Letter 8008: I thought my previous letter would have drawn a reply by now, but the roads are uncertain and carriers unreliable —...

Ennodius to Helpidius the deacon. By what means, by what artifice am I to coax your brotherliness into writing, when you, a man rich in words, keep toward me a silence that is a stranger to you? I have resolved to make you speak by speaking myself, and to draw out that Attic learning of yours into letters by a chattering of another kind. It would have been only fair that, after withdrawing for so many days from your promise, you should at least mark by the dispatch of a single page in what manner you had arrived. Or do you perhaps reckon that toward me that wariness of yours is to be preserved? You disdain conversation with those whose goodwill you sought with much sweat. Believe me, unless you check yourself from this fault with that swiftness with which you are accustomed to move, it will be necessary for us to transfer our patronage to others who, once established as mindful, will repay love with attentions. Greeting you therefore with these words, I disclose to a friend and a physician that I am laboring under a grievous unevenness of the body, which, unless a page dictated by you provides the jests to cure it, will, by stretching out through torments the little frog [a swelling under the tongue], make me the equal of long-winded men.

VIII. HELPIDIO DIACONO ENNODIVS. Quibus modis fraternitatom tuam ad scribendum quaue arte sollicitem, quando homo uerborum locuples in me silentia peregrina custodis? elegi, ut loqui te loquendo faciam etillam Atticam eruditionem ad epistolas alia garrulitate producam. iustum fuit ut tot diebus a promissione desisteres et qualiter 2 inperoiens S me esse] messe B 3 inequalitatem B peetis B 4 uestre B VIl. 8 aput B scanctas B ut saepius consciencias B 9 elimenat B 12 importun\' (n\' ex m corr.) T, inpor B commonionis B 118 obseqaentissimae B, obsequentissimi Pb 14 horrei BL 15 facite fort . 16 disceHre (de eras.) L potuisaitis B Vm. Hanc epistuiam cum antecedenti, coniungit inscriptione omissa b 18 hilpidio B, elpidio L diaci B, diaci L 19 ad s.] adscribendam B, ascribendum L 20 solibitem Bl locaplepe B1 silleatia V 91 te loqui Pb 22 alia] latina fort . producem B 23 tota LV desierteris B peruenisses nulla paginae directione signares? an forte circa me illam tuam cautelitatem aestimas esse seruandam? dedignaris conloquio quorum gratiam multo sudore quaesisti. crede mihi, nisi ab hoc te uitio sub ea qua ambulare soles uelocitate suspenderis , necesse est, ut ad alios nostra patrocinia transferamus, qui memores constituti amorem munerentur obsequiis. his ergo salutans amico et medico indico me graui corporis inaequalitate laborare, quam nisi te dictante pagina iocos exhibitura curauerit, distensam per tormenta ranulam longis hominibus coaequabo.