Letter 1024: What on earth is the reason for your being so miserly with your letters?

What, the deuce, is the logic by which you are so stingy in showing kindness and so lavish in complaining, and demand a frequency of letters that you yourself do not supply, inspecting with viperous eyes whatever another person fails in, while pruning back your own faults with no sickle? Many years have passed since you, a senator and a learned man, chose a dwelling near the Alps, where, as you gaze upon the frosty ridges, the unlucky snow of your head has appeared, where too you have indicated in your writing that you feed upon acorns. The handsome quality of your letters lent credence to this fact, since the suggestion of this food showed itself in the belching of a bloated breast and in your Alpine manner of speech. I marvel nonetheless that, amid the rivers of that place reined in by ice and amid an unrelenting cold, the flame of your liver blazes the more, and your breast obtains no moderation from its habitation. [One's] age cools down into old age: there is a house that turns waters into metals and, against nature, governs whirlpools by its own law; you, however, are said to live among these things in such a way that your fire is provoked by the fodder of frost. I goad you with the mouth of a father, because I owe you, and owe to my own purpose, the voice of one who chastises. It is your part hereafter, if you choose to receive my letters frequently, to give thanks for the admonition. As for myself, beyond these things, once you have been greeted with honor, I have found nothing that I might write to those who live in that filth of the flesh which you love.

XXIIII. ENNODIVS ASTVRIO. Quae, malum, ratio est, ut ita sis parcus in gratia, prodigus in querela et exigas frequentiam litterarum quam ipse non tribuis, uiperinis oculis illud quod alter delinquit inspiciens, tuas culpas nulla falce resecando? anni plures sunt, ex quo Alpibus uicinam habitationem delegisti, senator et doctus, ubi tibi, dum pruinosa respicis iuga, adparuit inauspicata nix capitis, ubi etiam glande te uesci scriptione signasti. cuius rei fidem litterarum tuarum decora fecerunt, cum cibi huius significantia in ructu turgidi pectoris et Alpini sermonis adparuit. miror tamen, quod inter loci illius frenata glacie flumina et sine successione frigus iecoris tui flamma plus aestuat nec aliquam sortitur pectus de mansione temperiem. aetas 1 spacia LT 3 epistolas LTV 5 scribta B tranamiase L1 88 in tt eorr. m. rec . 6 mi] mihi BL V praecor BV 7 statu Pb, statum BLTV repererit T, repperit B 8 uiucula T a. I. m. 2 XXIIIL 12 mali B ea L t 8. I. m . 2 13 querella B et om. B frequentia B 14 tribues B uiperinis] qui p imis T illut B delinquit - l . 18 capitis T in ras. m. 2 delinquid BLP, deliquit b insipiens T 16 uicMtam B deligivta B, elegisti T et doctus] edoctus T 17 proinosa respices B apparuit LTV inauspicat* B 18 inter capitis et ubi litterae tor edoct\' eras. in T 20 apparuit LTV 22 iaecoris tui B, tui iecoris Pb plust Tx 23 aestas L deferuiscit B 3* deferuescit in senium: est domus quae lymphas in metalla conuertat et contra naturam gurgitibus sua lege dominetur: tu tamen inter ista sic uiuere diceris, quasi ignis tuus algoris pabulis inritetur. ego te ore parentis stimulo, quia tibi et proposito meo uocem debeo castigantis. uestrum est post haec, si eligitis litteras meas frequenter accipere, de admonitione gratulari. ego autem praeter ista cum honore salutati quae scribere possim in illa carnis quam tu diligis eluuie uiuentibus non inueni.