Letter 1025: Desire for your letters has made me write first — a reversal I accept without complaint.

Ennodius to Olybrius and Eugenes. Through my longing for your pages my brow has become prodigal of its modesty, and while the published little tablet promises a reply, it does not know how to keep its long-standing infancy within a bashful inner chamber. I ought indeed to owe to our kinship and to my resolve the grace of silence, since the first conversations denied the fruit of my hope. But I do not know whether an intention is to be judged badly stubborn which, without losses to another, multiplies the perils of an anxious endeavor through love. Farewell, my lords, and return with me to the harmony of writing, lest you act against the admonitions of the Gospel, if you also deny to importunity what affection might perhaps have justly obtained.

XXV. ENNODIVS OLVBRIO ET EVGENETL Desiderio paginarum uestrarum facta est mihi prodiga frons pudoris, et dum tabella promittit promulgata responsum, intra uerecundum penetrale annosam continere nescit infantiam. deberem quidem sanguini et proposito silentii uenustatem, postquam spei meae fructum prima negauere conloquia. sed nescio utrum male pertinax iudicetur intentio, quae sine alterius dispendiis sollicitae per amorem experientiae pericla multiplicat. ualete, mi domini, et ad scriptionis mecum remeate concordiam, ne contra euangelii faciatis monita, si et inportunitati denegetis quod iuste forsitan inpetrasset affectio.