Letter 1025: Desire for your letters has made me write first — a reversal I accept without complaint.

Ennodius to Olybrius and Eugenetes. Desire for your letters has made the bold brow of my modesty prodigal, and while a published notice promises a reply, within the bashful inner chamber it cannot contain its long-standing infancy. I ought indeed to owe to birth and purpose the grace of silence, since my first conversations denied the fruit of my hope. But I do not know whether an intention is to be judged as stubbornly wrong when, without cost to another, it multiplies the hazards of anxious experience through love. Farewell, my lords, and return with me to the concord of correspondence, lest you act against the counsels of the Gospel if you deny even to importunity what affection might justly have obtained.

XXV. ENNODIVS OLVBRIO ET EVGENETL Desiderio paginarum uestrarum facta est mihi prodiga frons pudoris, et dum tabella promittit promulgata responsum, intra uerecundum penetrale annosam continere nescit infantiam. deberem quidem sanguini et proposito silentii uenustatem, postquam spei meae fructum prima negauere conloquia. sed nescio utrum male pertinax iudicetur intentio, quae sine alterius dispendiis sollicitae per amorem experientiae pericla multiplicat. ualete, mi domini, et ad scriptionis mecum remeate concordiam, ne contra euangelii faciatis monita, si et inportunitati denegetis quod iuste forsitan inpetrasset affectio.