Letter 1006: Faustus, from Ennodius.

VI. Ennodius to Faustus Good God, how nothing is difficult for those who attend to great things, and with what tranquillity divine minds set down what they have beheld! With what endowments are places adorned, when a tongue that is rich and skilled in speaking has looked upon them, if it be granted to a religious purpose to relate them without prejudice to the confession of faith! The Maker of the world, God, granted to certain provinces their felicities out of the astonishing bounty of his hidden counsel: some he bade pour forth wine more abundantly, others better; to others he granted that they should rejoice in the resource of the wheat crop; many he endowed with the variety or usefulness of fruits. Yet those provinces to which the very opposition of nature did not grant these merits, he made exalted through the one who reports of them. There is no ground so barren that it should despair of its rocky crags, nor any from which fields unresponsive to the cultivator should lie beneath them. By the genius of tongues merits are bestowed upon lands, and according to how each man is able to speak, in such a manner does he elevate the matter of which he has spoken. You will increase, O provinces, by the cultivation of discourse: whatever in you has astonished the reader belongs to the mouth. O rich soil, and you, O land that boast of your wealthy vine-shoots, you that feed the husbandman scraping your back with modest furrows, you that lay open rich veins at the very beginning of the first ploughing, you that restore the seeds you have received with a multiplied harvest: you have nothing in common with the greatest of lands, if our lord Faustus, the very standing of Roman eloquence, has not come to you serene. Behold, the condition of Como, once almost consigned in dark obscurity to silence, which until now has boasted of no advantage, and, as they say, of no beauty: with how great a privilege of genius does it now rejoice! It is a land that knows how to display a wretched concord with summer snows through its sheer ravines and the open gaps of its clinging mountains; for which, amid the perils of overhanging cliffs, when the cultivators have a road, there is need to sow the rock-face before the soil, before any seedlings; for which it is a kind of calamity that the borders of the banks of the Larius [Lake Como] have been adorned with hoary groves, so that, smiling with an enticing appearance, with a flattering brow it may lie about its fruitfulness to those who hold sway and may nourish a beauty to be cursed for the ruin of its possessor; where first by their buildings they pay off the tributes laid upon the residences of the lord, while with sparing frugality they strive to repair the extravagances of the ancients and to prop up roofs that are squandering the patrimony: a supply of native inhabitants kept only for this, that a number exceeding even the wishes of the assessor of public obligation should not be lacking; nourishing crowds of fish not for delicacies but for horror, through which we learn what praise the flavor of fish caught elsewhere deserves; where there is perpetually rainy air and a threatening sky and a certain passage of life without full light: the sweet streams of the Larius pleasant to the eyes of those passing by, and inviting to a swim those whom they may destroy. Who could endure a comely flood deceiving men under this deception? What shall I say of the island made habitable by report? Who would not marvel at this? An island in which life preserved is less prized, in which it was a portion of one's lot merely to have escaped from peril, around which bait is provided for the fish out of the corpses of men? For none save the dead of the Larius have earned their tombs in that very place by the waters. You have praised the seas, the river, and the Addua, whose distinction the lake reveals through their confused channels by its swelling, channels which could never be recognized in it except by their turbid streams. It was worth so much to display the riches of eloquence in matters lacking in praise, by as much as all these things would not have been worth, had they bestowed the benefits of nature. Yet may the Lord of the heavens, who granted you to be able to do this, guard his gifts in perpetuity, since I have written these things not as though I felt differently from you, but so that from them the reader may recognize that, through your pen, Como is better to read than to behold.

VI. FAVSTO ENNODIVS Deus bone, quam nihil est arduum magna curantibus et qua quiete diuinae mentes uisa describunt! quibus ornantur dotibus loca, quae lingua diues et dicendi peritus aspexerit, si religioso\' liceat sine discrimine confessionis enarrare proposito! quasdam mundi artifex, deus prouinciis . felicitates stupenda secreti sui largitate concessit: alias uberius, melius alias uinum iussit effundere, aliis contulit triticeae segetis ope gratulari, multas pomorum uarietate uel utilitate donauit. quibus haec tamen ipsius - naturae repugnantia merita non dederunt, feeit eas relatore sublimes. non est unde ieiuna cautibus gleba desperet . nec unde non respondentia cultori arua subiaceant. linguarum genio terris merita tribuuntur et qualiter quis loqui 2 speciebuH Pb 3 sapeisa Pb, supera BLTV 4 optate U B pernentorum L 5 adscikcitnr BL, asciscitur PVbf asscicitnr T, adscribitur Sirm . 6 perduce B 7 dignitatis B 8 impefcratione L corr, TV, iraperatione L1, inspiratioDe Pb 9 me T, miw B, hi. eras. 11 contemptum T1 VI. 14 nichil T et sic saepimme 15 quietae B mentis BLPTVb discribunt B 16 diuia B 18 prouintiis L V .. 19 secreta B 20 £ riticae B .22 repugnantis Sirm . 23 ieiunia L gleua B diqperet jBLV 24 non B, rWn., LPTVb potuerit, taliter rem, de qua fuerit locutus, adtollit. crescetis. prouinciae, cultura sermonum: oris est quicquid in uobis lector stupuit. uber solum et diuitibus quae te iactas terra palmitibus, quae per modicos sulcos scalpentem dorsa pascis agricolam, quae uenas diuites in ipso proscissionis pandis exordio, quae suscepta germina multiplicata messe restituis, nihil tibi commune cum maximis, si ad te domnus Faustus, Romani status eloquii, non serenus accesserit. ecce Comus pullae quondam pene in silentium missa condicio, quae nulla se hactenus commoditate, nulla ut aiunt formositate iactauit, quanto gaudet ingenii priuilegio? quae per praerupta conuallia et patulos cohaerentium hiatus montium aestiuis niuibus miseram scit exhibere concordiam, cui per pericula pendentium cum uia cultorum ante terram per scopulos opus est seminare quam germina, cui calamitatis genus est, riparum Larii confinia canis ornasse nemoribus, ut subridens inlecebrosa uisione dominantibus blanda fecunditatem fronte mentiatur et in perniciem possessoris pulchritudinem nutriat exsecrandam, ubi primum fabricis suis per praetoria domini tributa dissoluunt, dum antiquorum lasciuias parca nituntur frugalitate reparare et profligantia patrimonium fulcire culmina: indigenarum copia ad hoc tantum seruata, ut functioni publicae peraequatoris etiam uota transcendens numerus non deesset: piscium populos . non ad delicias, sed ad horrorem nutriens, per quos discimus quid laudis captorum alibi sapor mereatur: ubi aer pluuius perenniter et minax caelum et quaedam uitae sine tota luce 1 attollit LTV crescitis Sirm. 2 proaintiae LV 4 pacis LPb 5 in] et in P 6 restitnes B 8 kpnlloe B 9 poene B conditio LTV actenus B 11 ingenii] elata add. B I patnlus B 12 coherentium BLT hyatns PT 18 c p picnla T c p p in rcu . cum uia] uuia T 17 fornte B 18 pnlcritudinem PT ezecrandam PT 19 dissolnnnt tributa T 20 laBcinias BLV, lascinas T, lacinias P, lacnnas b, lacinias coni. Schottus; nihil mutandum, loquitwr enim de tectis priorum possessorum neglegentia ruinam minantibus 21 indig\'narum T 92 publice B perequatoris B 23 populus B 24 diliciaa B quod Pb dicimus L 26 perhenniter T transactio: dulcia Larii oculis fluenta transeuntibus et ad natatum quos perdat inuitantia. quis ferat decorum gurgitem sub hac deceptione fallentem? quid dicam insulam relatione factam habitabilem? quis non hoc miretur? in qua minus amatur uita seruata., in qua portio fuit euasisse decriminis, circa quam piscibus hominum ministratur esca cadaueribus? nulla enim praeter aquas Larii defuncti ibidem sepulcra meruerunt. maria, fluuium Adduamque laudastis, quorum per confusos ductus discrimen lacum tumoris ostendit, qui agnosci in eo numquam nisi per turbida fluenta potuerunt. tanti fuit diuitias facundiae in rebus laude carentibus ostentare, quanti non fuerant haec omnia, naturae beneficia si dedissent. caelorum tamen dominus, qui hoc uobis posse concessit, munera sua sub perennitate tueatur, quia haec ego non quasi a uobis diuersa sentiens scripsi, sed ut ex istis lector agnoscat Comum per stilum uestrum melius esse legere quam uidere.