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**From:** Ennodius, deacon of Pavia
**To:** Mascator [identity uncertain; a well-placed correspondent who has pressed Ennodius to write]
**Date:** ~507–513 AD
**Context:** Mascator has asked Ennodius to write; Ennodius responds with an elaborate performance of mock self-deprecation — claiming his eloquence has been ruined by ascetic life and ecclesiastical humility, while demonstrating by the very length and artfulness of the letter that it remains entirely intact.
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The diligence of your heart, charged with a new kind of inspiration, has done me honor. I make use here of the testimony of a style drawn out under pressure — I, who with my garrulousness displease the learned well beyond the measure of mere ignorance. A speech compelled by necessity steals whatever worth it possesses, since that worth does not in any case flow from eloquence itself. The affront a man displays only because he was commanded to do so was never worthy of punishment: no one justly condemns the man who obeys. Whoever provokes an untrained man must blame himself for the blows he receives from that man's rough and unpolished speech. It is arrogance not to obey one's superiors — and a greater arrogance still to despise what you know has come down from a willing hand. To refuse to love what you demand of another is taken as the mark of a corrupt and shameful desire. He who suspends all critical judgment over the one who simply complies is in effect endorsing his own assessment. That strictness is a wrongheaded severity which looks for merit in the one who merely does as he is told. He has not abandoned his post of modesty who says only what authority obliges him to say. And so with me: what is squalid in my eloquence is redeemed by my compliance. You shall see for yourself the quality of what you commanded me to offer; for my part, I reckon that you have gotten what you wished to receive — and at no cost to my honor.
I pass over in silence — though these are matters that should rightly have been placed first in any account — how ecclesiastical humility has renounced whatever might win applause; how one who loves fine speech has nonetheless not pursued the grand pomp of rhetorical display; how, out of regard for the demands of my calling, I flee even those things that lead toward glory — as if to shun as a moral failing whatever exalts me, to regard as sin whatever raises and elevates the spirit, to forfeit the deserved reward of honest praise by surrendering to the appetite for popular favor.
I will not hold up before you an excuse prettily touched up with the paintbrush of truth, while I go on to confess this: that I have already abandoned whatever the careful cultivation of the liberal arts once gave me — that my eloquence now trickles out like a barely-dripping drop from the parched bed of what was once a full and rushing river. I pass over too the fact that a different habit has dulled the tongue that practice had once made nimble; that silence has come to stand in place of eloquence for me; that I have learned to cherish lowliness rather than the tragic buskin [the high boot worn by actors in classical tragedy — a symbol of lofty literary ambition].
But I return to my point. Since I was not permitted to take shelter in the modest sanctuary of silence, nor to conceal the weakness of my talent beneath the garment of reticence, I shall count what I have set forth above as my complete defense. Yet goaded by affection, I have overrun the proper bounds of a letter with heedless wordiness.
Farewell, my lord. In paying you the honor of a greeting, I shall learn what you make of this letter of mine — whether from your silence or from a copious reply in kind.
XXIIII. ENNODIVS MASCATORI.
Noao me genio infncata pectoris uestri ornauit diligentia:
eliciti utor stili testimonio qui doctis supra inscitiam garrulitate
displiceo. coaotus sermo pretium, quod non habet ex
2 nihil Bb iubisse B 3 reuerentiam B ezibeas L
post ras. ut saepissime presehtium B 4 onestas LV 6 ia-
ditium LV .
XXIII. 9 benefitiorum F effectas B, effectus b 10 prumptu
B, promtu LTV ullae coni. Schottus, illa Sirm . prestandi
B .11 depreciat BLBT «onestate B 14 uos T in mg . add.
m. 2 15 peccatbre LV, pcatorie P in ras. m. 2 ab eo] habco
L 16 instructam Fb, atructam BL\'TV predieti B 17 domini
LP1FV, domine BP2b; of. Wisner Studien B pi 229 sq .
ealutandi b et Sirm; cf. Wiener Studien II g, 253 :.
XXIIII. 21 marcatori L1, Mersatori Sirm. 22 ao. quo ft
23 eliceti B insitiam T 24 precium BLTV
eloquentia, ab inpacta necessitate subripuit: nunquam fuit digna
ultione contumelia, quam iussus exhibuit: nemo oboedientem
iuste condemnat; sibi debet inlatas iniurias de eloquio rusticante
qui prouocat imperitum). supercilium est celsioribus non
parere, maius si quae noueris descendisse ab obsequente despicias.
inprobi desiderii putatur adsertio non amare quod
exigis: adstipulatur iudicio suo qui censuram de obtemperante
suspendit: male pertinax districtio est, quae meritum in parente
considerat: pudorem ab statione non expulit qui quod
loquitur debet imperio. itaque in nobis quod sordet eloquentia
commendatur obsequiis. uos uideritis quale sit quod iussistis
offerri: ego uos sine frontis meae dispendio meruisse aestimo
quod desiderastis accipere. taceo inter ista, quae principe fuerant
loco narranda, ecclesiasticam humilitatem quod placere
poterat abiurasse, orationum pompam qui orationem diligit non
secutum, propositi consideratione et illud me fugere quod ducit
ad gloriam, quasi uitium declinare quicquid attollit, culpam
putare quod erigit aut sublimat, perdere iustae laudationis
meritum fauoris affectu. excusationem ueritatis coloratam peniculo
non praetendam, dum replico, quod illud, quicquid studiorum
dederat cura liberalium, iam reliqui, quod alueo quondam
copiosi fluminis uix arentis gutta fundatur eloquii. taceo,
quod linguam, quam usus mobilem. fecerat, alter usus hebetauit,
esse pro facundia silentium, abiectionem a nobis dilligi
pro coturno. ad illud redeo; quia mihi non licuit intra uerecundum
penetrale delitescere nec debilitatem ingenii tegere
2, iosas B obedientem BLT 3 condempnat LPTV
4 imperium 2 5 discendisae B dispicias Bb, despitias LV,
despicicias T 6 putetur B 7 erigit Pb inditio LV
censuram suam T 8 destrictio PV 9 ab Btationi LT\' Y (sed ti ex
ci eorr . m. 1 V), a statione Pb, obstatione B 10 uobis T 11 obsequiis]
eloquiis T 12 inferri T estimo B 14 narrandam
F* 16 propositi∗∗∗∗ (onia fort. eras.) L 17 uicimn F
18 iute B, et iute T 20 pretendam BV 21 aI-lneo L n
eras . in avitu, add. in imtio lincue provimae m, 2 22 faniitur
fort. M hebitanit B, habitauit L 24 a* (b erus.) L 25 ad
illud ex aliud L m. 2 26 delitiscere BV \'
taciturnitatis indumento, hoc ad defensionem integram quod
praetuli conputabo. sed amore prouocatus epistulares terminos
inconsiderata loquacitate transcendi. uale, mi domine, cui honorem
exhibens salutantis probabo quid de epistula mea sentias
aut taciturnitate aut scriptione multiplici.
◆
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**From:** Ennodius, deacon of Pavia **To:** Mascator [identity uncertain; a well-placed correspondent who has pressed Ennodius to write] **Date:** ~507–513 AD **Context:** Mascator has asked Ennodius to write; Ennodius responds with an elaborate performance of mock self-deprecation — claiming his eloquence has been ruined by ascetic life and ecclesiastical humility, while demonstrating by the very length and artfulness of the letter that it remains entirely intact.
---
The diligence of your heart, charged with a new kind of inspiration, has done me honor. I make use here of the testimony of a style drawn out under pressure — I, who with my garrulousness displease the learned well beyond the measure of mere ignorance. A speech compelled by necessity steals whatever worth it possesses, since that worth does not in any case flow from eloquence itself. The affront a man displays only because he was commanded to do so was never worthy of punishment: no one justly condemns the man who obeys. Whoever provokes an untrained man must blame himself for the blows he receives from that man's rough and unpolished speech. It is arrogance not to obey one's superiors — and a greater arrogance still to despise what you know has come down from a willing hand. To refuse to love what you demand of another is taken as the mark of a corrupt and shameful desire. He who suspends all critical judgment over the one who simply complies is in effect endorsing his own assessment. That strictness is a wrongheaded severity which looks for merit in the one who merely does as he is told. He has not abandoned his post of modesty who says only what authority obliges him to say. And so with me: what is squalid in my eloquence is redeemed by my compliance. You shall see for yourself the quality of what you commanded me to offer; for my part, I reckon that you have gotten what you wished to receive — and at no cost to my honor.
I pass over in silence — though these are matters that should rightly have been placed first in any account — how ecclesiastical humility has renounced whatever might win applause; how one who loves fine speech has nonetheless not pursued the grand pomp of rhetorical display; how, out of regard for the demands of my calling, I flee even those things that lead toward glory — as if to shun as a moral failing whatever exalts me, to regard as sin whatever raises and elevates the spirit, to forfeit the deserved reward of honest praise by surrendering to the appetite for popular favor.
I will not hold up before you an excuse prettily touched up with the paintbrush of truth, while I go on to confess this: that I have already abandoned whatever the careful cultivation of the liberal arts once gave me — that my eloquence now trickles out like a barely-dripping drop from the parched bed of what was once a full and rushing river. I pass over too the fact that a different habit has dulled the tongue that practice had once made nimble; that silence has come to stand in place of eloquence for me; that I have learned to cherish lowliness rather than the tragic buskin [the high boot worn by actors in classical tragedy — a symbol of lofty literary ambition].
But I return to my point. Since I was not permitted to take shelter in the modest sanctuary of silence, nor to conceal the weakness of my talent beneath the garment of reticence, I shall count what I have set forth above as my complete defense. Yet goaded by affection, I have overrun the proper bounds of a letter with heedless wordiness.
Farewell, my lord. In paying you the honor of a greeting, I shall learn what you make of this letter of mine — whether from your silence or from a copious reply in kind.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.