Letter 3008: If giving offense results in a doubling of your letters, how I wish the calm tranquility of your serene heart could...

Ennodius to Avienus. If giving offense results in a doubling of your letters, how I wish the calm tranquility of your serene heart could be disturbed more often! Were it not against my principles, I would deliberately provoke causes for your indignation -- since what love could not earn, I have obtained through faults. I declare myself, however, innocent in the very matter for which you accuse me of negligence -- yet in accusing me, you have bestowed a reward. I dispatched a messenger in agitation, through whom I revealed nothing beyond what was necessary. A free heart leaves the tongue idle for courtesies; a troubled mind refuses the grace of greeting. So thanks be to God on both counts: I am not guilty, and you believed I was. Your annoyance has brought me a gift that affection itself could scarcely have produced. I cannot express what I owe you. Love is impoverished in whose telling speech does not fail. My lord, in offering the greeting that is owed, I pray to God that whatever is in your heart, you will always write.

VIII. ENNODIVS AVIENO. Si offensa praestat, ut magnitudinis tuae scripta geminentur, quam uellem saepe illa sereni pectoris tui tranquilla turbari? et nisi aduersaretur proposito, causas indignationis ingererem, quando quod amor non meretur per culpas optinui. ego tamen errore uacare me nuntio in ea causa, in qua dum accusatis neglegentiam, praemium contulistis. puerum turbatus direxi, VI. 5 taceret Tl 6 ad (d 8. I.) Y transmitterem (tt ex s ? corr.) L 7 reueletis L VII. 13 exsistat V nollet B 15 gratiam uram (urim in mg. add.) B 16 uenerantur Tl 17 quaeJ quem B 19 mereres B VIII. 23 sepe B 25 obtinui per culpas b 27 praemium V a exp. m. 1 per quem nihil aliud quam quod opus esset ostendi. libero pectore lingua uacat officiis: mens confusa gratiam salutationis abiurat. ecce deo in utroque gratias, quia nec ego reus sum et uos me reum esse credidistis. beneficium mihi commotio uestra contulit, quod nix dedisset affectio. ego quid tibi debeam explicare non possum: pauper est caritas, in cuius narratione sermo non deficit. domine mi, salutem debitam dicens deum rogo, ut quodlibet animo gesseris semper scribas.