Letter 9001: I would like you to look kindly on my effort and forgive the poverty of my talent, because it is wrong to despise...

Ennodius to Arator. I would have you so favor my effort that you grant indulgence to a meager talent, since it is wrong that, amid acts of devotion, a lovable eagerness to learn should be looked down upon, when a harsh interpreter of matters nullifies what a gracious one has offered. He too is to be praised in his studies who is not thought to equal the eloquent in speech. Among the kindly and the learned, which should be chosen is uncertain. Let it pass, since both parties offer their worth. Therefore trust one who is devoted to you, and drive off the bitterness from the seasons of lawful love. I do not want you to make a matter of free choice into a necessity, nor to digest into grief those desires which nature has begotten for the human race. He who is not going to keep continence, unless he chooses marriage, is at fault: one who shuns the remedy of the conjugal bond must choose either virtues or crimes. I implore you to measure yourself, so that you neither undertake a journey above a man who is full of mischances, nor ponder within yourself those things that ought to be punished. He scarcely sins who does not deviate from nature and from law. Therefore, after the camps of the Muses and the songs idle in our age, change yourself over to the care of raising offspring: live by what has been held cheap, since among the armies of the unskilled it is madness to be unwilling to play the countryman: it delights the wise man to be this thing which the greatest number are. Let philosophy depart from the gatherings marked as ours: I desire to be free of cares, as often as one who goes before follows after a happy ignorance. Therefore, accepting the honor of one greeted, write back to me what my page has done with your mind. For if you should demand what opinion I hold, I myself now detest the very names of the liberal studies.

I. ENNODIVS ARATORI. Velim ita labori meo faueas, ut ieiuno ueniam praestes ingenio, quia nefas est in deuotionibus despici amabilem discendi cupiditatem, quando quod gratiosus optulerit durus rerum interpres euacuat. laudandus est in studiis uel qui facundum aequare non putatur eloquio. inter benignos et eruditos quid eligatur incertum. eat, cum pars utraque det pretium. ergo crede diligenti et amaritudinem temporibus legitimi amoris amolire. nolo rem uoti facias necessitatem et desideria, quibus humanum genus natura peperit, digeras in maerorem. non habiturus continentiam, nisi nuptias optet, in culpa est: coniugalis copulae uitans remedium electurus est ant uirtutes aut crimina. tu te ut metiaris, inploro, ut nec supra hominem plenum casibus iter adripias nec intra hominem quae sunt plectenda mediteris. uix delinquit qui a natura et lege non deuiat. ergo post Musarum castra et inanes aetate nostra cantilenas ad curam te serendae subolis muta: uita quod uiluit, quia inter imperitorum exercitus furor est nolle rusticari: iuuat sapientem hoc esse quod plurimos. facessat philosophiae I. 3 praestis B 4 dispici B 6 interpraes m uacuat B 8 aligatar B precium B 9 teporibus fort . 10 amolore B 11 degeras BL merorem BLTV 12 nuptaas L\' 13 euitans T elicturus B 14 erimina B 17 inanes PТ2b, inanis BLTlV 18 te serendae] tenarendae B sobolis LT V uilnet B 19 peritorum B exercitia coni. Schottus 20 iubat B hoc esse] fecisBe coni. Schottus facessa B filosophyae B, philosophia T (a ex e corr.) et Sirm . in nostrorum nota conuentibus: ego curis deesse cupio, quotiens felicem inscitiam sequitur qui praecedit. ergo honorem salutati accipiens rescribe mihi, quid cum animo tuo pagina mea egerit. nam si quae mihi sit sententia flagites, ego ipsa studiorum liberalium nomina iam detestor.