Letter 3033: My pages serve their purpose — they carry to you the devotion that prompts them.

Ennodius to Faustus. These pages serve their stated purpose, by which recommendation is furnished to the afflicted; for in them shines the integrity of religion, which with no varnish of flattery toward the more powerful sets forth the tears of the lowly. But of this another time. When you see the bearer, you will recognize the prayer of the one who dictates. Would that he might commend the matters to be pleaded before your Greatness with the same outcome of supplication by which he obtained letters from me. The foregoing discourse introduces a poor, devout woman who counts upon a good cause: judge whether words ought to have been withheld from her frailty or from justice, whether it befits me to fail either in duty or in conduct. Behold, in rendering the reverence of a greeting, I have testified to what I owed to my own part: consider what remains to you, since, just as the petition has regarded my person on behalf of the aforesaid woman's wish, so the accomplishment will look to yours. Farewell.

XXXIII. ENNODIVS FAVSTO. Proposito obsecuntur paginae, quibus commendatio praestatur afflictis. in his enim clara est religionis integritas, quae nullo potentioribus fuco blanditae adserunt lacrimas submissorum. sed hinc alias. cum perlatorem uideritis, uotum dictantis agnoscetis. utinam illo apud magnitudinem uestram supplicationis euentu alleganda conciliet, quo a me litteras impetrauit. mulierem religiosam pauperem de bono negotio praesumentem sermo praefatus insinuat aestimate si fragilitati, si iustitiae oportuit uerba subduci, si conuenit me uel officio deesse uel moribus. ecce ego reuerentiam salutationis inpendens quid partibus meis deberem contestatus sum: uobis quid remansit adtendite, quia sicut personam meam pro supra dictae uoluntate petitio, ita uestram effectus aspiciet. uale.