Letter 5022: If the proximity of blood should inspire diligence of mind, then you and I have no excuse for silence.
Ennodius to Venantius.
If the closeness of blood invites minds to diligence, then, obeying the commands of dutiful love, I am eager to have been the first to offer speech and to have opened by starting a letter the way to embracing conversation. For a long time indeed I wasted away with empty expectation; while waiting for your pages I did not send my own. But affection dug its spurs into my heart and made me the first to approach the duty of correspondence. I have the prerogative, if I judge rightly, of one who loves more — since I speak even after the prolonged cultivation of your silence, and I ought to commend by modesty what I kept quiet. Now, however, lest a letter's artful arrangement transgress its bounds and make its author less graceful, I pay the services of greeting and, if I am worthy, present myself to be reconciled to your condescension — since the sublimity of the greater is doubled by communion, and grace bestowed upon the lesser carries a torch before the most eminent.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
XXII. VENANTIO ENNODIVS.
Si proximitas sanguinis ad diligentiam mentes inuitat, pii
amoris obsecutus imperiis gestio me praeuium praestitisse sermonem
et orditum paginas amplectendis uiam reserasse conloquiis.
diu quidem cassa expectatione maceratus, dum operior
paginas non emisi, sed calcaribus suis animum meum fodit
affectio et ad tabellarum munia priorem fecit accedere. habeo
praerogatiuam, si bene conicio, plus amantis, qui et post productum
silentii uestri studium loquor, et debeo uerecundia
conmendare quod tacui. nunc tamen, ne epistularis concinnatio
transgressa terminum deuenustet auctorem, salutationis seruitia
dependo et, si mereor, dignationi uestrae conciliandus
occurro, quia potiorum sublimitas communione geminatur et
facem praefert eminentissimo gratia concessa subiectis.
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