Letter 3005: I would be swollen with pride at the flattery of your letters if I were not kept in check by my own awareness of my...
Ennodius of Pavia→Maximus of Madaura|c. 496 AD|Ennodius of Pavia
barbarian invasionfriendship
From: Ennodius, deacon and literary figure in Pavia
To: Maximus
Date: ~496 AD
Context: A letter acknowledging praise from a friend, combining conventional self-deprecation with genuine warmth — and a reference to the powerful patrician Liberius, a key figure in Ostrogothic administration.
Ennodius to Maximus.
I would be swollen with pride at the flattery of your letters if I were not kept in check by my own awareness of my limitations. You, in your generous judgment, have forgotten to be critical. I, constrained by my sense of what is fitting, must live quietly within my modest capabilities.
You lift up my writings because you are a friend; I, on the other hand, must fear those who — dismissing everything with sour disdain — condemn even polished work. But I thank you for this: you tell me that my lord Patricius thinks of me as your own testimony has painted me. The credit for that opinion, then, belongs to your recommendation, not to anything I have written.
Love is owed to the messenger, not the message. Farewell.
V. ENNODIVS MAXIMO.
Grandes hiatus paterer litterarum uestrarum eleuatus alloquio,
si non mei conscius inperitiam pudore conprimerem et
iudicii lancem tenerem, etiam cum laudor inmeritus. uos dignatio
censurae fecit immemores: me propositum intra uerecundum
degere penetrale conpellit. uos scripta mea tanquam
amantes adtollitis: me necesse est illos metuere, qui rancido
despicientes cuncta neglectu etiam edecumata condemnant. ago.
tamen gratias quod apud domnum Patricium talem me iudicari
scribitis, qualem uestro testimonio reddidistis. insinuationi
ergo amor debetur iste, non paginae, quam scaber stilus sine
eloquentiae dote signauit. salutationem tamen magnitudini
uestrae dignam referens deo gratias ago, quod uotiuis uos
auctos successibus reduxit ad propria, quos mens mea pro conexione
caritatis numquam sentit absentes.
1 summisi BV equalis B 2 me ergo Pb 3 eiiberi
u
BL\' 6 dicere cauaam T 8 adi T 9 cdmendatiis L
I
V. 17 censure B 19 adtollites B 20 edocumta ex edecnmata
B 23 debetur amor T pagina ex pagine B
25 ag.o B uotiuos B 26 actos T, aut eos re B 27 pagin.
(m? tras.) L claritatis T
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From:Ennodius, deacon and literary figure in Pavia
To:Maximus
Date:~496 AD
Context:A letter acknowledging praise from a friend, combining conventional self-deprecation with genuine warmth — and a reference to the powerful patrician Liberius, a key figure in Ostrogothic administration.
Ennodius to Maximus.
I would be swollen with pride at the flattery of your letters if I were not kept in check by my own awareness of my limitations. You, in your generous judgment, have forgotten to be critical. I, constrained by my sense of what is fitting, must live quietly within my modest capabilities.
You lift up my writings because you are a friend; I, on the other hand, must fear those who — dismissing everything with sour disdain — condemn even polished work. But I thank you for this: you tell me that my lord Patricius thinks of me as your own testimony has painted me. The credit for that opinion, then, belongs to your recommendation, not to anything I have written.
Love is owed to the messenger, not the message. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.