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 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