Letter 5022: If the proximity of blood should inspire diligence of mind, then you and I have no excuse for silence.
22. Ennodius to Venantius.
If nearness of blood summons our minds to attentiveness, then, having complied with the commands of dutiful love, I am eager to have furnished the first word in advance, and, having begun these pages, to have opened a path to embraces by means of conversation. For a long while indeed I was worn down by empty expectation: while I waited, I did not send forth my pages; but my affection has dug into my mind with its own spurs and has made it come first to the duties of the writing-tablets. I hold the prerogative, if I judge rightly, of the one who loves more, since I both speak after the prolonged zeal of your silence, and I ought out of modesty to commend the very fact that I kept silent. Now, however, lest this epistolary composition, having overstepped its limit, should dishonor its author, I render the services of a greeting and, if I am worthy of it, I present myself to be reconciled to your worthiness, since the eminence of the more powerful is doubled by sharing, and the favor granted to the most eminent carries forward a torch to those beneath him.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
XXII. VENANTIO ENNODIVS.
Si proximitas sanguinis ad diligentiam mentes inuitat, pii
amoris obsecutus imperiis gestio me praeuium praestitisse sermonem
et orditum paginas amplectendis uiam reserasse conloquiis.
diu quidem cassa expectatione maceratus, dum operior
paginas non emisi, sed calcaribus suis animum meum fodit
affectio et ad tabellarum munia priorem fecit accedere. habeo
praerogatiuam, si bene conicio, plus amantis, qui et post productum
silentii uestri studium loquor, et debeo uerecundia
conmendare quod tacui. nunc tamen, ne epistularis concinnatio
transgressa terminum deuenustet auctorem, salutationis seruitia
dependo et, si mereor, dignationi uestrae conciliandus
occurro, quia potiorum sublimitas communione geminatur et
facem praefert eminentissimo gratia concessa subiectis.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern ennodius pavia retranslated v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OpenGreekAndLatin/csel-dev/master/data/stoa0114a/stoa008/stoa0114a.stoa008.opp-lat1.xml
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