Ennodius of Pavia→Avitus of Vienne|c. 510 AD|Ennodius of Pavia
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From: Ennodius, deacon in Pavia
To: Avitus [a man of high secular rank, likely in northern Italy]
Date: ~510 AD
Context: Avitus has petitioned Ennodius to serve as a public advocate for his reputation — a request Ennodius meets with mock-wounded dignity, insisting he has needed no prompting and has already been broadcasting Avitus's praises throughout Liguria long before the letter arrived.
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Your Greatness petitions me, by way of formal entreaty, to become a guarantor of your good name — and does so as though I were still fresh off the anvil of friendship, not yet hardened to my final shape, as though one who abandons the purpose of his devotion at the first convenient excuse does not thereby defraud his own character of its essential quality. Let the habit of shifting opinion about a friend be driven far from Christian conduct: one who has dedicated the service of his tongue to another's praises is not at liberty to abandon what he has begun — lest the honey of his earlier commendations be tainted by the cheapness of what comes after. Let those who will believe it the mark of a free spirit to go chasing novelty: as for me, just as I am slow to take on friends, so do I persist in them without alteration.
I can answer for myself — as often as I have raised your reputation to the level of the stars — because among those who do not know us personally, we are judged by the character of those we keep company with. I confess it openly: I have poured out the brilliance of your character in abundance, serving it in place of mere rumor and public report. Before Your Eminence had even arrived, the service of my words had already made plain throughout Liguria [the region of northwestern Italy where Ennodius held his ecclesiastical position] how great a man you are. Thanks be to God, who caused the general opinion to fall into agreement with my own judgment.
Would that the poverty of my eloquence did not keep me in humility! My prayers hold more of your merits than my tongue can give voice to in praise: lacking as I am in eloquence, I have not kept silence — through whatever occasions have presented themselves — about those things that might do honor to your glory. The light of your genius has become the vindication of my own discernment.
May God keep it far from us that weakness — the perpetual enemy of noble character — should ever find a way in through my testimony. There is no cause of fault in you, guarded against as richly as you have guarded against it, that I could call to mind; and even if any such failing had arisen — were it something I had in some measure deserved to find — it would have been lulled to sleep by the memory of your long-established virtues.
For the rest, farewell, my lord. You have attended my journey with the kindness of your prayers — now recompense the losses of my absence with the memory of your affection.
XXI. AVITO ENNODIVS.
Adstipulatorem me opinionis suae fieri magnitudo uestra ita
supplicatione postulat, quasi ad amicitias recenti adhuc sim
incude formatus aut non genio suo defrudet qui propositum
diligentiae sub quacumque occasione commutat. facessat a
Christianis moribus uaria de amante sententia: qui officium
oris sui dedicauerit laudibus liberum non habet inchoata deserere,
ne deuenustet praefati mella praeconii uilitate sequentium.
uidero qui ingenuum credat esse sectari nouitatem: ego ut tarde
amicos eligo, ita in his indemutabiliter perseuero. mihi adsum,
quotiens opinionem uestram astris aequauero, quia apud quos
ignoti sumus moribus nostris de sodalibus aestimamur. uere
fateor splendorem conscientiae uestrae famae uice copiosus
effudi: ante aduentum culminis tui obsequio sermonis mei in
Liguria quanti essetis innotuit. deo gratias, qui cum sententia
mea generalitatem fecit habere concordiam. utinam me non
humiliaret paupertas eloquii! plus habent uota de meritis tuis,
quam proferat lingua de laudibus: inops facundiae per
1 iubetur B 2 act.ū L 3 depremitur B mihi BLV
4 accipientes Pb, accipientis BLV, accipiens T plenę (ę corr.)
B, plene TV exorari L?, exoranti Pb 5 consueuistis Pb
uestri Pb (falso, navi uestris pro uestris amicis dixit) 6 liceatj exp
add. B
XXI. 9 oppinionis L fieri om. Sirm . 10 amititias L
11 defrudit B, defraudet PTb propositum snum V sed suum exp.
m. 1 12 occiUione L1 13 cristianis B 14 oris V in ras.,
moris B suis P 16 ingenium Sirm . 17 amicus B
immutabiliter PTb 20 uic.e (a eras.) L copiosus B, copiosius
L (u in raa.) PTVb 21 effundi PTb 22 essites Bl
25 inobs T
quoscumque strepitus quae gloriae tuae potuerunt conuenire non
tacui. facta est lux genii uestri conscientiae meae demonstratio.
procul auertat diuinitas, ne umquam testimonio meo fragilitas
claris moribus inimica subripiat. nulla est quam opime texuistis
in uobis erroris causa, quam recolam, et si pro meis meritis
extitisset, bonorum ueterum recordatione sopiretur. quod restat,
ualete, mi domini, et iter meum uotorum benignitate prosecuti
caritatis recordatione absentiae meae damna pensate.
◆
From:Ennodius, deacon in Pavia
To:Avitus [a man of high secular rank, likely in northern Italy]
Date:~510 AD
Context:Avitus has petitioned Ennodius to serve as a public advocate for his reputation — a request Ennodius meets with mock-wounded dignity, insisting he has needed no prompting and has already been broadcasting Avitus's praises throughout Liguria long before the letter arrived.
---
Your Greatness petitions me, by way of formal entreaty, to become a guarantor of your good name — and does so as though I were still fresh off the anvil of friendship, not yet hardened to my final shape, as though one who abandons the purpose of his devotion at the first convenient excuse does not thereby defraud his own character of its essential quality. Let the habit of shifting opinion about a friend be driven far from Christian conduct: one who has dedicated the service of his tongue to another's praises is not at liberty to abandon what he has begun — lest the honey of his earlier commendations be tainted by the cheapness of what comes after. Let those who will believe it the mark of a free spirit to go chasing novelty: as for me, just as I am slow to take on friends, so do I persist in them without alteration.
I can answer for myself — as often as I have raised your reputation to the level of the stars — because among those who do not know us personally, we are judged by the character of those we keep company with. I confess it openly: I have poured out the brilliance of your character in abundance, serving it in place of mere rumor and public report. Before Your Eminence had even arrived, the service of my words had already made plain throughout Liguria [the region of northwestern Italy where Ennodius held his ecclesiastical position] how great a man you are. Thanks be to God, who caused the general opinion to fall into agreement with my own judgment.
Would that the poverty of my eloquence did not keep me in humility! My prayers hold more of your merits than my tongue can give voice to in praise: lacking as I am in eloquence, I have not kept silence — through whatever occasions have presented themselves — about those things that might do honor to your glory. The light of your genius has become the vindication of my own discernment.
May God keep it far from us that weakness — the perpetual enemy of noble character — should ever find a way in through my testimony. There is no cause of fault in you, guarded against as richly as you have guarded against it, that I could call to mind; and even if any such failing had arisen — were it something I had in some measure deserved to find — it would have been lulled to sleep by the memory of your long-established virtues.
For the rest, farewell, my lord. You have attended my journey with the kindness of your prayers — now recompense the losses of my absence with the memory of your affection.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.