Letter 3014: Frequent letters would serve both kinship and love, as they should.
Ennodius of Pavia→Euprepia|c. 504 AD|Ennodius of Pavia
education books
From: Ennodius, deacon and literary figure in Pavia
To: Euprepia [his female relative]
Date: ~503 AD
Context: Another letter to Euprepia, emphasizing the need for frequent correspondence between family members — the personal voice behind the public churchman.
Ennodius to Euprepia.
Frequent letters would serve both kinship and love, as they should. But when necessity intervenes and the flow of correspondence is interrupted, it is love itself that suffers the most.
I write to you now to bridge the gap that circumstances have opened between us. You are never far from my thoughts, and I trust the same is true in reverse. Let us not allow the practical difficulties of communication to erode what distance alone can never destroy.
Send me news. Any news. The mundane details of your life are more precious to me than the finest rhetoric from a stranger. Farewell.
XIIII. ENNODIVS EVPREPIAE.
Frequentia et necessitudini et amori exhiberet conloquia
pectus obnoxium, nisi desideriis remedia sua subduceret discretarum
consideratio sine medela terrarum. quicquid enim
1 concurreient Sirm . 2 uenientium LTV nesciat T*
u
q ex qd T corr . 3 ponimum L delegendus BLTV 4 nostre
T ///scripta B cõmitti B ~ atram. fusco add. cocidl
sionem L\' 5 prostamus B 6 cnpitati F exegit B, exigis
Ll iccirco T 7 oportunitatem BLTV 8 inmeritus
Bl 9 inoportnnitate B reddeat B 11 paginale BLV;
ad mnnus uel uubeidium paginale fort.; cf . Wiener Stndien II p. 251
12 mihi T 8.I. m. 8 18 pagiDa B1 LV; fort . pro pagina 14 domine////
Y 15 uenerabilem| unus B1 16 sollecito B 17 et
meam T suspitatem Bx
XIIII. 20 necessitudinem B eziberet BL1, exhiberi T1
21 sna om. Sirm . subducerent LTV descrstaram B 22 rtedilla
B, medelam F1
YI.
6
caritate iunctum est, quicquid sanguinis catena sociatur, hoc distractum
uix respirat per interualla regionum. quae enim possit
habere subsidia cui frequens denegatur copia et paginalis alloquii?
muta inter absentes diligentia quo teste pandatur? ant
enim opportunitas commeantium expectata subtrahitur aut inueniuntur
tales, quibus non possint reddenda caris scripta
conmitti. mi tamen usque ad domesticum perlatorem diu
anxia uota suspendi, per quem honorem salutati exhibens optata
nobis patefaciam meae prosperitatis indicia et litterarum
mihi spondeam promulgatione responsum, quibus, si in portu
est sanitas uestra, amplectendis reseretur affatibus.
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From:Ennodius, deacon and literary figure in Pavia
To:Euprepia [his female relative]
Date:~503 AD
Context:Another letter to Euprepia, emphasizing the need for frequent correspondence between family members — the personal voice behind the public churchman.
Ennodius to Euprepia.
Frequent letters would serve both kinship and love, as they should. But when necessity intervenes and the flow of correspondence is interrupted, it is love itself that suffers the most.
I write to you now to bridge the gap that circumstances have opened between us. You are never far from my thoughts, and I trust the same is true in reverse. Let us not allow the practical difficulties of communication to erode what distance alone can never destroy.
Send me news. Any news. The mundane details of your life are more precious to me than the finest rhetoric from a stranger. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.