely be denied to your authority.

exhibited among the judges of Marcellinus the venerable colleague, the greatest of men, more exalted through humility, and so that favor to power might not be ascribed to oblique interpreters, what he plucked from his own genius he joined to the price of the praised one. You acted the part of a moderate, lest the commendation of the exalted be suspect. The testimonies of the most illustrious are curbed at their peaks so that they may gain strength. Blessed is the priesthood, to which a mind full of light has borne the torch. Blessed is the conversation, which was brought into discussion for this reason, so that, with such a man supporting it, it might prevail—which would not have tasted the flavor of victory unless it had been subject to uncertainties. Adversity has always produced glory for the innocent: a mediocre attack provides the most valiant defenders. But why have I extended the boundaries of the letter with loquacity, transgressing the pages constrained by law into human composition? I too, most eminent sirs, join your sides, to the best of my small ability, with heaven assenting to you, and—what is considered remarkable among men—I am drawn to love by consideration of you. Affection inspired in me through another pleases me, while love remains implanted deep in my vitals, even with the person traveling. Yet may heavenly grace join itself to my desires as a companion, and while you wish, let the effect be granted, and may it either find the good of the pontificate or make it. Farewell, my lords, and refresh your loving friend with frequent conversations, so that if the frequency of business does not demand pages, they may be offered to affection.

II. ENNODIUS TO MARCIANUS. While my mind was tossed in anxious uncertainty between hope and fear concerning you, you have disclosed solid proofs of your progress with the honey of conversation, because you, as heir of faithful doctrine, pursue the eloquence native to your lineage. The vein of languages and learning does not degenerate, as I see, and the succession of skill runs by the same right as patrimonies. I used to think that the gifts of knowledge were a matter only of talents, not of family, and that what continuous labor and unflagging toil achieves could not be transmitted through a family tree. But, as it appears, eloquence preserves its own orders, and the pomp of speech, which overflowed in the ancients, migrates to their descendants: the course of learning and of rivers agrees, and the wave of speaking glides through accustomed channels. Learning comes to you with your father’s wealth, and the good offspring restore Asterius to his tombs. I confess that until now I envied the older years and sighed for the age which had been granted to him, a negligent estimator of heavenly benefits, when I could despair of the fruits of the toga while the substance of the root remained. But divine dispensation, to give genius to its benefits, makes what it bestows unforeseen, and by exceeding what is known, manifests its power through liberality. Liguria is not barren of good offspring: it nurtures shoots for the forum, which the curia too gladly embraces. The advocate and the senator are joined by close kinship: the palmata [robe] flatters with open bosom those who have used the toga well.

Farewell, dearest one, and apply yourself earnestly to these honors: may all of you be taken up by honorable pursuits; hasten, so that you may come to the harvest of your fatherland, cleansing the tongue with the hoe of reading, and your character by the imitation of good men. III. ENNODIUS TO OPILIO, VIR ILLUSTRIS. I ought indeed to respond to your earlier conversations and, in observance of my intention or modesty, to double the favors received, unless I displease with rustic writing, lest the condescension of a superior turn to repentance from a renunciation of disdain. For it is by our own fault that those placed at the summit do not lose the memory of their haughtiness, if the lowly suspect them of pursuing that kind of evil. Since, indeed, the most eminent are raised up by their own self-restraint, and the fullness of secular honors suffers increase only by this art, it must be considered what the narrowness of a lowly station, not measured out, brings as detriment to the abject. Therefore, let it suffice for your greatness that after a double writing I realize what error I incurred through silence. But I feared, I confess, lest the flight from faults lead me into vice, and [speech] intended for favor, while polished by no skill of expertise, would find offense. I shrank from the horror that is generated for the ignorant from the occasion of obedience. Behold, I have asserted that I had both the soul of one confessing a deposit and, being well aware of my own strength, shame in its restoration. It remains, most faultless of men, that I may also learn from the inspection of my plea that it pleases you that I have not until now returned the favors received.

A faithful indicator of our ability is consideration, and just as it is paramount in all things, so it is guarded around the leanness of the tongue, fortifying reputation, because if the endowment of eloquence grows with modesty, the name of prudence is easily attained, when through modesty itself, speechlessness falls silent. Nevertheless, regarding the task you enjoined, I display a loss of face, and while I carry out the orders, I send my reputation into uncertainty. Agnellus mocks me from his cottages through various guises of promises, wishing a sum of money to be designated by us. But you have learned that the ardor of a wicked man is insatiable, which is not cured except by contempt for money. My lord, I greet you and ask that the observance of pious love and of our pact be maintained toward me. IV. ENNODIUS TO HELISEA. The effect long sought by my desires has come to pass: that genius may be given to benefits, they are granted after expectation has been prolonged into the distance. Kinship lives in whatever part of the earth: the chain of blood is not broken by separation of bodies: through divided regions, love suffers no loss, when affection holds the place of presence among those who are separated by habitation. I give thanks to almighty God, because He has made you mindful of piety and lineage, to remember under a religious occasion. With God as my witness, after my lady Cynegia set forth the merit of your conversation, I sought your vision with a special ardor, if the opportunity granted by my prayers had given the desired abundance.

Lady, I offer the reverence of a greeting, and in the matter designated by your letters I pledge the service of devotion, because as much is granted to the soul as is shown to your holy pursuits. I truly say that I have never loved anyone whom you detest, and I have feared that your assent might also be inclined toward the advancement of a wicked man. May God prevent anyone from attaining ecclesiastical dignity who has been formed on no anvil of good instruction. V. Ennodius to Avitus. I would wish to produce the reason, if I were not burdening my intention, for which I have merited the frequent letters of a lover. For while you dispatch busy pages, you provide a service to affection. But among the prudent and those aware of each other's minds, brief conversations suffice. I do not know how to be urbane in promises, nor to flatter with a painted face those to whom I owe my soul. Do you only persist in what you have begun, and, obeying the heavenly commands, lead the evil man you speak of away from his desires. It befits me to show more by deeds than to promise by speech, because what I give I unhesitatingly expect to be returned to me. My lord, offering the fullest greeting, I ask that you give thanks for me to our common mother, Lady Helisea, who deigned to show the bonds of kinship in her letters.

To Abbot Leontius, Ennodius. Above my merit, the highest degree of heavenly favor has grown toward me, while I, who am worthy of punishment, exult in having obtained the rewards of the righteous. In vain does the mother of peril, despair, hurl the erring to extremes. Those who are placed in the greatest error may be restored to solid hope by my example. I know not from what work of mine, from what innocence, the fruit of your letters has come and has sated a soul rich in the abundance of sin with the honey of heavenly good, unless it be that He who took up our wounds and suffered for us, having changed the condition of merits, chastises with gifts those whom He has seen worthy of scourges, and, conversely, while filling the souls of the guilty with good fortune, improves them through shame. Therefore, by the condescension of the heavenly secret, I have drawn forth the fruits of your conversation. He who compels the care of my soul, through spiritual physicians, to return to a state of granted health, has made you anxious about the health of my body. You inquire, by the investigation of religious solicitude, what substance there is in my limbs, whose condition, neglecting the part of the soul, is weighed down by the whole empire of this world. Act, by your prayer, that I become such as you assert I am by your flatteries, because the clarity of your purpose, which knows no deceit, when it proclaims someone good, announces that he will soon be innocent. To my brothers and fellow servants, whom you have sent, I have not denied whatever solace I could offer, more by will than by deed, being not fully capable.

It remains that you, receiving my services together with the whole council over which you preside, sworn by the mercy of Almighty God, should press on with prayers to God on behalf of my humble self, so that he who lacks confidence in his own actions may attain it through your intercessions. VII. TO EUPREPIA, ENNODIUS. Although you have often recognized the leanness of my talent, you nevertheless wished to endanger the fasts of a once-approved mouth by the swiftness of your command. But I do not refuse to obey a diligent person, so that if the merit of eloquence is lacking, the grace of compliance may come to its aid. The varieties of heavenly gifts are manifold, though they proceed from a single author: one person is commended by perfection, another is recommended because he wishes to obey without any delay. I composed the epitaph for my lady Cynegia in scarcely one hour, having the space for handling it with unerring speed. See the necessity, that I set forth that woman of such great merits by leaps of words. Spare my sterility, venerable soul, accepting for the scheme of diction the zeal of the speaker without a cloud. You, my lady, embracing the letter in place of my presence, pray that his spirit may in no way be harmed by the rough services.

EPITAPH. Neither sex nor tombs harm, nor the final threads of the sisters, which they thin with their deceitful thumb: a woman mixed with God lives after burial through her deeds, bearing masculine achievements on a feminine path. Blood, honor, character, integrity, constancy, countenance conquered destruction at such a price. By her conduct she asserted the lineage of great ancestors; the mind, which was clear, was the evidence of her family. She taught her children to preserve a serene life, while she always taught by example to love God. VIII. ENNODIUS TO PETER. After the venerable justice of the prince bestowed upon you, through the endangered character of your greatness, the seed of honors in return for the harvest of virtues, you sinned, by fostering irreligious silence through the holiday of your tongue, both in your eloquence and in your love for me, because eloquence, fortified by pride, grows with natural gifts whenever it serves as an indication of prosperity. More copious eloquence serves the increase of honors: the progress of men not unequal is signified by the successes of the mouths of the learned. Behold, unlovable taciturnity both stole the genius of speaking from you and begrudged me the effect of joy. Perhaps you will reply: you could, my friend, blame me for ignorance, if rumor, dedicated to common news, had suppressed something about my high station. But I do not allow myself to learn of the heights of my dear ones through rumor, nor to gather manifest joy from the inconstancy of opinion.

I had known what hope of attachment the simple citation of a learned man had long ago given me: I believed that I was vainly entrusting my calm mind to that region from which you did not order me to be cheerful; I thought that that very thing, built with the oars of a thousand wings of your writing, could be overcome on foot, lest another, snatching from you the expected reward, thrust himself upon a lover. Behold, my lord, receiving the honor of being greeted, do not deny swift remedies to the recognized causes of grief, because, as far as I presume, neither faith in diligence nor speech drawn to the nail deserts you in your eloquence. Yet not content to displease by one kind of speech, I have added a poem, so that after the feasts of the Antenorean whirlpool, which the baths of Aponus, constrained by the law of flesh into a narrow space, chastise, while that which is distended by the offspring of waters is cut off by water, I too, who have not touched the streams of Helicon, may be mixed in as a new poet. Therefore accept poems that will provoke laughter, and content that your Glovidenus has recognized you alone, withdraw me from public strictness, because, if there is something that perhaps pleases, your judgment suffices for me; if there is something worthy of a bite, I consider secret what you have learned about a friend's faults. You will also grant pardon, because, oppressed by the anguish of my eyes, I have composed perhaps limping poems: for the solid traces of verses cannot exist, deprived of the service of light. Therefore read the hot waters which you visit.

The sloping land is raised, supported by a swelling, gently borne up by a lifted ridge. It does not lift a proud head to any peaks, nor does it, like the pressed-down valleys, seek the depths. Here, smoky Aponus flows from its wide-spread veins, and peaceful fire breathes, mingled with the waters. The wave preserves its hearths; the flame does not drink up the liquid: the sacred spring crackles from the pyre poured into it. Here, a drunken heat offers medicine to all, drying bodies with a vapor-bearing dew. Here, a pyre in the eddies, moisture flickers with sparks: the friendship of an alternating death is lived. Lest it perish, Vulcan is plunged into those nymphs; a combative harmony has broken the laws of nature. IX. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. May divinity favor honorable desires: may a happy omen not be denied to good pursuits; may noble intentions grow strong with prosperous fruits. He who aspires to the liberal disciplines with the favor of the gods has given his pledge of vows to honesty: the affection for good arts disdains a savage nature; only those trained in character strive for the ornaments of eloquence. Spurred by these incentives, our Partenius, the son of my sister, hastens to visit Rome, in which natural learning resides, and to whom I, as a father, have promised the support of your greatness. A suppliant gives genius to your eminence, while we beg for what custom demands with prayers, as if someone believed he could earn the rising of the sun or the course of a river by speech. It is not a benefit where order is preserved: custom obeys what binds everyone.

I, however, come to meet something to be received beyond the course from which you by no means depart. I have sent a person through whom the status of my merits may be assessed. Perhaps undeserved commendation helps others: for parents, whatever we cannot surpass is too little. My lord, having presented the services of a greeting, having briefly explained the bearer and his business, it remains for me to learn what the person, the cause, and the closeness merit. X. ENNODIUS TO POPE SYMMACHUS. While your crown’s care governs the apostolic see and you rule the summit of the heavenly empire, the successes of parents are flattered because what is promised to my services is held. Hope without blemish is obtained from a steadfast man by one who has faithfully obeyed. Great is the pomp of the giver whenever what one has merited is repaid to many. The institutions of the highest are followed by those through whom the generation receives what the person has deposited. Thus the sins of the Israelite people did not touch David with punishment, because the integrity of the predecessor aided the nation, and the faith of the man either snatched the people from error or helped them into grace. Therefore Parthenius, the bearer of this letter, the son of my sister, has been sent with this animating confidence to your crown, whom liberal concern compelled to seek Rome. The studies of letters are holy, in which before the growth of skill, vices are unlearned. On this journey, gray-haired counsels are accustomed to come to boyish years, while what age shuns, they know that institutions provide.

Therefore, cherish him whose reasons for coming you have learned from the revealed kinship. You have a hostage in whom the quality of my merits with you may be clearly known. Lord, as above, restoring the reverence of salutation with the devotion of services, I pray that the bearer of this letter, your servant, may receive the happy name of a stranger among you, because what is granted to my prayers adorns your office beyond its own endowments. XI. ENNODIUS TO LUMINOSUS. I shall see among whom the one whom the care of liberal instruction concerns is to be commended to many: you have deserved the common cause as patrons. You are not ignorant of receiving strangers nor of inspiring those to be educated: your hand is frequently applied to the needs of the experienced, while with leisured speech you invite those who falter to the palm of eloquence. You encourage by examples, powerful from being a stranger, perfect from being a beginner. Both parts suit Partenius, my sister's son, for whom, seeking Rome for venerable disciplines, it is enough to see you in place of iron spurs. If it does not disagree with humanity, bearing your sublimity before his eyes, he is roused to virtue by deeds rather than by advice. The mistress of labor is ambition for praise, especially when it abounds in one whom you remember to have been of similar fortune. But we are dear to ourselves; render to the aforementioned father, so that mutual love may rejoice in vicarious expenditure, so that whatever labor I long ago displayed in your greatness may be restored to me through another.

Lord, as above, paying the respects of a greeting, I believed it sufficient for a recommendation that the bearer should not be unknown. He who uses lengthy prayers distrusts obtaining his request: it is proof that one who merits nothing asks at length. Let it be far from your character to ruin the spirit of benefits by prolonging a supplication for one who ought to be relieved by a swift outcome. XII. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS IUNIOR. Thanks be to God, as aforesaid, who has wiped away the clouds which an inexplicable grief had produced in my eyes, referring his benefits to Him who gave and restored the light. For scarcely after countless days do I breathe again, with the confidence of health animating me. And this concerns the longer absence of your Highness, so that one whom his own genius abandoned in proximity would see nothing: but He who bore away the clouds of the body is powerful enough to change sadness with the serenity of things. After setting forth the necessity, I return to the business which, compelled, obtained this address. You will love, I hope, the bearer, whom the reason for his coming commends. Parthenius, the son of my sister, wishes to be seen as a freeborn man through the disciplines of liberal study: he desires, if I am not mistaken, to have the testimony of your patrimony. Therefore, let your Greatness, tenacious of the past, mindful of the present, prudent of the future, receive the bearer on my recommendation, and let him who will be more fortunate by your sight, with a scribe, not suffer the adversities of his journey.

My lord, rendering the service I owe, I pray that, at least through this opportunity, by which Partenius will be able to dispatch the pages he has received from there, the form of our longed-for conversation may be multiplied. XIII. ENNODIUS TO HORMISDA. We know that the sacraments of a religious profession separate the innocent and the faithful from the multitude liable to sins, and that the titles of a venerable office adorn character rather than bodies. Who would seek the good of conscience among men, if worldly necessity must be applied to the statutes of pontiffs, if the promise of priests is to be kept with cautious circumspection? One never had constancy in his affection to whom it was not permitted to do otherwise than what he promised. The conduct of the world is restrained by fear of the laws: it befits the servants of God to exhibit what is good not from fear but from love. Some time ago, when fear pressed upon us and we were hanging in uncertain estimation of merits due to the doubtful clemency of a pious king, we handed over our camels, to be given to the lord pope, to Your Reverence on this condition: that, if those animals were not necessary for us, a fair price for them would be sent; and because Your Sanctity knows very well that, as long as we were able, we supported the interests of the holy Roman Church through your advocacy, now, in return, make a benefit out of the truth.

We also ask, with the greeting prefaced, that you indicate what your deliberation holds concerning this matter, because we believe that neither the aforementioned president of the apostolic see nor you, who are the mediators, think anything other than what undoubtedly befits both our purpose and justice. XIIII. ENNODIUS TO SERVILIANUS. Disciples are confident of perfection whenever they await the presence of their teachers: the hope of learning is manifest, to invite a teacher so that he may enjoy his own genius: talents are clear which are stirred by the desires of the one who instructs: those who have learned by happy lot seek a monitor. Thus I, possessed by the affection of your holiness, although I dare not boast of skill, nevertheless await the face of the teacher, lest you believe that you have entrusted an ecclesiastical scion to an unworthy son, because although my memory is not able to raise itself to hundredfold fruits, it yet knows how to return multiplied seeds to the cultivator. Come, therefore, so that, placed before you, you may look upon your harvest in the manner of a good farmer. May God avert envy far away. The plant of ecclesiastical fecundity has so thrived by your plowshares that it cannot be overturned by the force of any raging storm. I do not wish to burden your conscience with a prejudice of praise of your holiness: you will inspect what is declared by the testimony of letters. It remains, with the greeting prefaced, that you now hasten to your joys, because divine benefits always advance by steps and promise better things to those to whom they grant good things.

XV. ENNODIUS TO SENARIUS. A prayer poured out before God is never stripped of its desired effect, for with Him cheerfulness is obtained through tears, and sorrow turns into joy. The help of divinity has attended my wishes, and you, the greater part of my soul, have been recalled from the distant lands of the nations, with mercy as your guide. Truly, I cannot spread my letter into many words, hindered as I am by the tears which joys, brought to a climax, have produced. See to it, my lord, that the fullness of this heavenly gift does not perish for my insignificance. Let us both share one dwelling, and let no anxiety arise from the narrowness of the walls, since one breast suffices to provide a home for our souls. XVI. ENNODIUS TO PAMFRONIUS. Great are the commands of joys: cheerfulness is a stranger to restraint and yearns to burst forth into speech. The longed-for day has come, and he whom I never asked for based on my own merits but always from heavenly kindness, has added splendor to your greatness: the pinnacle has been restored to your family and your character, through which the integrity of a faithful conscience does not fear to come into the light. Good God, guard what you have granted, increase what you have given with successes, make this first step for your servant be the highest. I anticipate in hope what I pray for: things granted with heaven as their author do not linger at the threshold. One always ascends by increments to the summit where divine favor provides the beginning.

Who among men, or even among those who keep their own conduct unstained by any cloud, would congratulate themselves that in a single day they had obtained this: that you entered upon the auspices of honors and that my dear Senarius was restored from the farthest parts of the earth? A brief span of hours intervened, so that you were born for the palace and he was returned. I speak truly, and, secure in God’s mercy, I pledge that supports for my frailty are granted by a compliant heaven. It is pledged to me that what has been granted to you has been granted. My lord, receiving the respects of your greeting, I ask that, if you grant anything to my love, you not fail to entreat fully the lord of my soul, Senarius, that he remain with me. If you do not obtain this, you have taken much from the sum of my joy. XVII. ENNODIUS TO AVIENUS. Your greatness does well: while it pays homage to birth and character, it joins correction to error without delay and wisely recognizes what is a fault, turning it aside before another can denounce it. Who would believe that one so swift in correction had committed a fault? He is hardly to be called a follower of excess who sets a restraining hand upon the sudden onset of faults. This, my lord, I reply to what you deigned to write, under the guidance of your grace. For the rest, the weight of my own deeds has rendered me more humble than my intention: I have scarcely remained wretched enough to be fit to renew our conversation. My lord, presenting the respects of my greeting, I pray God that He may restore to your highness the fruit of this consideration, by which you do not despise a humble man.

XVIII. FAUSTUS TO ENNODIUS. It is with difficulty that one intent on happy circumstances foresees adversity: for he repudiates it like an evil omen, if he has perceived anything of the harshness of the future with his understanding preceding it; certainly, lest bitter things mingle even at another's time, the very recognition of troubles horrifies him. I believed that now-unlovely Ravenna, while it was full of my treasures, was at no distance: not so much did a fountain invite me when thirsty, a breeze when burning, as that rest invited me, not weary, to itself. But now I think Rome itself has been moved to greater distances because of the burden of my sins. Where is that frequency of letters which was thought rare? Where the frequent sight? Where so many consolations of diligence? Truly, speaking for my part, I detest a life which is not even hateful to those placed in distress. Perhaps your highness will plead that what was desired has come to pass for itself by divine dispensation. There is no full happiness when any of your people is afflicted by the miseries of harsh separation. Believe in God, the tears I weep are not feigned, nor does the concinnity of a letter or the narrowness of speech suffice to unfold the tragedy of my heart. Christ, arbiter of things, succor your own necessity, lest human fragility, not sufficing for the immense burden of grief, succumb under pressure. My lord, paying the service of my greeting, I ask that your care for me in letters be preserved, so that by this remedy at least my mind, placed amid the heats, may catch its breath.

XVIIII. Ennodius to Parthenius. I do not admire in you the restraint of speech, because one who has stored up little produces nothing. Do you believe that under this pretext the substance of your progress lies hidden? Both silence betrays inexperience, and unpolished conversation reveals lack of learning. Meanwhile, you were not previously lacking in grace, knowing what diligence, what a lover’s solicitude demands: you have become ignorant of good things, after we sent you to obtain what are considered the highest prizes. What remains, farewell, and, receiving the words of an admonisher, proclaim yourself improved by the assiduity of writing. XX. Ennodius to Avitus. While affection seeks its remedies and the heat of anxiety desires to be relieved by healing conversation, the mind burns with the benefit of foresight: whence it is believed to be extinguished, a doubled fire of diligence arises. Often, when I was seeking an abundance of letter-carriers, it happened that I grew sick from the very thing from which I thought benefit would come. Behold, he who hastened to you for the sake of his own people heals my desires: what is undertaken out of consideration for one’s own need becomes an aid to another’s necessity. I shall see what Bonifacius advances by my recommendation: meanwhile, what he obtained from me by lengthy prayers aids my pursuits. This man, born of good lineage, the witness of blood designates. His brother, as mentioned above, he asserts is a captive in the vicinity of the city of Aquileia, and he begs that he be helped by you.

of your holy household is well known: you have already given such a life as a pledge of good deeds, from which, as if it were a debt, one who is crushed by calamity may demand. My lord, receiving the homage of a full greeting, be moved to do willingly what you are accustomed to do, so that one who is a suppliant to you may not be permitted to be so to another. XXI. ENNODIUS TO AVITUS. Your greatness asks by supplication that I become an endorser of its own opinion, as if I were still formed on a fresh anvil for friendships, or as if one who changes his purpose of diligence under any pretext does not cheat his own character. Let a changeable opinion about a lover be absent from Christian morals: one who has dedicated the service of his mouth to praises does not have the freedom to abandon what he has begun, lest he disfigure the honey of his earlier praise by the worthlessness of what follows. I shall see to it that one who thinks it noble to pursue novelty: as I am slow to choose friends, so I persevere unchangeably in them. I take credit to myself whenever I have equated your reputation with the stars, because among those to whom we are unknown, we are judged by our character from our companions. Truly I confess that I have poured forth the splendor of your conscience abundantly in place of fame: before the arrival of your highness, through the service of my speech it became known in Liguria how great you are. Thanks be to God, who has made the general public agree with my opinion. Would that the poverty of my eloquence did not humble me!

Your vows have more from your merits than speech can bring forth in praise: I have not been silent, through whatever clamor could suit your glory, about the poverty of eloquence. The light of your genius has become a demonstration to my conscience. May the Divinity avert far off, lest fragility, hostile to noble character, ever steal into my testimony. There is no cause for error which you have richly woven in yourselves that I recall, and if it had arisen from my own merits, it would be soothed by the recollection of ancient good men. For the rest, farewell, my lords, and having pursued my journey with the kindness of your prayers, compensate for the losses of my absence by the recollection of your love. XXII. ENNODIUS TO VENANTIUS. If proximity of blood invites minds to diligence, having obeyed the commands of pious love, I exult that I have offered speech as a forerunner and have opened a way for embracing conversations by having begun pages. Indeed, long worn down by vain expectation, while I waited I did not send out pages, but affection goaded my mind with its spurs and made me, as the prior one, approach the duties of letters. I have the prerogative, if I conjecture rightly, of one who loves more, who speaks even after the prolonged zeal of your silence, and I ought to commend with modesty what I kept silent. Now, however, lest the composition of the letter, having transgressed its limit, disfigure the author, I pay the services of a greeting and, if I deserve it, I come to be reconciled to your dignity, because the sublimity of superiors is doubled by communion and grace granted to subjects carries a torch before the most eminent.

XXIII. TO CONSTANTIUS, FROM ENNODIUS. If it were permitted to contend with your greatness on equal terms, if honors, age, and merit—which set the torch before you—did not force me into the shadows, I would rather justly blame your highness for the lack of letters, since after you set out for the city of Rome, no fruit of remembrance has sustained me. But see how cautious is the dispensation of elders, full of fabricated speeches, through the providence of things: innocence is forestalled by complaints, and, lest it bring its grief to light, it is accused; it is made guilty so that it may not act. So these were the promises you gave me as you departed? Did you lift me up with such trust, that I might believe you would be forgetful of me? Or for what purpose are pages assigned, if not to reveal the secrets of the heart with the key of speech? But I refrain from lengthy pages, lest prolonged conversation generate greater rancor. I return to the duties of greeting, asking that you pour forth prayers for me before the apostles of God, so that by their benefits the foulness of mortal distress may be overcome and a serene mind may rejoice in the pure path of heavenly commandments.

XXIV. TO LACONIUS, FROM ENNODIUS. The divine dispensation has given a good outcome to your wishes, and from the occasion of a business conversation, while refreshing brotherly diligence, it has made what was thought necessary become desirable. Hence, heavenly care has commanded that a suitor for my niece, not entirely a stranger to our blood, should approach, so that, while the opportunity for consultation presses, sustenance might be provided for holy affection. I confess I could scarcely endure the long silence procured by design, but a gentler interpreter thought that what was being withdrawn from affection should be attributed to fear. Thanks be to God, who has restored your brotherhood to the use of the pen and to grace. Yet know without doubt that, by divine laws, a kinship comprised within the prohibited degree is permitted to be joined in marriage. But I am immediately sending my men to the city of Rome, to demand from the venerable pope a response on this matter, so that the authority of a higher precept may confirm your mind. Lord, as above, receiving the fullest greeting, know also that our holy and common father is of like opinion, whose letter to you I will dispatch through my man, if divine favor grants it, together with the documents of the apostolic see.

XXV. TO AVITUS, FROM ENNODIUS. How often do the sins of others weigh us down, and what does not arise from us is charged to our own fault! I have learned from experience that the faith of the ancients does not perish, while through new affairs the hoary proclamation of the poets is renewed. I think it was said of me: "The unlucky man fell by another's wound." The aforesaid contrivance is brought forward concerning the son of Sabinus, a man of awaited memory, who, hitherto held back by the obstacles of illness, violated established things without his own fault. I confess that your Magnitude's rich assertion had almost made my mind guilty, and I believed the fault to be my own, which my conscience did not possess. Behold, as soon as he was restored to good health, he traveled to Milan with the greatest haste. I did not believe the rest needed to be pleaded before you, because he who commends justice to great men seems to set forgetfulness against equity. My lord, I offer the gift of most full greeting, and, what remains, I ask that the state of your grace toward me, although it is most full, may yet be compelled to receive increase.

XXVI. ENNODIUS TO AGAPITUS. Sins resist desires, and so that the status of merits may be known to those who fail, longed-for things are snatched away from the proximity of the lips. Offered goods afflict more keenly when they perish: thirst is stronger when the taste of waters has intensified it; benefits denied at first glance do not burn the memory: who could bear with equanimity to have lost a sweetness once placed before the eyes? But these things are rightly referred to the providence above, whereby the heavenly dispensation of the mystery opposes its hand to human arrangements precisely in order to grant the fulfillment of prayers. Your holy father had willingly promised that he would comply with the command of your greatness regarding my coming, but subsequent counsels, for the advantage, as he says, of the church, seized his mind in a different direction, as the letter from him sent to you has declared. Nevertheless, he awaits a second conference with your greatness on the designated matter, so that it may be more clearly revealed that I am necessary in the interest of your brother, the patrician Faustus, to whose favor he thinks he can deny nothing of his own free will. For the rest, having accepted the humility of my service, I pray that the Creator of heaven, who has deigned to instill in your highness a care for my lowliness, may Himself, through you, arrange what is to be followed.

XXVII. ENNODIUS TO EUGENETES. The unremitting efforts of procured silence disturb me beyond measure, and although my mind is set in a fixed state, the abstinence from speech grieves me—speech which reveals the secret of the heart with living images by the key of the mouth. I do indeed sometimes suffer that affection is feigned under the publication of pages, yet I never believe that those who love abstain from these services. Perhaps your greatness may plead that the care of public business gave no place for familiar writings. But the same state existed in former times, when your highness frequently provided conversations, nor were you so weighed down by courtly duties assigned to you that you had no memory of promised love. What honeycomb has mixed poison, what secret whisperer has mingled filth with springs? Or have you perhaps referred to judgment what had been stolen from affection? But I do not delay to occupy you with the publication of pages, so that, with the goads of promised regard ceasing, you may return to the old custom, provoked by the fruit of my loquacity. My lord, paying the tribute of salutation with full humility, I declare that I am eager to be presented to your sight, if, however, you write back concerning what is to be done, having weighed those things which I do not doubt are dear to your heart.

BOOK SIX. I. ENNODIUS TO PARTENIUS. Unless I loved you to distraction and the solidity of pious affection were fixed with an unchangeable root, I could, provoked by the pain of injuries, whether when you are childishly angry or when you arrogantly supplicate, be moved to admonition: for I find nothing more arrogant than fabricated humility. I prefer insults to the obsequies of a painted brow: feigned sweetness surpasses bitterness. There is no need for entreaties, if you understand what chain binds you. Let those who are free to disobey beg pardon for their transgressions. The splendor of the celestial judgment has assigned servants to us in such a way that, in whatever direction the mind may turn, their necessity is inclined. That one expects clemency who can, if he wishes, reject a harsh command. The power granted to me by God will not permit itself to stray far from this order. It is fitting for you to desire that the consideration of your merits, which is just, not disfigure the clemency you proclaim in me, and that the multitude of faults not cheapen the path of piety. Although, if I am not mistaken, mercy accompanies the erring one with vengeance, and there is no greater patience except that which does not open the door to vices, yet let our indignation depart from you, because what you have done wrong will be punished not by concealed grief and grace preserved by deception, but by lashes. Now you will be able to force the wounds inflicted by intemperate words into a scar in one way: if through the heights of liberal study, your freeborn nature is shown by learning.

childish anger, I would not demand a pardon unless supported by experience. The law of mercy, which you know I have changed, I will preserve with perpetual severity toward your idle cruelty. For the rest, I pray God that you may be well and, accompanied by divine favor, increase the hope you have given through your verses. II. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. The greatest joy is the opportunity of a letter-carrier, who, through his own necessities, provides service to the desires of others as a minister of diligence. Honesty commends this man, and a modesty foreign to the business of a merchant recommends him. Added to this is the fact that acquaintance with your eminence has increased his trustworthiness. For I have been satisfied with the fruits of your venerable writing by his very travel. Therefore, I return the deposit of duty, bound by law, and I send him, whom I received in Liguria according to my modest means, onward to your most powerful patronage with this letter accompanying him. For the rest, whatever devotion my humility possesses, I offer to your reverence, begging that I may now deserve your letters in return for the frequency of my own.

III. To Euprepia, from Ennodius. The course of all things is governed by the body's services, but by the command of souls: one thing celestial affinity ennobles, another earthly abjection debases. Nor is it free for what the mind, conferred by a parent god, has declined to be followed by what is taken from the lowest, nor is it permitted for a soldier to offer a contrary hand to the decrees of his commander. Hence Crispus asserted that we have one thing in common with the gods, another with beasts. By the rationale of this secret, we travel abroad with those who are absent and, with the health of our limbs intact, burn with the fevers of lovers: through these bonds we are not divided by any interposition of journeys, and, separated in our dwellings, we come together in our pursuits. You know, venerable sister, who surpasses all sweetness for me, what occasion would have demanded a preface. Now I will engage with you openly and with a prodigal brow of modesty. I barely endured the blandishments you had previously sent; after my admonition, you poured double the honey into your letters, which would shake all the secrets of my breast and transfer my captive soul, leaving the seat of the body, to desire for you. How I fear that affection may again be sent back to uncertainty, and when my mind has unfurled all the sails of diligence, it may suffer the danger of a withdrawn station! You have learned that my mind is ignorant of deceit, and that it cannot assume the urbanity that is unstable among lovers. Your nature, again, of a different sex, promises, as the most wise Solomon says: a soul that is in satiety mocks honeycombs.

knows that the witness and judge of my words has arranged me, unless perhaps I am deceived by the deceptive flavor of grace and you, having tasted affection, remove the offered cups from the thirsty one, fulfilling not the image but the very truth of spiritual marriage, and while between us one will and one unwillingness stands firm, to display to the eyes and minds of all either what spurs the good to imitation or what affects the bad. Only promise, with God as mediator, that firm and unchangeable constancy will be preserved against every attack born of envy. Therefore farewell, my lady, and be content with a brief admonition for the greatest matters, because neither does epistolary conciseness allow more, nor does reason permit that the inner chambers be entrusted to pages, if you respond with will and faith to what has been indicated, promise by the testimony of your own writing. IV. To Faustus, from Ennodius. I did not write to burden you with the bitter report of my discomfort, but to meet your concern, insofar as it persists in prayers. My eyes, before the substance of recovered health, were taken by imposed labor: all light has left me with you. It is enough to have indicated what I suffer. It is yours to demand my prosperity from God, whom you placate with prayers, and to bring help with frequent conversations to the one opening the doors of letters. My lord, I ask God that he cause that to be indicated by you which I would delight to know.

V. Aureliano Ennodius. My confidence is not stripped bare by successes known in advance. Strong in affection is the one whom I have justly promised to my mind, mindful of diligence. Thanks to you, divine dispensation, who bestow upon human affairs the fruit of prosperity from the occasion of adversity and do not allow sorrows to remain in their own order. I know not what hostile malice has plucked from the abundance of your patrimony for your greatness; yet under this title it has purchased for the unconquered lord much abundant grace. Good is the loss of substance, if the renown of the prince is found through expenditures: the diminution of resources is not to be feared, if through it the love of the highest lord, who conquers all riches, is acquired. To this is added that that diminution, while it became a source of gain and a path to honors, could not maintain the substance of unyielding humility. Thus what the enemy seized has been restored, so that you still await a heap of joys. There remain things that are held in hope, when it has befallen your highness to already hold the greatest. To these benefits conferred with heaven as author, let us join the goods of our acquaintance and communion. When would I have come to know so great a man except through those things which I have mentioned? But may the heavens increase what they bestow, and may divine care lead us to that toward which desires are extended.

What remains: farewell, my lord, and cherish your lover with frequent conversations, for unless the composition of a letter were held to its prescribed limit, my joys would pour forth into many words. VI. Ennodius to Boethius. It had indeed been fitting to have responded to your greatness with a single letter simply, and that one once obligated should not have to double the conversations; but I have been driven to this by caution, not by ignorance. For of the two letters, one fulfills a debt, the other is offered to affection. Believe me, I thought it wrong not to restore with its interest what a venerable mind had first conferred. Examples of diligence are sweeter before the fact, and one who enters the path of friendship second does not have as much strength or talent; in short, one to whom a pattern in love is provided cannot claim grace for himself: it is impudence not to respond to affection, when a well-begun matter reveals virtue. I have written these things quickly in the haste of the bearer; later I will spread my words more widely and will not regard the leanness of my talent while your merits are considered, if only you will grant the frequency of letters to my desires. My lord, paying the service of most abundant greeting, I ask that the conversations published without interruption reveal that you hold memory of our closeness.

VII. Ennodius to Avienus. It has been long that I have been suspended by true longings, feeding only on the office of letters: for while I address your greatness, I consider myself not absent from the longed-for sight. But the afflicted mind sickens from its own remedies, and what is found as nourishment for devotion, this more greatly torments one starved of the fruit of love. Truly, my lord, may God preserve you, my lights, safe and sound, because if either the strength of my body had allowed or the haste of my lord, I would have sought Ravenna with all the forces of my intention. But if God wills, with the life of my lord your father and my lady mother safe, after Easter I shall come with heavenly aid, so that, having seen you, I may revive to the hope of life. My lord, offering the most abundant greeting, I beg that you most earnestly see to it that all the saints pray for me. VIII. Ennodius to Senarius. Although even the consolations of your letters are withdrawn on account of my sins, I nevertheless, mindful of the debt by which you bound me through your grace as those mindful of God, do not omit writing, hoping, my lord Senarius, that you always attend to the God whom you considered in me and that you frequently bestow upon me the gift of your letters. My lord, I greet you most greatly with the accustomed reverence and implore that you not cease to beseech God for my affliction through all the basilicas of the saints.

IX. Ennodius to Faustus. Although the innocence of a pontiff attends as the companion of his office for his protection, and there is no need for human assistance for one who has surpassed humanity by his profession, nevertheless almighty God knows that I have rendered the required conversation at the command of the holy bishop, the bearer of this letter. For I long resisted, lest it seem arrogant if a minister should commend a bishop, and one of the highest rank before a most holy conscience, as a man of only mediocre standing. But perfect obedience is that whatever the highest demands is not denied. And so, after the due observance of a greeting to the prelate, I ask that you grant support for the consolation of one weighed down by many assaults, so that, doing a thing of singular good, you do not allow an undeserving priest to be subject to prolonged sorrow. X. Ennodius to Faustus. May God, who has instilled in your heart the affection for good works, Himself protect the one obedient to Him with a long and most happy life, because although the innocence which you foster keeps unceasing watch for you, yet those bound by your benefits cannot suppress the vows they owe to God on your behalf, since not to return thanks for benefits received was abhorrent even to God when He was clothed in flesh. Would that I were as able to bestow words for things as I feel I am indebted!

Nevertheless, I do not omit to suggest what pertains to your other reward: that you order the charter which you made in the case of Laurentius, the tabularius of Comum, to be completed and sent to me, and that you obtain letters from the count of the patrimony concerning that blind woman whom Martinus, the conductor from Modicia, oppresses, letters ordering that the slave he took from her be restored without delay, because what he has received in instructions to do at present he scorns to do out of rustic temerity. XI. Ennodius to Avienus. After the departure of our common lord from the city of Milan, only the solace of letters remained for my consolation, because when speech is directed to you, some image of your presence flatters my desires. This I also beg of you, my lords, that you do frequently, thinking that your absence can be endured only by this assiduity. Let the most fortunate have their longed-for presence; for me, pondering my own faults, the care of letters will suffice. My lord, saying the most abundant greetings, I pray that you do not cease to pour forth prayers for me through the saints of God, and that you give thanks to the Lord, whose benefits, even unexpected, are bestowed upon me.

XII. To Liberius, Eugenetus, Agapitus, Senarius, Albinus. More abundant pages are needed where the faith of the bearer falters: for your devoted follower of mine, the deacon Stephen, a brief conversation suffices, who, surpassing letters spread into many words, prefers the necessary to the abundant, while not suppressing what must be entrusted in a concise manner of a faithful secret. As for the rest, announcing that I am well under God's auspices, I inquire into the blessings of your prosperity and render full observance of greeting, having prayed that your incorrupt integrity not strip my confidence of your esteem. XIII. To Avitus from Ennodius. Another's necessity makes me importunate, because I must speak on behalf of a suppliant. The law of the purpose of intercession rejects greed. For a burden is added to my conscience if I reject a suppliant. The son of Sabinus, of awaited memory, has come to await a decision on the appointed day: but he was compelled to seek his small field out of consideration of utility, because both the guarantor and the executor were absent on the fixed day. The bearer has impelled me, who am abjuring concerning the said business, to become more worthless, to send messages to him, so that he might come again, which I signify that I have done. Now, saying the observances of my greeting, it is in the power of your highness to show what justice, which you foster, and what trust, which you have given, merit in the aforesaid matter.

XIV. To Avitus, Ennodius. I know that my silences cry out among you, and that nothing happens that is not held by secret interpretation; yet I have not ceased from writing, nor have I withdrawn from judgment the son of the man of sublime memory, Sabinus, a man of fabricated talent, who, having suffered violence on his little estate, is said to have worked thus far with the barbarians. Believe me, he will come secure to the examination and will enter your arbitration without any fear. My lord, offering the reverence of a greeting, I pray that you deign to support my person by the recollection of the affection long since implanted. XV. To Faustus, Ennodius. Divine providence arranges well that, while benefits are demanded from me, my concern finds the bearers I desire. Let it cease to deny to others what I claim for myself, and to hold back, with sordid avarice, that which elevates the giver. Simplicianus, the bearer of this letter, a most noble youth, having attempted to seek Rome, the seat of learning, believed this would come to him as a singular advantage if he should reach the notice of your highness through the guidance of a page. I by no means wished to deny him what he desired, knowing that it is your custom to do what others do when entreated. Now, my lord, receiving the services of my greeting, see to it that the hardships of his journey do not burden the aforementioned man, and do not cease to lighten my duties through this obtained frequency of your writing.

XVI. Ennodius to Luminosus. Conversations that love has devised as a remedy for itself should not be burdened with business, nor should we be compelled to summon the wages of piety for necessary transactions, because it would be sweet for the duties of letters to serve only harmony and not to turn the attention of diligence into the snares of profit! But matters have come to this: unless the elder affection, which took its beginning between us from the very threshold of life and, through the varying strengths of our growth, brought the harvest of grace to the threshing floor, is roused on my behalf by the goad of writing, I shall be struck by a great barrenness of ingratitude and losses. Your Amplitude remembers what was discussed with you concerning the expenses which my bishop had incurred at Ravenna, with me promising repayment to him, for the benefit of the apostolic see: regarding the restoration of which you had promised a swift effect. But, for my sins, some accident or other has stood in the way. The intention of the aforementioned bishop has turned toward me concerning this matter, so that he has granted barely a delay for sending to the most sacred city. Now, after God, the cause rests in you, who can rescue both my person from the bishop's offense and from the losses, lest the office of faith seem to have produced adversity for me alone. My lord, paying the tribute of a greeting, I pray God that He may unhesitatingly invite your mind to a consideration of my advantage. I could find nothing more to do than to send a faithful bearer to you with a clear statement.

XVII. Ennodius to Bishop Marcellinus. The kindness of your son, the magnificent lord Stephanio, causes me to come before your blessedness to be read, by whose benefit the journey's love suffers no loss and compensates with speech for what presence cannot achieve. Therefore, presenting these services owed to your apostolate, I ask that you support me with the aid of your prayers, so that, inserted into your venerable conscience, I may deserve to rejoice in every fruit of your dignity, because I do not doubt that your crown will answer my trust. XVIII. Ennodius to Dominica. Your greatness has done what it owes both to its holy character and to its blood, so that the memory of kinship does not languish in the torpor of silence. In whatever part of the world affinity lives, and family ties are not separated by regions—believe me, holy love does not perish nor does nature suffer any loss through divisions of journeys. For you should know that your son-in-law bestows upon me as much affection as no requital can adequately satisfy. For the rest, my lady, receiving the affection of a dutiful greeting, I pray to God that he deign to grant us the opportunity of seeing each other in mutual happiness, so that pious desires may be relieved in longed-for conversation.

XIX. Ennodius to Faustus. After the opportunity of seeing you has slipped from my desires, my mind returns again to letters: it is compelled to demand the aid of the page, which it had forsworn, and to nourish or sustain the soul, once established with better resources, as if with cheaper food or by commercial exchange. How grievous it is, whenever fugitive freedom, compliant with various necessities, leads one to new practices! Hardships are broken by continuity: much of the burden’s weight custom diminishes: a pitiable condition brings one to longed-for things that will not last: a lighter lot is that of those occupied with constant cares. I am the more unhappy because of the burden of sins, in that I have tasted the flavor of good things. But of this elsewhere. Matters that know no human remedy are to be left to God. Meanwhile, paying you the reverence of a greeting, I have not omitted to give indications of my return, desiring to be relieved by the cheerfulness of your letter in return.

XX. Ennodius to Faustus. The savor of good things is unknown in prosperity: the quality of heavenly goods is scarcely discerned while they are held; after their departure they become sweet: we do not know the price of desire when it is placed in our hands. I truly confess, as long as Ravenna held you, I believed it an ill omen to think of what I now suffer, nor amid favorable circumstances did I, as if a spiteful interpreter of my own happiness, sigh over what could come to pass through your absence. I ought not to have recognized my own merits, if I were not separated from you, nor to understand that what flatters the one pursuing sins is fleeting. But why does the polished composition of a letter exceed the limit of restrained diction? Let the one to whose command all things are subject bring healing to these matters. Yet I, for the sake of which the pages have been assigned, am strong in bodily substance and through these duties, with God’s help, I await the announcement of your prosperity. Therefore, accept my respects, and if among these things which you have learned are happening with me, a favorable outcome has brought anything, announce it without the hindrance of dissimulation.

XXI. Ennodius to Faustus. I have seized the opportunity of the bearer’s domestic status to discharge the role of humility. What you have provided in the efficacy of other matters will serve my desires. I confess, I thought it harsh to deny letters to one who is nearer, when I, placed at a distance, could never refrain from converse. For I seemed to myself, occupied with the vigils of Ravenna, to have touched your greatness with a certain right hand of the mind. Therefore I have prolonged my writings as a solace for longing, so that what was withdrawn from living speech I might compensate for by reading. Accordingly, offering you the honor of a greeting, I ask that you sustain me with such remedies whenever opportunity presents itself, in which absence has its sole support by divine provision. You have recognized what the cure is for a languishing affection: it is yours not to deny healing to sick minds. XXII. Ennodius to Eugenetes. Diligence is the cause of many pages. It is due to your reverence that I do not refrain from writing. A witness of joy

My voice does not falter, because I have joyfully received the news of your good health. Farewell. XXIII. Ennodius to Parthenius. Under God’s auspices, may the beginnings of your affection grow strong; may he through whom efforts gain strength be present for our common desires. You have declared that by the light of your writing you already hold the city that is a friend to liberal studies: you have sent ahead at the threshold what would surpass the greedy prayers of parents. I am not a harsh judge of your diction, nor do I reject the slightness of what is now present, since future things flatter me. Whenever we scratch the earth with ploughshares, the mind is lifted by hope of the coming harvest: from the blades of grain the friend of ploughing always discerns the riches of the ear: the diligent farmer, while the crop is still white, already measures the peoples of the fruit. Let adversity depart, and let whatever sins produce go away; the course of your little speech, even if it does not stand on the polish of eloquence, has nevertheless shone with the savor of a Latin vein: the discourse flowed not discordantly, yet it must be enriched by the resources of reading. But why have I, after so great a judge, to whose ears you have indicated that the composition of your work is pleasing, cackled like a goose after swans? Whoever has pleased him enters the examination secure: eloquence praised by him prevails to demand favor even from enemies. Therefore labor, so that a happy outcome may exalt what has been well begun; devote yourself unceasingly to the services of honorable men: flee those who pollute you by their association, as if they were a cup of poison, though they owe reverence to our warnings; always announce your progress to me in writing, for I am eager to know it.

What remains, farewell, and may you, aided by all the helps of heavenly favor, respond to your family with a harvest of experience. XXIV. Ennodius to Archotamia. Although the bond of affection, bound by the law of kinship, does not perish through the vastness of regions, nor is the chain of lineage, which links souls, sundered by the separation of lands, yet the sustenance of love is either to see or to address in speech the one you cherish: the secrets of minds would not be known were it not for the betrayal of tongues. Antiquity brought these into use, so that those things which are closed within hearts might not lie hidden. I, for my part, do not abandon Gaul, which claims all of me for itself on your account, in affection, even if I do not behold it with my eyes. Nevertheless, I give thanks to the bearer of this letter, who, by the occasion of his own necessity, has furnished my desires with what they longed for, so that amid the burning of my spirits, for which a carrier was lacking, he might provide the desired service. Therefore, greeting you with due duty, I pray that the bearer may receive the recompense for his good service, and that he who has aided in my joy may believe his own wishes fulfilled through me.

XXV. Ennodius to Faustus. Your Greatness knows by what prejudice of liberal studies those who follow them honor me, demanding writings of my recommendation as if they were a thing owed to them. It is your custom to bestow benefits, mine to bestow words, and for the magnitude of things to overcome the desire of the petitioner. If I were to refrain from these duties, saving the genius of your gifts, I would not have the wish of a well-wisher. The bearer of this letter, Pertinax, will be made known among you by the modesty of his birth, who in the affirmation of his lineage will use the good of shame, through whom, for the indications of my health made according to your desire, I pray that he may reap the fruit of his confidence from the rich harvest of your condescension, and whenever the desired course of travel comes, to support me, send the pages which you receive as a solace of love. XXVI. Ennodius to Euprepia. Silence is indeed owed to necessity, but writings to diligence: fear demands abstinence from letters, but sometimes yields to affection. The mind of a lover scarcely acquiesces to any obstacles: it burns to render the wages of gratitude all the more when it is forbidden. Behold, having spoken beforehand what cause would suspend me from these duties, I leave to your conscience what makes me obedient. However, having prayed to God, I indicate that I am in good health and that our Lupicinus is so, desiring concerning you to know what has been extended by me. Yet I do not wish you to burden your care with the burden of a separated pledge.

Believe my conscience: I owe him more through his diligence than you yourself could provide through nature. Would that heavenly blessings might improve his talent. I speak truly: when you depart for longer periods, the concern of both parents falls upon me, which we were able to share while together with ambition. My lady, offering you the fullest greeting, I pray that you grant me as much support of your affection and prayers as you have proven me to be devoted to the fulfillment of your desire. XXVII. Ennodius to Senarius. May a reciprocal exchange accompany your conscience for the sake of divine providence: may the Most High, on behalf of my insignificance, repay what he acknowledges was conferred by you, who have always been faithful to those who love you. To have found your diligence is a sure harbor of your heart: you are endowed with such a manner of life that you surpass the hopes of friends by the bestowal of a benefit. I desire a second admonition, so that I may undertake the assigned journey: give your fortunate right hand to my humility and share your prosperity with me. My lord, presenting the respects of a greeting, I ask that you indicate whether the master of affairs will be staying happily at Ravenna, so that I may carry out your instructions without ambiguity.

XXVIII. ENNODIUS TO GUDILEVUS. Those to whom felicity and power are granted by the ordinance of God are accustomed to console the humble with the office of letters and to share their good fortune by the publication of pages. For a long time I waited to be relieved by these duties, but since you are absent, I believed it necessary not to remain silent, so that what love does not demand may, according to the Gospel reading, be earned by importunity. My lord, offering you the fullest greeting, I beg that you cherish me, your ancient worshiper, with that affection you once promised, and that you enable me to learn of your good fortune through the dispatch of pages. XXIX. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. Although I had safely entrusted the duties of pages to Sabinus, a sublime man endowed with every integrity, as he hastened to Rome, so that a faithful reporter might affirm what was to be disclosed through letters, nevertheless I owed it to my anxiety to inform your greatness by a twofold indication, so that the bearer, secure from the letters, may take up the beginning of his narrative. These matters, tasted in writing, suffice: I return to that for which letters are dispatched. I announce that I am well in body, beseeching God that the state of my soul may be restored through your prosperity.

XXX. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. The inability of speech cannot express the magnitude of the grief that befell me from the fact that, when the bearers of this letter were dispatched to Liguria, you refrained from writing, whose journey I did not believe you were unaware of, and I discerned the presence of your greatness from the quality of the petition: for it is possible to be found—a negotiator among those who have been arranged. Nevertheless, the holiday from letters burns me, which you, even when most occupied, rejected for the relief of my sorrow. Now I return to my prayers. Farewell, my lord, and reveal the heavenly grace around you through manifold conversation. For it is a harvest, in a time of quiet, to rejoice in the harvest of innocence that was sown in your labors. XXXI. ENNODIUS TO THE LORD POPE. The vigilant care of your Beatitude attends to those who serve, as if placed before you, wherever they may be, and without any holiday, while it provides the support of grace to the experienced, it invites strangers. Indeed, many fruits are reaped from the spectacle of another's labor, because he learns to devote effort in whose eyes the rewards of toil and faith are rendered. And would that the effect were equal to my wishes, and that what I have learned to desire for religion might be granted to fulfill! My lord, displaying the humility of my service, content with a sparing expression in the greatest matters, I leave it to the letters of the aforementioned to disclose what the lord bishop, your brother, has perceived concerning the embassy that was sent.

XXXII. ENNODIUS TO AVIENUS. Although the exchange of letters between those who love is always a pleasant commerce, and from these services, even if Spartan brevity be employed, abundant joys arise, and although duties of this kind are a remedy for the absent and a thing desired by the anxious, yet a sick mind is tossed about over the well-being of those on whom it depends, and it breathes only with that cure which, when he who wavers in no uncertainty denies it to the anxious, reveals that he is not held by diligence. For a long time, the conversations dispatched from your greatness fed my mind and provided nourishment suitable for cheerfulness. Their absence now does not bring sadness, but drives me to ruin. For what once served affection could have brought aid to my health: the religion of love is abjured when words that would benefit my health are denied. You have learned what your silences have done; remedy them with correction: for among you, if forgetfulness of me does not hold sway, they are changed by writing. My lord, conveying the most abundant greetings, I pray to God that the dispensation of heavenly favor may meet my agitations and that, in the solace of my sorrows, it may cause those things to be indicated by you which it would be delightful to know.

XXXIII. ENNODIUS TO HORMISDAS AND DIOSCORUS. I know that a religious conscience considers it a great gain if an opportunity to render service arises, especially to those whom they remember to have been devoted. Therefore, although the primary reason for sending a letter is your reverence, and a plea of utility ought to be subordinate to diligence, yet an anxious mind often places necessary matters before affection. Your brotherhood remembers that the lord pope gave a promise concerning the expense which my bishop incurred at Ravenna for his benefit, on my guarantee. But it has turned out that he barely granted a reprieve for directing payment to you, and he protests that satisfaction must be made from my substance. Now, since the sum demanded is not large, and it is a great kindness to free me from his ingratitude, which seems just, arrange what heavenly reward may compensate you. My lords, rendering abundant greetings, I pray God that He may inspire in your minds what can relieve me. I, however, have done my part, who, with a protest of grief, have sent through the pages of this letter the most faithful bearer, who may receive what is to be conveyed to us without diminution.

XXXIIII. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS ALBUS. Although your greatness, through a long silence, has borne witness to forgetfulness of me, and while it refrains from the duty of letters has cast aside the memory of one who serves, nevertheless, heavenly providence does not permit your favorable circumstances to be hidden from my desires and, through various indications, reveals the hoped-for success concerning us. Now, however, my mind has been drawn to this point of connection, that I would send my own bearer directly to you, who, fed by living sights, may bring back to me manifest goods. Believe me, lords, that I am bound to you by a great obligation, and that no holidays are granted to my heart during which I do not seek your sight with full intention. It remains that, when concord is restored in the Roman church, an opportunity to meet you may occur. My lord, offering the fullest greeting of your reverence, I beg that you receive the suggestion of my man, the bearer, with grateful hearing, and that you instruct me, by a returning message, concerning your happiness and the state of your entire household.

XXXV. ENNODIUS TO DOMNINA. Amid the cares and troubles under which I am bowed by the burden of my sins, I have chosen a singular remedy: to send a letter to you, my ladies, by whose prayers all things might turn out favorably for me, and I might be restored to the calm of joy, the clouds of distress having been dispelled. For the primary cause of my grief is that your prosperity, while you dwell far away, can scarcely be known, and from this arises every adversity concerning my person. Therefore, be present to your suppliant with your prayers, so that through the intercessions of the saints of God healing may be granted to my sick soul. My lady, paying the service of my greeting, I beseech you, and I implore you by the God whom you worship, that you commend me to the Lord with continuous petitions and tears, by which the heavenly kingdom is constrained, for I count this as a special gift and place it before all advantages. XXXVI. ENNODIUS TO ADEODATUS THE PRESBYTER. Heavenly dispensation never denies effect to religious desires: for what we piously long for, it grants through mature zeal. For as I was desiring to seek the support of your prayers through a letter, the arrival of a household messenger gave birth to my wishes, so that, prompted by the spur of writing, you might intercede for the soul I have taken up, since the Doctor of the Gentiles proclaims: pray for one another. For there is nothing that one who loves God cannot obtain even for the guilty. Therefore, labor at the patronage you long ago promised, and procure joys for me through tears: let the fruit of innocence, unknown to my merits, come to me.

These are the matters concerning which I have presumed to admonish the holy man of God. For I fear to make lengthy discourses, because a necessary matter must be requested with concise words. Now farewell in Christ, my lords, and indicate to me by favorable outcomes the gifts of your intercession. XXXVII. ENNODIUS TO JOHN. Is it, then, falsely believed that love is returned for diligence, and that silent souls question one another through conversations, that the feelings of minds assert faith, so that what we expend is owed to us by a reciprocal report? The echoes of mountains restore secrets, and in the service of humanity, mute things speak: but your greatness, in contempt of me, has happened to render silence in place of writing, and in affirming a genius of artifice, by refraining from pages, to crush the pertinacity of garrulity, trampling upon the law of nature. Let it be far from my character to follow what I grieve to have been committed and to lighten faults by imitating them. Behold, I again appeal to you, who foster a holiday of the tongue, and I pursue you with longer words, having memory of the promised affection. Lord, offering the most abundant greeting as above, I ask that importunity now exact the debt of grace, while it is provided that you satisfy the ardor of desire with lengthy discourses.

XXXVIII. ENNODIUS TO FIRMINA. Whenever a desired thing happens suddenly, it derives value from the very brevity of the time. For, in order that the character of a heavenly benefit may increase, it makes what it bestows sudden, lest the prolixity of those hoping should disfigure the mercy of the giver. For who, receiving the object of his longing desire suddenly, does not venerate the obtained boon more eagerly? Thus I received your letter, thirsting for it, at the time of my departure. I was grieving, I confess, and greatly distressed, while neither a bearer of my services was at hand nor could I, about to depart, learn of the good news of your health. Behold, a favorable countenance granted both: I received at the same time the desired tokens which I report, and I signify that I will seize the journey from the Cottian Alps and from Ravenna at one and the same time. Pray that, for me, tossed by various hardships, the gift of heavenly blessing may pour forth patience. As for me, however, as to what the splendor of your eminence urges for the preservation of your grace, I believe it is easier for the courses of rivers to be recalled into different channels and for fishes, having left the sustenance of the streams, to seek the empty air, than that forgetfulness should restore me, stained by such great faults. For the rest, farewell, my lady, and supplicate our Redeemer incessantly for the person you have undertaken.

BOOK SEVEN. I. ENNODIUS TO JULIANUS. We have fulfilled the ministry of obligation to the commands of your Magnitude, because he who obeys the admonitions of a just man comes close to equity. The quality of the business, which is entrusted to be learned from a friend of truth, instructs the mind of an upright judge with caution. The consideration of your Magnitude would have instilled affection in us, if our studies had not already given it. Therefore, in the matter which is contested between Bauto, the conductor of the royal house, and Epiphanius the chartarius, while the uncertain outcome wavered in our deliberation and the opposing parties clashed with alternating intent, Bauto asserting that he had confessed by a chirograph issued for the remainder of that indiction that he owed sixty-four public solidi, and that for this reason he could not repay them because he had given forty solidi to Epiphanius through the hands of the sublime man Projectus in the name of a gratuity, for which it was shown that no benefit had followed, and Epiphanius himself replying that if he had received anything, he had earned it by his labor and that nothing had been conferred upon him by Bauto in vain, and that he incessantly extolled the trustworthiness of the witness produced: we decreed that the noble man Projectus, named above by me, should declare under oath both the kind of hoped-for benefit and its effect, and if it were so, should assert that it had not followed. When this had been done,

completed, let Epiphanius refund the amount of money. It is now in the power of your Highness to support our decision, if it pleases you, with your authority. II. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. How much additional grief does interrupted tribulation bring, when adversity, in order to burn more fiercely, flatters with a change of fortune! Has a burden ever come more sharply, one that cast off the weight of continuous calamity? How well the long passage of time had accustomed me to patience in your absence, when even that which happiness did not possess had learned not to presume upon wishes! Behold, again a fresh passion tears at me from my long-standing sorrows, and a sharper blow cuts open the healed scar. I had implored mercy from you as you departed, that what I lost in present conversation might be compensated by letters, and I did not merit even this fruit, starved of all desires. Not neglectful of my custom, I compose writings amid tears, in which I believed nothing should be indicated concerning my affliction, content with the account of the illustrious man, my lord Pamphronius. Now, my lord, graciously accept the services of your servant, and provide the accustomed remedies to a soul placed in distress.

III. ENNODIUS TO AVIENUS. I would deservedly recount with what prayers I implored your Greatness as you departed, did I not avoid inflicting insults upon your memory. For one who reminds a lover of things recently done importunately sets before him an oblivion to be shunned by good men, since it is the peculiar property of those joined in affection that, under a kind of foreknowledge, they mutually supply each other’s desires, and by an effective dispensation they reconcile to the substance of love what is to be sought by vows, with the effect preceding the wish. Heavenly dispensation suggests that you inquire what love desires. To this is joined that, while you were undertaking your journey, you aided my burning soul with many promises, saying that I was to be sustained by pages, I who would be deprived of my own light by your absence. Behold, both the pledge limps in faith, and I, provoked by hope, burn. The confidence that came from the presumption of a remedy has made harsher hardships more difficult to bear. But now, my lord, receiving the honor of a greeting, after I have declared to you what is ill in my mind, let a swift cure follow, so that the state of your health or the awaited grace of the principal may be revealed by your words.

IV. Ennodius to Agnellus. Pages always devoted to diligence now, in their betrayal, are demanded by grief, and the handmaidens of joys have been drawn into the voice of disclosed injury, nor, content with the veneer of urbane dissimulation, has it either clothed the secrets of the heart with silence or transferred them to another part with flattery. I know of contrived things, but I flee them and, content with simplicity, I meet with lovers with a serene countenance of mind. Where in the world was the bond promised between us under the invocation of God, that you would leave me ungreeted as you departed, as if unknown, and that I, remaining, would not obtain the power to suggest what was necessary? I believe you provided that, weak in eyes, I would lose all light with you, and that I would not behold my day under the presence of a friend with closed eyes. If these things happened through negligence, you will leave to estimation what place I hold with you: they are to be borne more harshly if they are understood to have come about through design. Now farewell, my lord, and invite my mind, which innocence, origin, and purpose persuade to stand firm in its station, to a greater share of grace, because it has lain open to you in sincerity.

V. Ennodius to Senarius Although your office as my lord joins you to the principal care of the state through the proofs of unblemished fidelity, and although the brightness of your character so mingles you with public affairs that your lovableness excludes the taste of quiet, I do not, however, believe that the bond of friendship is so set aside that you, satisfying God with his help, do not repay to affection what is owed, while obeying the commands of the ruler. You know what the court demands, what grace demands, and at one and the same time you are not lacking either to the master of affairs or to love, when the integrity of a Christian mind, though divided between these parts, is consolidated. I believe my anxiety is relieved, therefore, by those things by which venerable custom is preserved in your pursuits. It only remains that your greatness, aided by the consolations of our God, may rejoice. My lord, presenting the homage of my greeting, I hope that I may be made joyful by the desired indication of letters concerning your state or that of your friend, the lord Faustus. VI. Ennodius to Florus and Decoratus

I have allowed up to now your greatness to assail the mobility of the Ligurians with the counterfeit argument of urbanity, because both my origin made me a stranger to them and your constancy had separated you from their faults by a promised steadfastness. But since I have departed from your eyes and mind by a single lot, I declare with the voice of a herald that no one can condemn what he follows, nor, with modesty intact, can he pronounce a sentence that sins against excesses. It is lawful for those free from guilt to detest vices: who can bear with equanimity a monitor who does not avoid in actions what he destroys in words? The saying of the Gospel is that he who has done and taught can be judged worthy of God's grace in this way. You have abundant speech whenever error is accused, and under the negligence of conduct you embrace the purity of words. You have lost the memory of my tears, which the blows of a twin grief poured forth as I departed. Behold how many days there are, in which, amid such a great throng of travelers, I receive no letters—neither from my lord, your friend, nor from you—that might indicate the state of your wish concerning him. You have absolved those guilty by imitation, not because it happened to the Ligurians, as you say, to lose their proposal of infidelity, but because it befell them to have found in these things companions to be avoided. Nevertheless, I ask, after offering the service of a greeting, that at long last, like good lords mindful of my prayers, you disclose your prosperity or that of my lord, your admirer, through the services of letters.

VII. ENNODIUS TO HELPIDIUS THE DEACON. Perfect love suffers no loss from bodily absence, nor is the serene union of spirits softened by the separation of journeys: those whose souls are joined together by Christ uniting them in love cannot be separated by any interposition of lands. With this hope, or with security from your conscience, I, secure, address one who loves me as if he were held in my embraces. Cherish, Lord Helpidius, whom you have received through the mediation of God. Let the world have its own cunning and call the urbanity of deceiving a prudence worthy of condemnation: you mix nothing into that sweetness which I have approved, except what leads us by steps to the goods of perfect love. Lord, returning the fullest greeting beyond the salutation, I ask that you indicate to me your prosperity and that of those who love us by frequent messages. VIII. ENNODIUS TO EUPREPIA. How well habit had prepared my mind for the patience of separation from your absence, while long silences were producing contempt for sweetness by the necessity of its own affairs! The scar has been torn open, which had approached the healing of pious love. I confess, venerable sister, your letter, seasoned with too familiar a flavor, has recalled me to my old longing. Behold, see with what art you contend with me, you who allow neither satiety from your presence nor oblivion from silence to come to my aid.

VII. Ennodius to Helpidius the Deacon. Perfect love suffers no loss from bodily absence, nor is the serene union of spirits softened by the separation of journeys: those whose souls are joined together by Christ uniting. The most high examiner of minds knows that my soul could not remain within its own depths upon reading your writings, but, compelled by the honey of diligence, flew forth to your presence. The habitation of Arles held me, while I was enclosed within the walls of Milan, and while the freedom of my mind ran forth to a sweet abode, the captivity of my body confined me within Italy. Oh, if only abundance of speech were at hand to set forth what the mind desires, or if shame did not snatch away those things to which my tongue is equal! A love is small which is sufficiently revealed by the testimony of the mouth: it is a confession of tepid charity whenever eloquence does not yield in it. What remains, I pray God that you may be strong and that you may open yourself to me by the good of mutual prosperity, to relieve my grief, which you have doubled with your writing by too cunning an art. IX. Ennodius to Avienus. The pomp which you flee in letters you possess, nor is your speech anything other than to guard the insignia of declamations: this nature, this skill, the inexhaustible mother of reading, has heaped up in you. But no consolation can come to my miseries, when before my eyes are placed what I have deserved, and the more unworthy I have been shown to be preferred, the more openly do the sins of the vanquished appear. Why, most illustrious of men, do you try to lift my spirit? What is it permitted to reserve for my tribulations in a life full of grief? For the good of heavenly dispensation, I have set the end even with life.

Nevertheless, I render insufficient thanks to you, who preserve toward me that diligence which you would not offer even to the most worthy. My lord, as I discharge the reverence of a greeting, I hope that you will by no means cease to pray for me and that writings bearing aid for the solace of my calamities may be sent. X. Ennodius to Florus and Decoratus. Having performed the office of a compeller, I barely forced the advocate to fulfill his promise, so that he paid what he owed to the advocates. A kind of harsh profession, that I may anticipate what must be said by us: I bent a cleric to shame. Consider what it is that softens the most obstinate and what he means who despoils the plunderers. I have given the pound of silver, which brother Epiphanius gave, to brother Gaianus to be delivered to you, though the agreements I undertook are still deposited with me. It remains for you to indicate whether I should deliver it. My lords, as I offer a most full greeting, I ask that first you deign to pray for me through the saints, and then that you render my respects to your beloved lords with that humility which you know I desire.