Letter 3028: ---

Ennodius to Euprepia. Although I had received your letter of affection as one that had merely complied with the customary obligations, suited neither to genuine feeling nor to our close bond, the matter nonetheless demanded that I reply to your discourse with a substitute conversation, my diligence wandering abroad through the likeness of the pen, lest the withdrawal of the service of speech should have made known to me not your cunning but should have revealed my own want of skill. I do not wish, sister Euprepia, that you should lay the blame on the misfortunes of the provinces, or, as you said, on the instigation of men. Wherever you have departed, the matter shows that you do not leave behind a mind that is too credulous: we do not flee our own vices by a change of regions. Toward your kinsfolk such was your disposition that you neither weighed their good deeds with a just interpretation nor checked their excesses with the deserved reproof. But what need is there to make a letter of grief longer? No abundance of eloquence will be able to change your temperament. For what remains, farewell, my lady, and, as is expedient, arrange the order of your life and of your soul. Yet know that I will spend myself on Lupicinus not according to what I owe to you, but according to what befits my own soul, since affection is the only thing that earns a greater recompense from God, when it is granted unprovoked by any endowments of men.

XXVIII. ENNODIUS EVPREPIAE. Quamuis caritatis uestrae paginam sollemnibus tantum accepissem muniis obsecutam nec affectui nec necessitudini congruentem, res tamen postulauit me uicariis per stili similitudinem peregrinante diligentia respondere conloquiis, ne subtracit sermonis officium non uestram innotuisse mihi astutiam, 1 perhennitate T 2 quae Bb 3 uale om. T et Sirm . XXVII. 6 cebra B 7 ezhibeo Pb 8 meo] in eo T ut uidetur 9 reteretnr (etur in ras.) B 10 snbrepere b, rabripere BTV fugientem fagientem T 11 Bi f ex sin ut uidetur m. ! ...........I.. corr. ita ras. T, si in Pb 12 alias B actenni B 13 preocnpatos T, preoccupatus B diligentiam T 15 mi domine b recte fort . 18 taxandum malim 17 nale om. Sirm. XXVIII. 20 accipisaem mnniis B, muniis accepimem PTb, mnnHs accepuaem mnniis LV 24 mihi innotnisBe Sirm . sed nostram reuelaret infantiam. nolo, soror Euprepia, quicquam 4* prouinciarum malis uel, sicut dixisti, hominum inmissione causeris. quocumque abscesseris, quantum res docet, mentem male credulam non omittis: uitia nostra regionum mutatione non fugimus. circa propinquos tibi fuit tale propositum, ut nec benefacta ipsorum insta interpretatione pensares nec excessus debita tantum reprehensione corriperes. sed quid opus est doloris epistulam fieri longiorem? ingenium uestrum nulla eloquii poterit mutare affluentia. quod restat, uale, m; domina, et prout expedit ordinem uitae tuae animaeque conpone. me tamen Lupicino noueris non quod tibi debeo, sed quod animae meae conueniat impensurum, quia sola est, quae maiorem a deo retributionem meretur, affectio, cum nullis hominum dotibus prouocata conceditur.