Letter 5016: Great are the commands of joy: the man who lacks happiness lacks the ability to understand it.

XVI. ENNODIUS TO PAMFRONIUS. Great is the sway of joys: gladness has no part in self-restraint and longs to burst out into speech. The day so wished for by my longings has come, and that distinction which I never asked for on account of my own deserts but always from the heavenly mercy has been added to your greatness: there has been restored to your lineage and character that crowning honor through which the integrity of a faithful conscience need not be afraid to come forth into the light. Good God, guard the things you have granted, increase by further successes what you have given, make that rank which is the highest to be the first one about your servant. I lay down in advance, with hope for the future, the very things I now pray for: the gifts that are bestowed by Heaven's authorship do not know how to cling at the doorway. One always ascends by increments to the summit, where favor from on high supplies the beginning. Who in the life of men, even of those who keep their own manner of living darkened by no cloud, would congratulate himself that there had come to him on a single day both that you had entered upon the first omens of honors and that my own dear Senarius had been restored from the farthest parts of the earth? A brief course of hours intervened, so that both you were born to the palace and he was restored to it. In truth I say it, and from God's mercy I confidently pledge for myself, that protections for my frailty are being granted, with Heaven complying. There is pledged to me that which has been bestowed upon you [plural]. My lord, receiving the dutiful service of my greeting, I ask that, if you grant anything to my love, you do not omit fully to entreat the lord of my soul, Senarius, that he remain with me. And if you do not obtain this, you have plucked much from me of the heap of my gladness.

XVI. ENNODIVS PAMFRONIO. Magna sunt imperia gaudiorum: expers est continentiae hilaritas et in uocem gestit erumpere. uenit optatus desideriis dies et ille, quem numquam de meritis meis sed semper de superna pietate postulaui, magnitudini tuae splendor accessit: redditus est generi et moribus tuis apex, per quem conscientiae fidelis in lucem prodire non formidet integritas. deus bone, indulta custodi, auge successibus quod dedisti, fac circa seruum tuum primum esse gradum qui summus est. praecipio spe futura quae deprecor: nesciunt in foribus haerere quae caelo auctore tribuuntur. semper incrementis ad culmen ascenditur, ubi supernus fauor praestat exordium. quis hoc in uita hominum uel eorum, qui conuersationem suam nulla custodiunt nube sordentem, accessisse sibi die una gratuletur, te honorum auspicia ingressum et dulce meum Senarium ab ultimis terrarum partibus restitutum? breuis horarum cursus interfuit, 1 affuit PTb 2 genitum B mia T (ut solet), gratia Pb 4 deffondere B 6 dona L1 8 sufficiens (ante dlt . s et supra ras.) V XYI. 10 panfronio T 11 imperia gaudiorum LPTV nisi quod gaudiaram V scribere coeperat 12 gestet B erumpere T in ras . 14 piaetate L postolaui B adcessit B 15 apix 0 B 17 bona B quos L 18 peroipio Pb 19 herere B u 20 actore T tribuntur L culmina scenditur B\' 21 supernos B prestat B 23 adcessisse B gratuletur PTb, gratulentur BL V ut et tu palatio natus et ille sit redditus. in ueritate dico et de dei misericordia mihi securus spondeo, fragilitati meae praesidia caelo obsequente concedi. spondetur mihi quod uobis est praestitum. domine mi, salutationis obsequia suscipiens rogo, ut, si quid amori meo tribuis, domnum animae meae Senarium, ut apud me maneat, exorare pleniter non omittas. quod nisi obtinueris, multum mihi de hilaritatis cumulo decerpsisti.