Letter 5008: [Petrus has recently received a promotion at court.

VIII. ENNODIUS TO PETRUS. After the venerable justice of the sovereign [prince], when morals were in peril, granted you the seedling of honors in return for the harvest of your virtues, you sinned by your holiday from speech, cherishing irreligious silences both against your eloquence and against my love for you, because oratory, fortified by raised brows, grows up from natural endowments whenever it attends upon the indication of prosperous events. A richer fluency does service to the increase of honors: your advances mark you out before men skilled at judging by successes not unequal to them. Behold, this unlovable taciturnity has stolen the genius of speaking from you and has begrudged me the realization of joy. You may perhaps reply: you could, friend, blame me for ignorance, if rumor, published abroad by indiscriminate messengers, had suppressed for you anything concerning the height of my own standing. But I do not allow myself to learn the eminences of those dear to me by rumor, nor to gather the manifest grounds of joy from the inconstancy of common report. I knew what hope of an attachment to me the plain testimony of a learned man had once given me; I believed that in that quarter I committed my mind in vain to favorable breezes, from which you were not bidding me to be cheerful: I reckoned that that very breeze, fashioned with the oarage of a thousand wings, could have been outstripped by the feet of your writing, lest another, snatching away the fruit from you, should thrust upon a lover the goods he had been awaiting. Behold, my lord, receiving the honor of being greeted, and the causes of my sorrows now being recognized, do not refuse hastened remedies, because, as far as I presume, neither does fidelity in diligence fail you, nor does speech drawn out to the fingernail's nicety desert you in discourse. Not content, however, to displease with a single kind of speaking, I have added a poem, so that, after the banquets of the Antenorean gulf [Padua's waters]—which the baths of Aponus chastise, the law of the flesh being compressed into a narrow compass, while that which is distended by the offspring of the waters is cut away by water—I too, who have not touched the streams of Helicon, may be mingled in as a new poet. Receive, then, verses meant to provoke laughter, and, content to have recognized only your own Glouidenus [Ennodius], withdraw me from public severity, because, if there is anything that perchance may please, your verdict suffices for me; if there is anything worthy of a bite, I count it a secret, whatever you have come to know of a friend's faults. You will also grant pardon, because, my eyes oppressed with anguish, I have perhaps composed limping verses: for the footfalls of lines cannot be made firm when deprived of the service of the light. Read, then, of the warm waters, which you are about to visit. The land rises up, supported and propped upon a swelling slope, buttressed by a brow gently lifted. With no peaks does it raise a haughty head, nor, like the low valleys when pressed down, does it seek the depths. Here smoking Aponus flows on every side from its open veins, a peaceful fire pants forth, mingled with the waters. The wave preserves the hearth-fires; the flame does not swallow the liquid: the sacred spring crackles there, as though a pyre had been poured into it. Here a heady warmth supplies medicine to all, drying the bodies with its steaming dew. Here a pyre floats upon the eddies, the moisture upon sparks: life is lived by the friendship of a mutual death. Lest it perish, Vulcan is plunged among those nymphs; the peace, quarrelsome, has broken the covenants of nature.

VIII. ENNODIVS PETRO. Postquam uenerabilis iustitia principis periclitatis moribus magnitudinis tuae donauit te honorum germine pro messe uirtutum, per linguae ferias fouens inreligiosa silentia et in eloquentia tua et in meo amore peccasti, quia naturalibus adolescit elocutio munita superciliis, quotiens prosperorum 2 saltibuss B uenerabilis—sine om. Bl add. corr. in mg . 3 scemate LPTV, scematę B 4 mi om. LPTV, mea b 5 spiri- tuis B illins] illius sc ̃ι P, sci uis b ledatur B 7 epytafium B; epitaphium-l. 17 deum om. T 8 ∙a ̣̇ ∙ nil et l. 17 deum ∙ ω ∙ L qui his litteris carminum initia et exitus significare solet ne° L t 10 mixa B 11 feminae otramite B 13 uiz erunt b praetiis B 14 stimma Bl, stema L Y 15 iudicium LP cui] tua P\'bj cf. indicem de cui 16 natos] tantos B VIII. 20 iustitia scripsi, iudicia BLPTYb, iudicium Sinn., iudicii princeps uel 0 uenerabilia indicia principis coni. Schottus 24 snpercialiis T prospiorum T famulatur indicio. copiosior facundia honorum militat incrementis: profectus BUOS non inparibus significant peritorum ora successibus. ecce inamabilis taciturnitas et uobis dicendi abstulit genium et mihi laetitiae inuidit effectum. referatis forsitan: posses me, amice, de ignoratione culpare, si quid tibi de apice meo promiscuis dedicata nuntiis fama suppressit. sed ego agnoscere carorum culmina rumore non patior et manifesta gaudii colligere de opinionis inconstantia. noueram quam mihi deuinctionis spem simplex eruditi dudum fecisset allegatio: credebam frustra me in illa parte serenis animum auris committere, unde tu me esse hilarem non iubebas: illam ipsam mille alarum fabricatam remigiis scriptionis tuae aestimabam pedibus potuisse superari, ne amanti expectata bona tibi fructum praeripiens alter ingereret. ecce, mi domine, honorem salutati accipiens agnitis dolorum causis remedia properata non deneges, quia, quantum praesumo, nec fides in diligentia nec ad unguem ductus sermo uos deserit in loquela. non contentus tamen uno dicendi genere displicere carmen adieci, ut post epulas Antenorei gurgitis, quas lauacra Aponi. coacta in artum carnis lege castigant, dum illud, quod aquarum fetibus distenditur, aqua desecat, ego quoque, qui Heliconis fluenta non tetigi, poeta 12 cf. Verg. Aen. I 301 I 1 cupiosior B facondia T, faoonda L bonorum Pb 2 suos Strm., suus BLPTVb aigniacat T 4 laeticiae B 5 poMis B 6 suppressisset fort . 7 arorum L\' 8 de] dõ B 9 deuinctionis Pb, diuinctionis BLV, disiunctionis T 10 frustram B auribus T et Sirm. sine causa, cum serena auris idem ualeat ac serena quae audieram, cf. Wiener Studien II p. 236 comittere L Y 11 tu ex cu L m. ant . hilan m esse Sirm . iubeas Ll, uidebaa P 12 arum L 13 expectate Tl tibi B 8.1 14 ingerent B 15 dolorem L properata BL, praeparata Sirrn . denegis B 17 sermo B 8.1 loquella B contemptns TI 18 discendi T1 taman∗|dieci L (corr. m. ant.) ępulas B 19 git gurgitis B quas B, quos LPTVb apponi Tb 21 desiccat fort . eliconis BLPTV 9* nouus admiscear. accipe ergo risum motura poemata et Glouidenum tuum te solum agnouisse contentus, a publico rigore me subtrahe, quia, si est quod forte placeat, sententia mihi uestra sufficit, si quod morsu dignum sit, secretum puto quod de amici culpis agnoueris. dabis etiam ueniam, quia oculorum pressus angore poemata fortasse clauda conposui: non enim possunt esse uersuum solidata uestigia luminis officio destituta. lege ergo aquas calidas, quas inuises. Tollitur adclini tellus subnixa tumore, Leniter elato fulta supercilio. Verticibus nullis caput admouet illa superbum Nec similis pressis uallibus ima petit. Fumifer hic patulis Aponus fluit undique uenis, Pacificus mixtis ignis anhelat aquis. Vnda focos seruat, non sorbit flamma liquorem: Infuso crepitat fons sacer inde rogo. Ebrius hic cunctis medicinam suggerit ardor, Corpora desiccans rore uaporifero. Hic pyra gurgitibus, scintillis fluctuat umor: Viuitur alternae mortis amicitia. Ne pereat, nymphis Vulcanus mergitur illis, Foedera naturae rupit concordia pugnax.